My Neighbor's Glory

As Iron Sharpens Iron...

I have been so blessed to have certain people in my life be completely honest with me. The Lord reveals wisdom in the inmost places (psalm 51) and for me, He is gracious enough to use the words of people in my life - whether they are people I've known forever, people I will know forever, or people I'll never see again. The truths I've been told are what penetrate the heart, they've peeled away the layers, exposed the charms of this world that wrap tightly around our hands and tongues. The words that I've been told have cut deeply, and sometimes tears of frustration come flowing out. I've been shocked before by the weight of sin, I've been shocked at my ugliness shown in the light. I've been defensive and utterly repulsed by accusations that later smoothed into beautiful grace and redemption. Oh. Has. My. Pride. Been. Broken. Over. And. Over. Again.

And it's times like these that I cannot believe how loved I am. By an invincible love - and a perfect love that is spilled out into His adopted children by the blood of Christ! Just when this life begins to break, we are reminded that the power, authority, and love of Christ is hidden in all who believe through the Spirit. There is hope in Christ, and we see a small sliver of that love and a small reflection of who God is in one another...
"And while God does not ask any of us to bring Christ into the world as literally as did Mary, God calls each of us to become a God bearer through whom God may enter the world again and again."
- The Godbearing Life

The friends that have told me the hard truths have been those that genuinely care about my spiritual growth. A friend once told me, "it's the painful growing that gets us there." Whether it was phone calls late into the night, stubborn resistance to God's sovereignty, notes when I wake that urge me to have confidence and not fear, or just tears and surrendering to shame - I have felt the cool, sharp reality that says, "it's not about you." These friends have taught me to have reverence in a Gracious God, and that His passion is for the zeal of His name, His glory. My friends have pointed me to the gospel, and they cared enough to press me down with the truth. These believers were firm in living out these realities of Christ and stood by their words beautifully, even if they sounded harsh to everyone else.

I came to realize, in absolute horror, that I am 100% a pacifist. In realizing this, I've come to understand that it is due to a lack of true compassion. In a lot of modern churches today, we have forgotten the fear of the Lord. Growing up, I did not know that God disciplined me because He loved me (Rev. 3:19). I did not know much about discipline at all, for that matter. In fact, you could say I was a free spirit (not to offend any free spirits out there, but I say 'was' because I've been given true freedom). So the thought of anyone telling me what biblical truths were or telling me that my interpretations were incorrect, or that my life was not producing the fruit of the gospel because I was centered around my own world and living in sin, I would have said 'screw you, you're stifling my creativity, go tell some other mindless follower.' What I failed to realize was that I was too wrapped up in the idea of individuality and 'I do what I want when I want' to know that I was actually living for approval, and being like-minded, submissive, living in humility and love was true strength and came with a peace this world could not offer me.

"If our religion is something objective, then we must never avert our eyes from those elements in it which seem puzzling or repellent; for it will be precisely the puzzling or the repellent which conceals what we do not yet know and need to know."
- C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory


What might be even harder to grasp, however, is that even with the knowledge of Christ, I fail to boldly proclaim that we exist for His Glory. I fail to clearly express truth in peoples' lives because I am either a.) not confident in His assurances or b.) afraid I'll hurt their feelings which actually leads me back to a.) and my knowledge of that confidence.

I've been truly frustrated that I cannot seem to love and care for some of the people in my life in the way that others have for me. I've had people tell me before, "look, I need you to tell me when I'm wrong. I need you to tell me to look to Jesus. I need to know I'm loved." And Oh, Father, I rejoice in your mercies that I can say these weaknesses of mine freely, because my faith was a free gift, and it is not mine to cover up. He has all ready paid for my sin in full, and I can rejoice in that freedom.

In Him, you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.
- Ephesians 1:13-14

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned...
- Romans 12:1-6
And so I can rest in the fact that I was bought at a price, and that I can freely offer my sacrifices to God, a broken and contrite heart, (psalm 51) knowing that His love never fails.

I am repelling downward into this sinful area of my life, praying that the Lord will continue to confront me with these areas that need transformation and reveal Himself to me, and I've discovered this FEAR OF MAN is, quite simply, a heart issue. For some reason, I have this preconceived notion that I have to sugar coat the gospel. I've realized that you can't walk on egg shells when it comes to the gospel.

But I guess you can - but when I say it's a heart issue - I mean, why would you want to? If you knew the reality of sin, and the knowledge of Christ that surpasses all understanding, and that that authority was within you, WHY would we want to?!
If we really believed that:
Christ abides in us through the Holy Spirit
That He was coming back
That faith is a free gift
The Lord is sovereign
Our Christian neighbor is the holiest object presented to our senses because Jesus dwells within them
On a DAY to DAY basis...

think about how rich the gospel would become to us!
think about the reverence and honor our Lord would delight in!

I think about these things and I am truly humbled. Please read the following passage from C.S. Lewis The Weight of Glory. One of the most beautiful passages on fellowship and community I have ever read. I know it is a little bit long, confusing or may seem out of context, but do read it; it is unbelievable..

The following Him is, of course, the essential point. That being so, it may be asked with practical use there is in the speculations which I have been indulging. I can think of at least one such use. It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hearafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbor. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor's glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you say it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. And day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feelings for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner - no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbor, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat - the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.