2022: A Year to Take Jesus More Seriously

 

Why don’t we live more like Jesus taught and showed us how we should live?

Among the reasons is the power that sin exercises in our lives. We may have been born again but we are not free of our old self, from our inclination to rebel against God. Living how Jesus taught and showed us to live may not receive sufficient emphasis in the teaching of the church that we attend. We are not receiving enough encouragement to do what is necessary or desirable.

We may not be giving sufficient attention to the emphasis and the encouragement that we are receiving. The preacher may devote much time to preaching on the subject, but we are not absorbing what he is preaching or acting on it. It is running off us like water off a duck’s back. This may be the result of hardness of heart or overfamiliarity. We may be closing our minds to what the preacher is urging us to do. We may have heard the same message over and over again so often that we tune it out.

Our habitual ways of thinking, speaking, and acting may be so ingrained in us that we keep behaving the way that we always have. We may intellectually grasp Jesus’ teaching and example, but in practice we pay no attention to them. They are not an active principle in determining what we think, say, or do.

We may have too narrowed a view of what following Jesus’s teaching and example means. For instance, we may see it as going to church on Sunday and performing acts of mercy. We may be strongly influenced by the world and its attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. A finding of growing body of research is that many people who identify themselves as Christians are barely distinguishable from people who do not identify themselves as Christians. They attend a church.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic it was found that people who attend church were attending church with less frequency. Since the pandemic the number of people who attend a church or watch a church service on cable TV or online has gone down noticeably. What a distinguish characteristic of those who identified themselves as Christians is no longer a distinguishing characteristic!

Unrepented and unforgiven sin and unexpressed or repressed anger may also play a part.

While these reasons help explain why we don’t live like Jesus taught and showed us, the main reason that we are not living Jesus’ way is that we have fully surrendered ourselves to Jesus. We are holding back parts of our lives from him.

We may have declared our faith in Jesus in baptism as a teenager or an adult. or if we were baptized as an infant or small child, we may have made a profession of faith later in life before our church and received the prayers of its members in a confirmation service. However, surrendering to Jesus is more than a one-time act. It is something that we do daily whenever we make a choice or a decision. Jesus laid out a set of principles by which his disciples are to live. We recognize Jesus’ lordship over our lives whenever we base our choices and decisions on these principles. Each choice and each decision, when it made on this basis, is an act of surrender to Jesus. We show our love for Jesus when we keep his word and obey his commandments (John 14: 21-24)

When God quickens our faith in him, brings it to life, it is not so that we can sit on our butts and do nothing. It is the beginning of a process in which we are transformed into the likeness of his Son, Jesus. We do not begin to wear a seamless robe and sandals, but we do begin to develop a character like Jesus’. We begin to acquire Jesus’ attitudes, his beliefs, and his behaviors and become more like Jesus in the way that we relate to God, our fellow human beings, and one another. We grow in our love of God and our love of others.

God gives us the Holy Spirit for a purpose. That purpose is not just for us to say to ourselves, “Happy day!! I’m a child of God.” God gives us the Holy Spirit to help grow as a disciple of Jesus, to help us grow in our love of God and our love of others.

Jesus himself says that we must show that we are a child of God. How? By imitating God as child imitates their parents. We are to be kind as God is kind. We are to be merciful as God is merciful. We are to be forgiving as God is forgiving.

God also fills our lives with an abundance of grace, there again for a purpose. That purpose is to sanctify and perfect us, to give us the will and the power to become more like Jesus, to grow in maturity of character and in love.

In the first two of his “three simple rules,” John Wesley gives us some guidance in how we can live in accordance with Jesus’ teaching and example.

The first rule is harm no one and avoid all evil. The world has changed since Wesley’s day. Our knowledge of the ways that we can harm others and ourselves and the ways that we can do evil has increased. The following are garnered from my own experience as a caseworker and a human being, the books and articles that I have read, the seminars that I have attended, and the videos that I have watched, or adapted from Wesley’s own list.

Enabling or helping someone to harm themselves or to harm someone else. We may not realize what we are doing is enabling or helping them to do harm to themselves and/or to someone else. We may not have all the details of what is happening and the person whom we are enabling or helping may not have all the details themselves. They may have a mistaken perception of what is going on. Their fears, anxieties, and insecurities may be affecting their thinking. They may be misreading the situation.

Being dishonest with someone when transparency, openness, and honesty is warranted.

Permitting the negativity bias to dominate our assessment of others. While Jesus did not use the term “negativity bias,” his teaching suggests that he was familiar with this bias—the tendency to think the worst of people, to focus on everything that we find negative about them, imagined or real; to give more credence to negative information than to positive information; to exaggerate an individual’s negative qualities or traits and to ignore their positive ones.

Bullying someone. We can now intimidate someone not only in person but also by phone in the form of a phone call or text, and on the internet.

Shunning someone or ignoring them as an expression of anger and displeasure toward them, as a way of punishing them for an imagined or real offense, or as a way of manipulating and controlling them. This differs from avoiding people due to social anxiety or timidity.

Giving someone the silent treatment as an expression of anger and displeasure toward them, a way of punishing them for an imagined or real offense, or as a way of manipulating and controlling them. This differs from reacting with silence when anxious, unable to answer a question, or unable to make a decision.

Belittling someone, criticizing them unfairly, making disparaging remarks to them, deliberately attacking their self-worth.

Gossiping about someone behind their back, spreading hostile or unfriendly rumors about them.

Embellishing on gossip or rumors we have heard, fabricating details which are conjecture on our part.

Using explosive angry outbursts to intimidate, manipulate, and control someone.

Blaming someone else for a situation in which we played a role.

Talking negatively about someone in front of them.

Deliberately embarrassing someone in the presence of family, relations, friends, coworkers, and others.

Ghosting someone, cutting off all contact with them without a word of explanation. There are a few situations when disappearing from someone’s life without any notice may be warranted such as when there is a genuine risk of bodily harm or death. In most cases, however, ghosting someone is not warranted.

Making unkind or cutting remarks to someone.

Urging or persuading someone to do harm to someone else.

Encouraging someone to take their spite out on another person, to act on their feelings of anger toward that person, which make them want to annoy, upset, or hurt them.

Deliberately annoying, upsetting, or hurting someone.

Showing no consideration for other people’s feelings; trampling on other people’s feelings.

Starting conflict between two or more people, fueling that conflict, and causing a split between them.

Making trouble for someone out of a desire to do harm to them, to cause problems for them.

Encouraging someone to commit a socially unacceptable or frowned-upon act, the discovery of which will not only cause embarrassment to them but also harm them in other ways.

Photographing or videoing such an act, posting the photos or video on the internet, or circulating them in other ways such as an attachment to a text.

Photography or videoing someone without their permission while they are having sex or nude, posting the photos or video on the internet, or circulating them in other ways,

Forcing someone by intimidation or other means such as the withholding of affection and love to engage in unwanted sexual acts.

Doing harm to someone in retaliation for imagined or real harm done to us. For example, we may have inadvertently caused someone embarrassment. They do not take it very well and go to any lengths to cause us embarrassment.

Slighting someone, insulting them by ignoring them or treating them as if they are not important.

Punishing someone by withdrawing affection and love. An adult may withhold affection and love from a partner or spouse and parent from a child. This withholding of affection and love is a form of psychological abuse.

Doing harm to someone else out of the desire to please one or more other people, to keep their acceptance and affirmation, to win their approval, or to maintain our social image with them.

Our social image is the image or personality that we present in public or in a specific setting—as opposed to our true selves. We may take on several different identities, depending upon the particular situation to which we are adapting. A persona may be compared to a mask or a facade. It also may be compared to an act that we put on for a particular audience, a particular group of people.

We may wear several different masks—one with our family and relations, one with coworkers, one with friends, one intimates, and one at church! We may hear someone say, “I couldn’t believe that she was the same person.” They had come upon a friend unexpected when she was in a different persona from the one to which they were accustomed.

Readers may think of other ways that we do harm to others. They may think of other forms of evil that we should avoid.

Wesley’s second rule is to do good to others, particularly to our fellow Christians. There are many ways of doing good to others. They are the ways that we show our love for others and our love for one another. The list that I have compiled is not exhaustive and describes some basic ways of expressing our love for our fellow human beings and our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Making allowances for others. We give them the benefit of the doubt. We accept someone as honest or deserving of trust when we may have doubts. We recognize that no one is perfect, and we all have blind spots, flaws, shortcomings, and weaknesses. We choose to look for their good points, not their bad ones. We measure them by a measure by which we would want ourselves to be measured.

Being approachable. We are friendly and easy to talk to. We behave in a kind and pleasant way. We do not keep other people at a distance. We let people become friendly with us. We do not fail or refuse to communicate with them and avoid them. We do not prevent ourselves from becoming involved with them.

Showing compassion to others. Compassion may be defined as “a strong feeling of sympathy and sadness for the suffering or bad luck of others and a wish to help them.” We do not turn our backs on them and treat their circumstances as none of our business.

Feeling concern for others. We care about them and their wellbeing. We take an interest in them and we attach importance to them. We do not adopt the attitude that what happens to them has nothing to do with us.

Showing empathy to others. We try to understand their feelings and put ourselves in their place. Empathy is learned. It does not come naturally. We learn it from our parents and other caregivers. If our parents were not very empathetic, we may not be very empathetic ourselves. However, we can learn to be more empathetic.

Showing forgiveness to others. When someone triggers anger and resentment in us, we do not hang on to those feelings toward them. We do not repress them. We experience them and then let go of them. We do not hold what triggered the anger and resentment against them. When we forgive someone, we are not choosing to accept what may have triggered our anger and resentment, we are choosing not to hold it against the other person and not to harbor ill-will toward them. Jesus surprised his disciples when he pointed to their attention that there should be no limit to their forgiveness. We cannot say to ourselves, “That’s the last straw! I’m not going to forgive them ever again!! We must keep on forgiving. Jesus also taught that if we do not forgive other people’s faults, we cannot expect God to forgive our faults. 

For Christians here in the United States Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness are countercultural. Our culture encourages us to hold grudges and to harbor grievances. Psychologists, however, point out that when we are unforgiving, we harm ourselves physically, psychologically, emotionally, and relationally. In contrast, forgiving other people’s faults has many physical, psychological, emotional, and relational benefits for us.

Showing generosity toward others. We tend to think of generosity in terms of giving money. Our generosity, however, is the willingness to give not just money but help, kindness, and the like more than is usual or expected. It can take many forms. We can also be generous with our time, our attention, our complements, our affirmation, our acceptance, and in many other ways. For example, we may observe someone doing something very well. We draw that to their attention, and we offer them emotional support and encouragement. We may show up early to a church activity to see if we can lend a helping hand in any way. We may stay after a church activity for the same reason.

Showing kindness toward others. We are generous, helpful, caring about other people. We give thought to their feelings. We always give help and encouragement. We are loving, affectionate, and warm in our interactions with both adults and children.

Being patient with others. We are able to accept delay, suffering, or annoyance without complaining or becoming angry. We prevent ourselves from saying or doing harmful things and show self-control, good judgment, and kindness to others. While we may like that others make it up to us for the wrongs that they may have done us, we do not demand that they do. We do not ignore them and not speak to them until they do.

Being respectful of others. We show politeness, honor, and care toward others, treating them as being important and having worth. We are considerate of their feelings. We value their thoughts.

Being transparent with others. We are open and honest with them, without secrets.

Being tenderhearted with others. We are gentle and caring with them.

Being truthful with others. We are honest with others and do not tell lies to them.

Being trustworthy with others. We show ourselves deserving of their trust. We are able to be trusted. We do what we say that we are going to do. As much as possible, we keep our commitments and promises. We are loyal in our friendship or relationship with a person. We do not become involved with someone else behind the back of our partner or spouse.

Praying for others. We lift them up to the throne of grace and intercede with God on their behalf.

Readers may think of other ways of doing good to others, other ways of expressing our love for them.

As we begin a new year, let us ask God to help us to lean into how Jesus taught and showed us to live, to surrender more and more of ourselves to Jesus. As Jesus told his disciples in teaching them prayer, if they who are evil do good things for their children, how much more will God who is good will do good things for us if we ask him.

May God bless you throughout the new year with every spiritual blessing!!