How To Be A Good Person

Man, that is about the boldest title I have ever come up with for anything I have ever written. Anyone who knows me well, realizes how bold that was. That's alright. I'm keeping the title anyway. It's difficult for me to imagine that I could be a reference point for a topic like this. But, my confidence is not in myself which, hopefully, will make more sense by the end of this article.

Are you a good person? It's a good question. Being a Christian, that question has an entirely different depth to it than it being asked by someone with another worldview. And, to dispell popular myths, the idea of Christian goodness is not reduced to avoiding beer, women and saying 'sh#%'. I know that sometimes that seems to be the long and short of it...coming from us alot of the time. But to embrace that as the biblical concept of goodness is to avoid what the Bible says. The Bible goes far deeper than simple list of things to avoid or things to do. It deals with our hearts...our very center. And the Bible is far more useful than Snopes.com when it comes to these things. Trust me with that.

I believe that Jesus Christ was not just savior, Lord and redeemer. He is also the smarted man that ever lived. If He had something to say on this matter, which He did, then it would seem logical to listen to His words, read about His actions and try to figure out His entire demeanor and perspective on everything. Anyone could agree with me on that point. The powerful part of my proposition is that by doing this....following Christ....there is a supernatural aspect for those who also place their confidence in Him as Lord and Savior, that will not happen to the average person pursuing His teachings for only the value and virtue of the teachings alone.

Jesus replied to them, “My teaching is not mine but comes from the one who sent me. If anyone wants to do his will, he will know whether this teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own.
John 7:16-17

The biblical concept of 'soul' is sort of a synonym for life. Our soul is our life. And our life/soul is comprised of a will, mind, body and social context. All work together to make our life/soul. Our will is the decision center of our being. I use spirit and will interchangeably. Our mind is what contains thoughts, emotions and desires. Our body is what acts within the physical world. Our social context is our interaction with other lives that provide our relation and purpose in life. Without any of these things, we have no life. If any of those components are neglected or harmed, our life is harmed or even destroyed.

Everyone's spirit or will has been formed. The only difference is whether or not its formation is malformed or transformed. Our spirit can be either formed by the world we live or by God. There is no other option. And because everyone's will is formed according to the world around us, everyone requires spiritual transformation. No one, outside of Jesus Christ, naturally has a will in line with the Kingdom of God.

What does a life conformed to this world look like? Outside of obvious things, like violence, perversions, etc....take a look at the subtleties....like pride, anger, jeoulosy, lustful desires, greed. Consider someone who's been insulted and how that insult is handled. A soul transformed to this world will withdraw and probably attack the one who insults. That same soul, depending on its sensitivity, could withdraw from everyone in general or learn to take advantage of everyone in general. Sound familiar? How about someone else getting the promotion or recognition you deserved? What is your natural reaction? Is it true gratitude or resentfulness? See what I mean? I should have hit everyone by now.

A life conformed to God looks just like Jesus. Look no further than Him.

Once more, in order to align ourselves with His Kingdom, we must entrust our very lives to Jesus Christ and intentionally follow Him. According to Jesus' own words, His teachings are self-validating and vindicate His claims of beiing Lord, God and Messiah. If there is another option (and there are many), then either He lied or else these options are counterfeit.

Because our will is influenced by the world around us and because the world around us can be impacted by our decisions, there is an interaction between our spirit and our world, that work together for good or evil.

There are two ways to try to be a good person....work at it or entrust yourself to Someone who will help you become a good person. Listen to Paul's words in Romans 9:

What can we say, then? Gentiles, who were not pursuing righteousness, have attained righteousness, a righteousness that comes through faith.But Israel, who did pursue the righteousness that is based on the law, did not arrive at that law. Why not? Because they did not pursue it on the basis of faith, but as if it were based on works.
Romans 9:30-32

Here is one of many stark contrasts in Scripture between the two options. Works or faith? By works, Paul refers to the externalities and appearances. It goes far with other people, but has no value with God. The Jews observed all the feasts, festivals, holy days, rules and regulations....but their approach to righteousness (as well as all us, naturally) was to work hard at it. But success was not true righteousness but great acting. That sort of righteousness, according to Paul, was who could do a better job at disquising thier mess. Meanwhile, the gentile believers , who were alot more ignorant about Scripture or even serious religious dedication (considered religious peons), had obtained righteousness through confidence in Christ. Many Christians consider this text to mean that this righteousness was 'imputed' to them through their faith in Christ. I agree. But that is not all of it entirely. It also means this:

Place your trust in Christ and not only will you no longer be condemned by the law of God, but you will be given the freedom to cooperate with Him, knowing He will help you get better, without fear of what failure could bring during the process.

Either trust in your efforts at great acting and cover up a malformed soul, or place your confidence entirely in Him, uncover all the mess with a confidence that the mess no longer has the power to condemn and confidence that by cooperating with Him, you will be transformed into a person you never could become on your own.

Jesus' parable about the prodigal son raises this issue too. Remember the story? A rich man had two sons. One of the sons wanted his father to give him his inheritence before he died, so that he could run off and live like hell, which he did. The other son stayed behind and helped out his father. The son nearly destroys himself with wine, women and whatever else...decides he had it better at home and returns to see if he can simply be a servant, rather than an heir.

The father in the story runs up to him and embraces him as soon as the son makes it within view. There is a huge party on his behalf....fatted cow is butchered for good steaks and lots of celebration.

The other son is extremely indignant.

He approaches his father and in his anger, lets him know how he feels about treating the prodigal son with such gratitude when he never left his father's side the entire time.

The father tells him that he should be happy his brother returned, rather than worrying about what everybody deserves. It was never about how good either son was...as evidenced by both the one son's depravity and the other son's pride. It was about coming home to the father.

One thought his righteousness was based on his track record (appearances only). The other had righteousness through returning to his father and placing his entire life in his hands (humiliating but thoroughly transforming).

The externally righteous will always feel indignant towards those who obtain righteousness by faith. Consider Paul's words in Galatians:

So you, brothers, are children of the promise, like Isaac. But just as then the son who was conceived according to the flesh persecuted the son who was conceived according to the Spirit, so it is now."
Galatians 4:28-29.

The flesh is synonymous in the Greek with our natural inclinations, which is a works-based righteousness in conformance with the world, which is no righteousness at all. And this counterfeit righteousness is not only at enmity with righteousness through confidence in Christ. This sort of 'righteousness' provides alot of outward persecution against the 'children of promise', who are those whose righeousness is in Christ and through Christ by intentionally learning from Him.

The pressures of this world will hammer on your will, mind, body and social context until you look just like this world. And this world is also a very outwardly religious world. Just watch the Daily Show and see how morally outraged Jon Stewart can get or watch The View and hear all sorts of moral proclamations around a table. How about reactions in politics? The world is full of very outwardly morally motivated people. Problem is, outside of spiritual transformation through an apprenticeship in Jesus Christ, we are simply spraying Lemon-Fresh Joy on a pile of fresh dog poo.

Sorry for the analogy...but I don't know how else to communicate the facts of the matter. Maybe Isaiah says it better (not much better). "All of our righteous deeds are as filthy rags (used toilet paper in Hebrew)."

True spiritual transformation requires a clear vision of what we need, real intention to take steps in that direction, and the motivation to do it. God's grace supplies all three of these things. What we can do in this process is study Jesus and contemplate on it. We can spend time without any noise or diversions focusing on Him through study and prayer/meditation. We can also try to purposefully not have our way in things, whether that is food, drink or simply having the last word. It teaches us that we don't have to have our way. These things help us to learn how to recognize where He is working, when He is speaking and how to discern things better. Lastly, by placing confidence in Him, we can expect (confidence/belief/faith) that He will be doing things from the inside out to make us into something that resembles Jesus....an authentically good person.

But because of our condition and formation, it will probably be somewhat painful, humiliating and scary at times. There will be voices that try to make that pain, humiliation and fear magnified so that we quit. But be keeping in mind wonderful words such as "Great is He who is in you than he who is in the world", as well as others help us keep those voices at bay...and they will be many and often.

This is not a good world. That's pretty uncontroversial. And outside of what He teaches for our good, we resemble our world, whether we like it or not. That is controversial. Always has been. And until everything comes into conformity with His intentions, always will.

But His way brings forth His Kingdom into this realm like a little yeast in a large lump of dough. Heaven doesn't have to only be something we go to when we die. Heaven is also something we can have now and extend here, but only through faith. Likewise, hell is not only a place reserved for those who prefer it after death. It is also here and now too.

The closest places in our lives can be heaven or hell. We can choose self-protection, engage in attacks and withdrawals to and from others and by doing so, extend hell, rather than heaven. Or we can pick up our cross and follow Him, relax that our own lives are in good hands, enough to be able to serve others without fear or hesitation...thereby extending heaven here and now. Your confidence is in Him, not in your own efforts. And your confidence in getting better doesn't depend on your successes, but your confidence in Him finishing a work He started in you.

And as the song goes....'the world, will be a better place for you and me. You just wait and see.' (John 7:16-17)

Renovating the Heart & Our Surroundings - Heaven on Earth

Search For Alternatives to Authentic Contentment
From the time of Constantine, 300 years into church history, up to the 30 Year's War, the church had control and constantly abused Christianity through cruelty and non-compassion equating Church positions to God's will out of neurotic need to control everyone and everything. Instead of listening to Jeremiah's cry that the human heart is desparately wicked and deceitful, whether ordained or lay person, we decided to look under other rocks for answers, considering Christianity itself, rather than the unrenovated human heart, as unacceptable and the source of discontent. The frantic search for an adequate alternative on a cultural level began. The Scottish philosopher David Hume and German Immanuel Kant provided the revolution that changed thinking so that everything else would follow....and it did. But instead of improving our lot, Europe produced Napolean, the Terror and endless revolutions that reflected more blood and chaos than the religious wars just 200 years earlier.

In the United States, the highest bastions of our culture rejected a Christian consensus around the late 1800's. The roots of our rejection of Christianity as a culture goes farther back...into the 18th century. Princeston, for example, once a bastion of Christian education, at one time led by Jonathon Edwards, had turned away from biblical Christianity in favor of Kantian-Hegelian revolution in Europe and embraced the dichotomy between sacred and secular, then emphasized the latter, holding to a strict empericism, at the expense of the former. Before long, universities all over the United States, which started as religious organizations, became secular. Theology moved from being the Queen of Sciences, to a discipline of study under the Department of Humanities. Like good city planners designing sewage systems clearly know, things tend to flow downstream and our culture is no exception. By the early 20th century, philosophy had embraced logical positivism and reduced reality to language and science, with science being a specialized language of study. A young Ludwig Wittgenstein, brilliant thinker, had published his Tractictus and started a movement that would eventually be rejected in philosophical circles, even though still embraced by modern science in terms of cosmology, biology and chemistry.

The Armory Art Exhibit of 1913 began to prepare the hoi poloi in the United States for the impact of Kantian-Hegelian revolution in artistic expression. Da Da, Duchamp and others had introduced modern art to America. I am not being critical of the art and actually am intrigued by much of it. Regardless, Duchamp's ready-mades almost feel like visual representations Wittgenstien's Tractictus displayed before me. Jackson Pollock's random art is interesting but is based on his rejection of any rhyme or reason, preferring pure randomness over design. Music began to embrace it too. The music of John Cage in the early 20th century reminds me of alot of Brian Eno's music in the 1980's. Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus were key in bridging philosophy with arts, through literature. Their existentialism is the authority and basis for almost all of Hollywood's movies. If you want to know where Robert Zemekis was going when he ended Castaway with Tom Hanks standing in the middle of an intersection somewhere in rural Texas, or the conversation between mother and son at the end of Pleasantville, read Sartre's Being and Nothingness or Camus' The Stranger. Rock and Roll was born out of existentialism, and now uses the the absolute teaching of an untethered free will of choice to tether us to more than chains. Art appeals to our pain and our sentimentality. Its lyrics and music finds resonance with our own personal experience and without any authority in our lives outside of our own will, we end up worshipping that feeling and fuelling the entire process. Our children learn from us that our decisions are based on our feelings and the reasons for our decisions. Art, in many respects, reinforces this message. Not always, but the undercurrent of much art, regardless of its manifestation, comes from this energy.

But most folks are too busy surviving and raising families during this time and still have a Christian understanding of reality in the 1930's and 1940's to even know much about Da Da, analytical philosophy or reductionism. However, the next step down is politics. When the same thinking moves into politics, everyone registered to vote is fair game. FDR provided the face and voice of comfort for a desparate nation. Even though all of his efforts failed to provide recovery for us, the timing of a second world war and the end of a downward economic cycle started by speculation of the 1920's, had all of us looking for a new Savior and new Church to pick us back up and get us going again. That new savior was the President and the that new Church was the federal government. By the 1970's, political movements for just about any area of life sprang up, all vying to contribute as ministries to the new church. The idea of government replacing more traditional institutions began to grow. The government was now our school master. The government was now our social engineer. The greed for money was the fuel that helped this idea take off. I still believe the reason liberalism triumphed last November is because a large portion of American voters are too young to remember the malaise and hopelessness of the 1970's. But even on the conservative side, the answer is still government, just less government. The only advantage conservatives have politically is that it's more economically atuned than the old liberal model that we have embraced of recent. But despite that advantage, it is still looking for another Reagan and reflecting the deeper problem in our culture.

The last stage is sports and reality entertainment. With the advent of cable television, satellite, computer gaming and other technological advances, we have now added another absorption into another venue. The university chapel has been replaced by the grid iron. Self-improvement has been replaced with an XBOX high score. And news has become gossip with interests more in American Idol or Brittany Spears than with human slave trade around the world, abuse within orphanages in eastern Europe or mercy killings in the Middle East. The latter topics seem to big and dark for us to handle, so we ignore them for distractions.

And the biggest argument against Christianity has unwittingly turned out to be Christians. Take away the religious talk, religious activities, we look just no different than the rest of the world, much of the time...myself included. We consent to certain truths and then pretend that we live them out when in fact, we are only trying to manage them with others. Even the SBC, of which I belong, decided to fight for biblical inerrency in the denomination, which is a good thing, ended up with victors strutting and preening in pridefulness and self-righteousness....not knowing how to do ministry unless there was a controversy to get embroiled. But that is the good side of evangelicalism in America. Much of the other denominations went the way of the do do bird and became not much more than political organizations, accepting a godliness but denying it's power, as Paul stated long ago. Today, we either get a political stump speech from the pulpit or a ministry on the right that is solely defined by its differences with other ministries.

By the way, I represent much of these characterizations. So don't consider this one more self-righteous diatribe against the decay of Western Civilization. I find it much easier to bury myself into work than to work on my relationships with family and friends. I would rather lose myself in a Coldplay album or Cohen Brother's movie than deal with my inner-demons. I find it easier to condemn than to forgive. But I recognize all my failures and frailties in those around me too and because I am a nerd, I happen to know how we all got here. And art, sports and politics are not bad things. I am more artistically inclined, than mathematically inclined (even though not very talented in either area) and enjoy these things. I am not suggesting these things are bad, but our search for some sort of ease of a deep discontent ends up with us taking a thing or concept that is good in and of itself, and making it into a shiny golden calf.

Renovating the Heart Through Intentional Apprenticeship in Jesus

We live from our heart. Whether we admit it or not, that is our center. That is where our discontent, satisfaction, aspirations and fears come from. Because science now rejects any non-physical entities, we are 'educated' in believing we have no spirit or soul. We are merely DNA and as Richard Dawkins has written, DNA doesn't care, it just is. But teaching that doesn't make it so, and our souls began to search in vane for anything to help ease our discontent with life, in the wake of bankrupt alternatives. Even if we reject Jesus as our Lord and Savior, our souls require us to pour our existence into something until it becomes our identity. And because we are told to deny the soul's existence, we are left to reaching into non-rational, fringe outlets to find some sort of answers...whether it is infatuation with ghost trackers, human potential, or even politics, art and sports, whatever we decide to love, we pour everything we are into it and become it. Our spirits are formed one way or the other.

Romans 12:1 talks of transforming our minds through the renovation of our hearts....to no longer be conformed to the structure of our age. What does he mean by that? How do you do such a thing? I was not a very consistent non-believer and after coming to Christ in 1996, have seemed to find more emphasis on my inconsistencies and failures now, than the improvements. As a result, any talk of spiritual formation, disciplines, etc., made me wince as a Christian. If the Gospel was not about the A+ I have been given in Christ, despite my actual performance on the exam, then I am doomed. But through trying to wrestle with grace, biblical texts and teachings of others even when I balked or discounted it out of a fear of legalism, I think I am finally beginning to see endless possibilities with me by being His apprentice, and therefore endless possibilites for our culture as a whole, through clear biblical teachings.

I have a bench press and weights in my garage. I realized after my initial attempts at getting healthy back a few years ago, that I couldn't walk in to a gym after 15 years and bench 200 lbs. In fact, even though it was light, I had to begin with an empty bar, then add more, then add more, then add more. I had to work at it and I had to be intentional about it. Likewise, I am a consultant, but I wasn't born one. I didn't simply go out after graduation and became a resource for issues within the industry in which I work. I had to work at it...practice, read, step out...and sometimes fail at it. These examples reflect a larger reality regarding my spirit or heart. My circumstances and choices have determined my soul. And that has not ended up a good thing. But I represent the entire human race. We are all spiritually formed people. But just as sewage goes downhill, natural human abilities do not automatically migrate towards the good. Two ways of seeing human nature is to say that humans are basically good people, at heart, as Anne Frank wrote before her execution. But if we are naturally good, how come we have created thousands of institutions to protect us from one another? If we are good, why have laws, signed and notarized contracts or even mundane things like ticket stubs? We migrate naturally towards the bad and have to work to be good. The other way of seeing human nature is to take the scientific naturalism approach or postmodern approach and say there is no such thing as a human nature. But if that is true, then why live and act as if there is a nature to us and one that needs to be either fostered, guarded, encouraged or discouraged? It's an important question with regards to character.

Speaking of character...it is not walking through 12 feet of mud to fight off the bad guys and save the village. Character is what you do without thinking. It's what flows from your center without managing it at all, just as determining what a glass is filled with when you bump into it, our hearts reveal our character. And our character, without Jesus Christ, is either explicitly self-oriented or implicitely self-oriented....we either admit to our living for ourselves or we pretend to be selfless when we are not, and that usually is telling by the same person's flight towards self-righteousness and condemnation. This is the heart of Jesus' teaching...'from out of the heart, the mouth speaks..." When pressure is applied, what kind of person am I? What sort of character do I have when the heat gets turned up? Do I resemble Christ? And if I don't (and many times I do not), this brings up a scary proposition...are my choices becoming explicitly evil or faking goodness? If so, what hope do I have?

Without Jesus, none. That's why He is the way, truth and life. Only through accepting His atoning sacrifice can I have the grace for forgiveness of all my mess, past, present and future. But only through taking His yoke, intentionally learning from Him and becoming an apprentice of Jesus Christ, can I move forward with where I am with my mind, soul and body, and step forward in His power and grace, knowing that failure is a part of the process. I can intentionally follow Him, learn from Him and intentionally try to think, speak and act the way He would if He were me and not worry about falling down. That is the only way I can truly get better without faking it or simply abandoning the project. Grace is more than what provides unconditional acceptance no matter what you have done. Grace is also the resource He gives in His power to actually change you from the inside out. How?

What Spiritual Transformation Is Not And Is...

Well, I have learned the hard way that Jesus' yoke is not trying to pull myself up with my own bootstraps. One pastor was quoted as saying that sometimes you deny yourself food to teach your body that it is not in control. That's not going to work, regardless of all its bravado, because the reference of power is the pastor saying it. No. I can't do that. No one can, without falling into the self-deception of faking it all. The things I can do are simple...pray....constantly. Seeking His face in every moment of my life...reading His word and asking Him to change my mind on everything we disagree...and denying myself of things my body or mind desires...whether it is food or having the last word...these things I can do. What happens next is the part that isn't me. What happens next is that His Spirit, cooperating with mine, changes me...changes my character, bit by bit, so that I actually form a character that is more like Him. Sometimes that is done through intentional means like the ones I mentioned. Sometimes it is through soveriengly orchestrated events and circumstances used to bring up things way down deep that otherwise would not be dealt with. And sometimes the process is no fun. But I will tell you this...nothing beats the comfort of knowing He is at work in me, even when everything else around me is blowing apart at the seams.

When focusing on the invisible activities going on deep within my heart, I begin to see more of what He is doing around me. And instead of a gloom and doom, I begin to get excited about the possibilities. He replaces even my composure with joy, even in the midst of alot of what appears to be chaos. I can see His possibilities instead of only focusing on our impossibilities. This is His Kingdom. And the exciting part is that since the first century, the revolution has begun, mercifully involves me and you, and will end up where everything will be under His dominion. Every glimpse of joy, excitement and contentment I may have brushed up against 25 years ago or even last week, is nothing more than a clue to an eternal existence with a joy and contentment that goes beyond explanation.

And what happens next is that we become agents of change. Forget Obama. Christ's followers are the true agents of change and always have been. The church's abuses exist, but usually at the expense of hiding all the incredible transformations our world has experienced having Christ and His Bride within our midst. Our nation will find no hope in Obama. He has no idea what he is doing. Our nation will find no hope in a republican presidential candidate in 2012. Our only hope is a society of people, changed one person at a time, until our numbers are great enough to create a nation where, as the prophet Amos stated, 'justice roles down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.' Corrupted souls...those that have not placed confidence in the Son and intentionally took up apprenticeship, will stand in the way of that stream and those who have engaged in the project of spiritual transformation will stand in the way of the sewage that naturally flows downstream of the untransformed human heart...and will either fight it or die trying. And, contrary to the perception I have had of the church, and sometimes even promoted by the church, being a follower of Christ is not a lifeless, colorless, boring and stale existence. It is full of drama, excitement and anticipation of what happens next.

A Real Stimulus Package For Our Times

Maybe then, we can search ourselves and truly find the reasons for our economic stress, rather than ignorantly transferring blame on Bush or Congress. We will finally admit that we acted foolishly over the past 20 years, lived beyond our means in order to fill a hole that wouldn't be filled, and we have ended up leverageing our great-great-great grandchildren in order to try to sustain a feeling we experienced in a song, or a trip to the beach with friends. Rather than expecting an instantaneous change or faking our success, we will actively engage on seeking His wisdom and grace to begin the project of changing our character. Just like we can't naturally walk out onto a clay court and beat Andre Aggassi, we can't naturally walk out and expect good character or believe our genes inherently contain our good character or that our characters will automatically become like that of all our religious friends (sometimes not a good idea in the first place)....in fact, it will reveal our intentional self-deception of trying to save our lives only to lose them, rather than laying them down to Him, in order to discover it in full.

I have not made it to the mountaintop. In fact, I am still in the muck. But I know now...the good news is that we can try, fail and try again and not get discouraged because our focus is not so much on the results as it is on Him and He is in the result business...not us. Our hurts, despair and restless desires to fill our lives with some alternative, when what we really need is Him, all will fade when we want Him, ask for His help and then hear the soft sound of sandled feet bring us to Him and as He embraces us, we might shed tears, but His love and grace will change us and life will never be the same. Politics, sports, philosophy and art cannot do this. Neither can our works and righteous deeds (Isaiah told us God considers our righteous deeds as used toilet paper, in the Hebrew). He offers life and life to the fullest....not just a home in heaven, but heaven here, in the midst of a broken world so that instead of managing all our relationships with others out of a realization of being damaged goods...we get excited about how He will use us as agents of change to watch this broken world conform more and more to His Kingdom. I can bank on this. You can bank on this. This is real confidence. Drop all the expectations, results and control issues at His feet and begin a new, full life in His rest and comfort. You'll not only see our lives change, but is probably the only economic policy that exists to get us out of the circumstances we brought on ourselves in our restless efforts to fill a bottomless pit. He is calling you right now. What are you waiting for?