Tools and Truth

Therefore, get your minds ready for action, being self-disciplined, and set your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires of your former ignorance but, as the One who called you is holy, so you also are to be holy in all your conduct; for it is written, Be holy, because I am holy. -- 1 Peter 1:13-16

The more literal translation of the first phrase “get your minds ready for action” is “gird up the loins of your mind”. Tie up all the loose ends so that you don’t trip over the tail of your coat in a fight.

I saw a snippet of Colin Powell endorsing Obama in which he mentioned the importance of “rhetorical skills”. Personally I’d rather have someone who can take care of business than someone who is just too glib to pin down in a discussion. Powell may see politics as a means of getting one’s way, but statesmanship, leadership and good governance should be more about doing the right thing. Rhetoric in the service of truth may be beneficial, but rhetoric is merely a tool. It can be used as easily to obscure the truth as to support it.

When the time for action comes it requires decisiveness. We often have to cut through elaborate and elusive language to see the right and wrong of a situation. Arguments and lines of thinking that are soothing to the ego and self-serving will trip us up when we have to make decisions about crucial issues. It is pretty easy for a man to convince himself, for example, that his wife really isn’t treating him right and that he would be better off with another woman. It’s easy to convince myself to take the easy way, to forego self-discipline and indulge.

Self-indulgence is the real platform of the Democrat party in America. Obama appeals to those who look down upon thrift, effort and achievement, those who despise and deride self-discipline and self-sacrifice. The Obamas’ embrace of black liberation theology is an indulgence of a false victim status that appeals to the left. The reason tying Obama to the terrorist Bill Ayers will have little effect is because forty percent of the American people believe nihilistic decadence should be the norm.

So it really is a fight and I need to be ready for it, in training at all times. The upcoming election is only a minor battle in a much larger war. Training is good but once we are in fighting trim we must carry through. We have to rely totally upon the grace of God.

It’s easy to misread Peter’s statement to be “the grace that was brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ”. Instead he says not what was brought but what is to be brought. God did reveal Himself via the Incarnation, but the fullness of grace can be known only as Christ is unveiled in me. The revelation cannot come to a heart full of fleshly thoughts and desires. The vessel must be emptied of hope in all other means.

For all their faults, twelve-step programs are absolutely right about the necessity of “hitting bottom”. The bottom doesn’t have to be a physical gutter. Spiritual disciplines can accomplish the same end without all the ugly consequences and repercussions. Fasting is possibly the most effective of all in this regard. Thus when His disciples asked why they could not cast out a demon, Jesus replied, “This kind comes out only by prayer and fasting.” The thoughtful might wonder if it is wise to try casting out another’s demon before dealing with one’s own.

The process of Lent with its sacrifices and constraints is meant to be a picture of exactly what Peter is talking about. There is the discipline based on the hope of the gospel in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. It ends with the revelation of the empty tomb on Easter morning. Maybe those old guys knew what they were about after all.

I’ve been hammered with the admonition to “be holy because God is holy.” Like many others I have tried to achieve holiness on my own. It’s easy enough to go off in that direction because that seems to be what the “experts” tell us. In the same way, it is easy to confuse self-discipline with something like “we don’t drink and we don’t chew, and we don’t go with girls that do.” Self-denial is not holiness. Neither is self-indulgence. The essence of holiness is the abandonment of “self-anything”. Spiritual disciplines, like fasting, will move us in the right direction as long as we do not confuse the path with the destination. Sanctification is by grace alone.

Jesus did not chastise the Pharisees because they fasted on a regular basis but rather because they thought fasting itself pleased God. In their case being able to adhere to a “higher standard” did not bring them to the end of self, it strengthened and enthroned self.

I encourage fasting but not as a means of pleasing God or of putting Him under obligation. Rather, we should fast that we may break self’s hegemony and enthrone Christ.