(Further reflections on "Love & Thoughts; Words & Works"--Sunday 30-June-2024)
It is not that difficult. Look no further. Foolishness was and probably still is in every one of us when (not if) we do not heed God's instructions, corrections, and disciplines. Fools find it hard to love the Lord with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength. In a nutshell, we just need to observe what fools love and how they think and watch closely their words and works. And here are a few tips.
Tip #1. Fools love their self-generated wisdom. They love to be wise in their own eyes. They can be very intelligent. They view the world through their self-made lens, which are made up by a mixed bag of cultures, religions, politics, education, entertainment, philosophy, ideology, science, and worldly values. This therefore makes it hard for them to seek the Lord and desire to see things in the eyes of the Lord. The tricky part is that they might still want to be in church, but live naturally according to the wisdom by their own definitions. This leads to multiple [spiritual] blind spots (if not totally blind). Fools are unable to see dangers/destruction ahead. And even when they see it, they tend to ignore it by telling themselves, "It will be okay. Everybody is doing that and people are still okay. And God seems to be okay with that, because I'm still fine with that." Fools operate their life by the "I, Me, and Myself" multiverse of unrestrained feelings, unexamined thoughts, and ungodly behaviors that shape their lifestyle into the image of the world in which their own wisdom is being constituted.
Tip #2. Fools may like disciplines that elevate their egos or pump up their worthiness or spice up their sense of self-made successes or victories, but they hate godly disciplines. Humility and submission are not in their vocabulary and the Lordship of Jesus is foreign to them.
Tip #3. Fools cannot take the biblical ideas that in order to be free, one must be a slave to Christ's righteousness (cf. Romans 6) which can be done only by faith. Fools tend to show their good works to (un/consciously) cover up areas of their sins. Since they do not read God's word , they cannot live according to His word. They try their best to make their own guesses and embrace ideas from movies so it is impossible for them to wholeheartedly obey God's words. The works of their hands speak volumes and will sooner or later reveal their love and thoughts which have no root in Jesus Christ.
Tip #4. Fools tend to say that they believe in the power of the Holy Spirit, but their life is full of excuses and reasons why they cannot live powerfully in Jesus. Again, their unbelief proves that their works are not in line with the Word. Thus, the Holy Spirit will not force them to love what they do not love; think what they do not want to think; and do what they do not want to do.
Now what? After spotting a fool, how do we deal with them? With full authority of God's word and compassion of Christ and in power of the Holy Spirit, boldly speak the truth in love; courageously rebuke them with God's word; compassionately counsel them with the whole counsel of God; and graciously journey with them as the Lord has been patiently journeying with His Body--the church.
Lord, have mercy on our foolishness.
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Pastor Lap
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