Impact > Intentions

If you read Paul’s letters in the New Testament, you’ll notice that a lot of ink is spilled over whether or not Christians ought to eat meat that was involved in ceremonies in pagan temples. (That was a major source of meat in their society. You couldn’t just pick up a couple pounds of ground beef at Walmart, but the temples where all of these animals were slaughtered always had plenty.) Followers of Jesus weren’t sure if they ought to eat food that came from those religious rituals, so Paul addresses the topic at length in Romans and in 1 Corinthians.

You probably don’t wrestle with this question the way Paul’s audience did. I actually have been offered food that was involved in a religious ritual like that once (on a visit to a Hindu temple), but I bet that’s one more time than you have. If these passages have ever seemed odd to you, it’s probably because we just aren’t faced with the same dilemmas that the original readers were.

That doesn’t mean we can’t learn anything from these passages, though.

In fact, in these discussions that are so foreign to our experiences, Paul illustrates a critical and universal principle for Christian living.

Look at Romans. The apostle believed that these foods were, in fact, clean and permissible for Christians to eat (14:14, 20). The problem was, some believers held a different conviction and were confused and unsettled by the sight of their fellow Christians eating this meat. This led Paul to write,

“If your brother or sister is being injured by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. Do not let what you eat cause the ruin of one for whom Christ died… Let us then pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.” (14:15, 19)

Their actions weren’t wrong. Their intentions were good. Yet, Paul warned them, “you are no longer walking in love” if your behavior harms someone else’s faith.

In situations like that, many of us would probably write Paul back and say, But I wasn’t trying to cause any harm! I can’t control how someone else reacts to what I do! And that’s all true. Yet, Paul still warns them and instructs them to make a change.

Why? Why should the believers eating this meat—which is totally permissible!—why should they have to change anything?

Here’s the critical and universal principle that I hear in these verses: you need to be more concerned with the impact of your words and actions than with the intentions behind them.

In the words of Andy Stanley, “Intent is mostly irrelevant, because there’s no correlation between intention and outcome.” It’s very easy to do damage unintentionally. There’s a story about an unintended accident behind every dent in my car—but the dents are still there. The damage was still done, intentionally or not. Good intentions can still lead to negative outcomes.

And the Christians in Rome were unintentionally doing damage to their brothers’ and sisters’ faith. There were negative outcomes, despite their good intentions. So, though their actions weren’t wrong, Paul tells them to change.

Because Christians need to be more concerned with the impact of our words and actions than with the intentions behind them. 

More concerned, in other words, with our neighbors than with ourselves.

Don't Be Like Samson

There’s a famous scene in Judges chapter 16 where a prisoner who’s lost both of his eyes is standing between two pillars. 

The prisoner’s name is Samson. 

Samson calls out to the Lord, saying, “Lord God, remember me and strengthen me only this once, O God, so that with this one act of revenge I may pay back the Philistines for my two eyes.” (16:28) Then he reaches a hand out to each of those pillars, strains with all of his might, topples them, and brings down the building they supported. Three thousand Philistines died in all the destruction, as well as Samson.

Some people see this moment as Samson’s great act of deliverance for Israel from their Philistine oppressors. Yet, unlike with judges like Deborah, Gideon, and Jephthah, there’s no mention here that the land was at peace or that their enemies were subdued after Samson’s time. I don’t think of this as a great victory for Israel and the Lord. I tend to take the blind judge at his word here. Read his prayer again—this was purely an act of revenge, bloody payback for the people who gouged out his eyes.

There’s another scene, set over 1,000 years later, in Acts chapter 7, that maybe you’ve heard or read about before. A Christian man has been brought to his knees as rocks rain down on him, thrown by a frenzied mob. 

This Christian’s name is Stephen. 

And Stephen calls out to the Lord with one final prayer, too. He cries: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” (7:60) Then Stephen, like Samson, dies under a pile of stone.

Because other people exist, you probably find yourself in situations everyday where you can either respond to someone Samson-style, or with the grace of a Stephen. It may be in a fleeting spat, or it could be weeks, months, or years of conflict finally coming to a head. I think we all know that the goal is to be Stephen. But, in the heat of the moment, how are you supposed to overcome the big feelings and impulses inside that are ready to bring the building down on everyone’s heads?

I’m not so sure that Samson’s and Stephen’s last prayers were determined by the heat of the moment. I suspect that Samson’s and Stephen’s last prayers were really determined by the kinds of lives they lived up to that point.

Judges 16:28 was preceded by three chapters of self-indulgence, indifference to others, and casual violence. Samson burns down fields, beats people to death, abandons his wife, eats unclean honey, sleeps around, and does whatever else he wants. It’s no wonder he dies ruthlessly avenging himself.

Acts 7:60, on the other hand, was preceded by two chapters of feeding the hungry, caring for the overlooked, and pointing people to Jesus. Stephen’s life was centered on others, and so I’m not too surprised that his death was, as well. Who we strive to be, day-in, day-out, shapes who we’ll be in the heat of the moment. Stephen lived a life that was forming him into the kind of person who uses his last breath to pray for his murderers.

What kind of person are your routines, schedule, priorities, and lifestyle forming you into?

Do your everyday activities fuel your faith, hope, and love? Do your habits invite the Holy Spirit into your day? Do your goals treat others as more important than yourself?

Or do they reinforce attitudes and inclinations that, in the moment, can hinder your love for God and for your neighbors?

Don't just assume that you can live like Samson and turn out like Stephen. Most of following Jesus happens in the small moments and choices that make up a day. So take a closer look at those moments and choices. Be more deliberate with them. Because they'll decide what kind of person you're becoming.

You can listen to this devotional here:

His Resurrection, and Yours

Over the years, a lot of people have asked me about what eternity will be like. They want to know what their spouse, parent, or child is experiencing, now that they’re gone. They want to know if we’ll really see the people we loved in this life, if we’ll really recognize each other.

I don't know the first thing about life after death, but I do know some things about the Bible.

In some ways, scripture paints a really vivid, detailed picture of eternal life with God—golden streets, gates of pearl, jasper, emerald, amethyst! But, in other ways, the picture in the Bible is vague and incomplete. If you want to know what your relationships with others will be like after this life is over, there isn’t a lot to go on: people are no longer married (Mark 12:25); we’ll be together, and with Jesus (1 Thess 4:17); no one will need weapons anymore (Isa 2:4). Beyond that, you have to start speculating.

And not much is said about what we will be like then. In 1 Corinthians, Paul contrasts “heavenly bodies” and “earthly bodies” (15:40) before going on to say that, when Jesus comes again, “we shall be changed… this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.” (15:52-53) I think I get his point, but, again, this is pretty fuzzy on the details.

But Paul does say one other thing that, I think, unlocks this mystery for us, at least a bit. It’s in Romans 6:5. Talking about baptism, he writes: “if we have been united with him [Christ] in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

Followers of Jesus can expect a resurrection like his one day.

That’s all Paul gives us there, but that’s alright, because the gospels give us a lot more. What does a “resurrection like his” look like? Well, think about the Easter stories:

• Mary Magdalene doesn't recognize Jesus when she first meets him, but when he says her name, she knows his voice. (John 20:14-16)
• Jesus is somehow no longer impeded by locked doors. (20:26)
• But Jesus has a body that's physical enough to show Thomas the scars on his hands and his side. (20:27)
• He can have a long conversation with two disciples without them ever recognizing him, but at dinner they immediately know who he is again. (Luke 24:15-31)
• Jesus can vanish. (24:31)
• Jesus can also eat a piece of fish, which he does to prove he has "flesh and bones" and isn't a ghost. (24:38-43)

In these scenes, Jesus is different and strange, and yet he’s also the same man they’ve always known. He has a body, but it’s not quite like the bodies we have now. These descriptions don’t always mesh neatly—I guess meeting a resurrected person is a tricky thing to describe—but they still give us the fullest picture we have of the kind of life in store for God’s children. 

It will be different. So different that you may be unrecognizable at first. But that never lasts. The reunion might be a little clumsy, but the resurrection promise that Easter holds out to us is the promise of a new life with Jesus and with all of his people, together, forever. 

What we celebrate this holiday isn’t just Jesus’s empty tomb. It’s the hope of empty tombs and open graves for all of Christ’s people one day. It’s his resurrection, and yours. 

A resurrection like his.

Happy Easter! You can listen to this week's devotional right here:

Christ Also Suffered

Photo by Wyron A on Unsplash

“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.” – 1 Peter 3:18

I’m a very empathetic person. That’s probably why the promises about the new heaven and new earth in Revelation 21 are so central to how I understand the gospel. I need to know that God cares about the hurts and needs of the world. For me, that’s also why it’s so important to know that Jesus suffered in his life. God is not withdrawn and ignorant of our struggles and pain—he lived among us and endured it all himself. Jesus doesn’t only sympathize with our weaknesses, like Hebrews 4:15 says, but he also empathizes with our suffering.

Recently I listened to the audiobook of Joni Eareckson Tada’s memoir, Joni. If you aren’t familiar with her story, Joni had a diving accident when she was 17-years-old that left her paralyzed from the shoulders down. The memoir chronicles the early years of her life after the accident: the emotional and medical rollercoaster, her struggles with faith, the fame brought on by her artwork. Joni has experienced tremendous suffering—pain, loneliness, disappointment, doubt, depression—and yet, she’s managed to find a calling and make an impact in the world in the midst of all that suffering.

As I listened to some of the descriptions of her experiences and struggles early in the book, I found myself thinking, This is so awful—what Jesus went through could never compare to this. He was on the cross for 6 hours, but she’s enduring this every waking moment, for years! How could God ever understand the suffering of someone like her?

But then, I came to this passage, which has helped me understand the cross in a new way. Reflecting on Psalm 41:3, “The Lord will sustain him upon his sickbed,” Joni writes,

I discovered that the Lord Jesus Christ could indeed empathize with my situation. On the cross for those agonizing, horrible hours, waiting for death, He was immobilized, helpless, paralyzed.

Jesus did know what it was like not to be able to move—not to be able to scratch your nose, shift your weight, wipe your eyes. He was paralyzed on the cross. He could not move His arms or legs. Christ knew exactly how I felt!

I still don’t think Jesus’s experience is anything like a lifetime of paralysis, but I had thought Christ could never understand someone like Joni’s experiences – yet, she didn’t see it that way at all. Jesus may not have endured the length of suffering that many do, but, on the cross, he did endure dimensions of helplessness and indignity that a quadriplegic would know all too well. I never would’ve recognized that myself. It took someone like Joni to show me.

This Friday, I hope you find a way to remember and commemorate Jesus’s suffering and dying “to bring you to God.” And I hope that all of us take time to more fully appreciate just what all Christ endured for us.

“This is love: it is not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as the sacrifice that deals with our sins.” (1 John 4:10)

You can listen to this week's devotional here:

Keep Them within Your Heart

“My child, be attentive to my words;
    incline your ear to my sayings.
Do not let them escape from your sight;
    keep them within your heart.” – Proverbs 4:20-21

In Proverbs chapter 4, a father is passing on the advice that his father gave him, and one of the things he's concerned about is what his child’s heart is holding onto (4:4), what they’re keeping within their heart. (As a parent, this sure resonates with me! I worry all the time about what I’m teaching my girls to keep in their hearts, whether it’s habits, feelings, or priorities.) The speaker’s hope—like his father’s before him—is that his child’s heart will absorb and hold fast to words of wisdom, insight, and instruction. In other words, the kinds of words packed into every line in Proverbs.

There are a few proverbs that you may know by heart. “Pride goes before a fall” comes from Proverbs 16:18. “Spare the rod, spoil the child” (whatever you think about that) is based on Proverbs 13:24. For the most part, though, I imagine that most of the book’s wisdom hasn’t quite reached the heart-level yet for a lot of us.

What has? What sorts of things do you know by heart?

The Pledge of Allegiance. The alphabet. The Kit Kat bar song. The Lord’s Prayer.

How did these things get embedded so deeply in your heart and your memory? Sometimes rhythms and tunes play a role, but anything that you absorb on the heart-level also involves repetition. It takes regular, sustained exposure for something to take root down in the deepest parts of you.

Here’s what I want us to think about today: What things am I regularly exposing my heart to? What am I ‘keeping within my heart’ in my usual routines and pastimes?

Have you been filling up each day on the talking points that your favorite political pundits like to repeat?

Do you pack your free moments with a steady diet of sports news and clips?

Are you slowly, steadily memorizing every line from nine seasons of Seinfeld? (Not that there’s anything wrong with that!)

Are you intentionally spending time studying, absorbing, and holding on to words from scripture? Can you say, like the psalmist, “I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you”? (119:11)

You can’t keep something in your heart if you never put it there. And, whether you like them or not, some of the things you keep giving your time and attention to will absolutely take up residence in your heart.

So be deliberate with your heart today. Give it what it needs. Fill it with the things that you hope will shape the person you’re becoming. And pay attention to the other things you may be stuffing it with—the things that won’t help you love God and love your neighbors, won’t cultivate the fruit of the Spirit in your life, and won’t make you look more like Jesus. What kind of change do you need to make?

Take note of how you spend your time. Consider what you regularly consume. Be deliberate with your heart today.

You can listen to this week's devotional right here:

Size and Worth

Photo by Manuel Will on Unsplash

One of the foundations of prayer is the idea that God listens to each of us and cares about each of us. If God weren’t listening, or if God didn’t care, why would we pray? We take that for granted every time we turn to God with our worries, our gratitude, or our questions.

And yet, a lot of people struggle with the idea that God pays attention and cares so much about each one of us. Many faithful Christians, even, find themselves asking the same question the psalmist asked:

When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers—

the moon and the stars you set in place—

what are mere mortals that you should think about them,

human beings that you should care for them? (Psalm 8:3-4)

Yes, Jesus said that your heavenly Father cares about you so much that he knows how many hairs are on your head. (Matthew 10:29-31) But when you consider how big the universe is and how insignificant we seem in the grand scheme of things, some of us still wonder. And the psalmist couldn’t have realized just how far the night sky stretches. I read the other day that, if you shrank the Earth’s entire path around the sun down to the size of a ring on a girl’s finger, then the next closest star to us would be twenty miles away. I don’t think we can really comprehend just how vast the universe is. The poet Alfred Lord Tennyson once wrote, thinking about all of our griefs, losses, and struggles, “What is it all but a trouble of ants in the gleam of a million million of suns?” It’s not difficult to understand where he was coming from.

But do scope and scale really tell us about God’s concerns and God’s heart?

I love what Harry Emerson Fosdick wrote about all of this in The Meaning of Prayer:

But surely, we ourselves are not accustomed to judge comparative value by size. As children we may have chosen a penny rather than a dime because the penny was larger; but as maturity arrives, that basis of choice is outgrown…A mother’s love for her baby is not a matter of pounds and ounces. When one believes in God at all, the consequence is plain. God must have at least our spiritual insight to perceive the difference between size and worth.

Your size doesn’t determine your worth. The universe is unimaginably vast, and we, in comparison, are miniscule, short-lived things. But, just like we delight in the flash of a lightning bug or the touch of a kiss, God delights in things that are small and fleeting—like you and me. The Lord values us, the dust of the earth, like we value the tiniest pieces of diamond dug out of the ground.

That’s why, in another psalm, the writer can ask, “Does he who fashioned the ear not hear? Does he who formed the eye not see?” (94:9) And he knows the answer. He assumes we know the answer.

Yes, he hears me.

Yes, he sees me.

Yes, he loves me.

So we can pray, affirming all kinds of things at once.

I am small.

I am brief.

I am valuable.

I am his delight.

You can listen to this week's devotional here:

Without Ceasing

Photo by Alex Shute on Unsplash

"Pray without ceasing." - 1 Thessalonians 5:17

Over the years, I’ve heard a lot of people wrestle with that seemingly simple command.

How am I supposed to do that?

Does he mean literally non-stop?

What kind of prayer is that? You can’t spend the whole day kneeling with your eyes shut…

I’ve tried to, but I just get so distracted!

A few people have shared about their success and the kind of ongoing conversation they have with the Lord throughout the day. Most people, though, try, fail, get discouraged, and decide “praying without ceasing” is unrealistic, impractical, and out of reach.

One morning recently, I dropped Noah off at daycare, and two things happened the instant I stepped out of the building. They happened so unintentionally and so quickly that I might have missed them, but for whatever reason I noticed. First, the fingers on my right hand twitched, preparing to stretch out to grab something. Then, in the same split-second, they froze and relaxed again, as my body alerted my brain: The thing you’re reaching for isn’t there. Your phone isn’t in your back pocket.

I knew that I pulled my phone out sometimes after I dropped her off. I didn’t know, until that moment, just how reflexively and involuntarily I do it. I was acting on pure auto-pilot. My body knew just what to do. I’ve trained it well, and now that’s become a deeply ingrained part of my daily life.

That morning, when I noticed just how attuned my body was to my iPhone—without any conscious thought involved at all!—I realized that we know how to pray “without ceasing.” We know what that looks like, and we’re capable of it. We do it all the time. We bow our heads to our screens and give our attention and engagement to distractions, entertainment, and shopping without ceasing. We’ve trained our hands to reach for the phone at the first opportunity. Our bodies are keeping track of the thing, alerting us when its out of reach. It is a constant in our lives.

What would it take to make prayer as constant, as deeply ingrained a part of your daily life? How can you train yourself to pray reflexively, at the first opportunity? Maybe you won't suddenly be praying without ceasing, but you might start praying more often.

That’s my hope with a lot of my prayer habits, that they would train me to pray more. That’s the reason for the alarms on my phone telling me to stop and pray, the purple wristband I’m wearing in Lent reminding me to “invite the Spirit,” for stretching out my handwashing with the Lord’s Prayer. (I know that one’s doing something, because now I’ll catch myself praying it when I brush my teeth. I’m like Pavlov’s dogs, drooling every time the bell rings, only I start muttering “Our Father…” every time I hear a sink running.)

Training your body to reach for the phone (and your fingers to unlock it and open an app) takes time and repetition. Training yourself to pray more is no different. It will take a little while for you to get into a new rhythm. And forming new habits always takes intentionality and effort on the front end. Praying “without ceasing” will be that way, too. It won’t happen by accident, and it will take some doing to get this plane off the ground.

But what can you start doing today, to begin training your heart and your mind and begin inserting a new time of prayer, a new way of connecting with God, into your life?

Listen to this week's devotional right here: