The Gospel gives us freedom to hate our sin and creates in us a desire to expose and confess our sin, rather than hide it or pamper it or excuse it or lash out against those who confront us. Because the Gospel reconciles us to God, we no longer have to shrink back and hide or defend ourselves. Our life is now in Christ and not in our own works or failures. We no longer have to fix ourselves first and then come to God. The Gospel bids us to come as we are. It is as we walk into the light that his Word washes us clean. It is as we see the beauty of God that our idols become abhorrent and are cast off.

The natural consequence of coming near to God is that as we come into the light, we are seen. The Gospel is honest about who we are. It is not flattery or a false love. It is not fake. It sees us as we are, even at our worst. The Gospel lets us know we are seen and loved. And it is in His love that we find rest and healing. And even when we don’t get the Gospel, the Gospel still bids us to come near. Because it is only in coming near to God, the only source of life, beauty, goodness, and truth, that we are made whole. The Gospel is a powerful force that sets us free. Or better said, the Gospel brings us to a powerful God who sets us free.

So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.

Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:9–16, ESV)

God’s word gives us the confidence and the freedom to not feel shaken and be open minded and not be afraid. I have confidence that God’s word is absolutely true because it has been proven and I have experienced it to be stronger than the world. Do not think that the word of God is afraid of the arguments of the world. The word of God is a roaring lion, it doesn’t run away from the arguments of this evil age. It faces them head on and tears them apart, because of this we can be patient, kind, loving, and good listeners. We can rest in his might.

We find safety in our pride.

It is in our nature to hold on to our view, our own version of “truth” or to be conformed into the world’s viewpoint around us. In Genesis, the serpent tempted Adam and Eve to find their “truth” outside of God, to determine their own version of good and evil. We have become wise in our own eyes. Sin corrupts our hearts desires and drives us to pursue our own glory though a self-centered world view.

Whatever we pursue and look to outside of God shapes our version of “truth”. It shapes how we think, how we look at the world, and who we are. We identify who we are with these “truths” and they become integral to our “self”.

We build a world surrounded by our perceptions and experiences. We trust our interpretations and our ideas of how this world works. Our “truth”, this “worldly wisdom”, becomes our sanctuary for it explains the world around us. It makes sense of the disorder and protects us. It becomes ingrained into who we are. It is a part of us. To stray from it is to walk on insecure ground, to risk your own heart, to be shaken. To stray from it is to lose one’s very self.

So, instead of presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice, we fight to hold on to our own “integrity”, our own “truth”, our own world view. “Worldly wisdom” becomes our refuge. Our interpretation of the world helps us to make sense of the world. It keeps us stable. It’s safe. It makes sense. And it’s comfortable. It doesn’t shake up our world. It doesn’t call us to die to our self.

It is a scary thing to have our world turned upside down, to find out that our “truth”, our world view has been a lie. To find out that who we are is a lie. However, that is what the Gospel does. It takes us into a world that is unknown, a world that strips away our “worldly wisdom” that strips the very essence of who we think we are and calls us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Jesus. Our view of the world has become not just a collage of ideas, but how we see ourselves in the deepest part of our being. So the Gospel call is a call that feels like we are losing the essence of who we are. This is often why we fight. We don’t want to lose our stability.

So, when God speaks His truth into our hearts, “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”, we are shaken. We are rocked to the core. What we held on to for security becomes shaky ground. Our “self” is in danger. And we fight and stubbornly hold on to what we know.

How does this affect our relationships?

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. – James 4:1-4, ESV

We have chosen our own world view apart God and have become enemies of God, wallowing in our adultery and rebellion. And our muck is splashed around on ourselves and others. Now our passions, our desires, our world views rule our relationships causing us to covet, to fight and quarrel, and to murder. Even our best relationships are fractured by our pride, lust, and greed. We are damaged.

• Conversations and interactions with others are centered around my world and my interpretations of reality.
• We pursue protecting our world view above truth in our interactions with others.
• We pursue protecting our world above loving the other person.
• We don’t make Christ the center of our relationship because His light exposes our faulty world and makes us unstable.
• We refuse to be corrected and broken, for these things destroy our world view.

In our pride, we don’t realize how evil we truly are. Jesus called us to die to ourselves. If we are willing to choose our pride over our relationships and let our pride destroy our relationships, is it no surprise that we would choose the things of this world over God. It is this holding on to our world and our desiring it above God that brings hell. Thankfully, Jesus has come to destroy our world and in him we can die to ourselves.

Safety is found in brokenness.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise. – Psalm 51:17

Thus says the Lord,

“Heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool.
Where then is a house you could build for Me?
And where is a place that I may rest?
“For My hand made all these things,
Thus all these things came into being,” declares the Lord.
“But to this one I will look,
To him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word. – Isaiah 66:1,2

Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.   – Romans 12:1,2

To know Truth, we must die; we must be stripped of our glory.

In the scripture, when men came in the presence of the glory of God, they trembled. Their world fell apart in the light and majesty of God. In Christ, we boldly come to the throne room of God. And in the presence of God, we become broken. Our dependency on ourselves dies; our world views crumble and fall away, and the veil that keeps us from seeing Beauty is stripped away. And as our world crumbles away, we are held in the arms of our Father. God is our refuge, and we are loved. And in His arms, we truly become who we are.

In His loving presence, our daily walk is one of having our man-made “security” stripped away from us and nailed to the cross. We no longer need to look to our own “integrity”. We no longer need to uphold our glory. We instead behold the Lamb of God, who takes away our sin. It is in the cross that we find our true identity. In this act of presenting our bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, we rest in God as our refuge, and He boldly takes us into His arms and brings us close to Himself.

Therefore, let this false wisdom fall away, let my world be crushed and my heart broken as God calls me into His Holy presence and I am changed and conformed into the image of Christ and brought into a love that will consume me and make me truly me.

How does this affect our relationships?

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. –  Colossians 3:12-17, ESV

Adam and Eve’s relationship fractured when they pursued their own world view and no longer found their safety in God’s Word. They no longer encouraged each other to trust in God’s Word, but instead sought to defend their own definition of “good and evil”. They were at odds with themselves and God. Through the work and worth of Jesus, God is working in us to learn to intimately find our life in His Word, to rest in Christ’s glory and not our own. The Gospel strips us of our own glory, our own safety, our own righteousness, our own truth and gives us the royal robes of Jesus. It also equips us to speak the Gospel into one another’s life and makes us vulnerable to hearing the gospel spoken into our own lives. Through the brokenness of the gospel, we pursue intimacy with Christ together and in that pursuit our love for one another grows.

• When Christ rules, it is no longer about defending oneself or world view
• There is security in having an authority that is higher than our views on a subject, in conflict we can agree to pursue God’s truth and not our own.
• God’s will is “good and acceptable and perfect”. Our will is not so much. God loves us and his will is safe.
• When God’s will rather than our own desires rule, we can truly pursue each other in freedom.

If we stubbornly hold on and are unwilling to have our world views crushed and broken, and that on a continual and ongoing basis, we will miss out on the goodness and the joy of the Lord, that are found in the wonders of the Gospel.

Questions to Consider:

1. How do you respond to those who bring correction? Do you put up walls or get angry with others who confront you? Do you rejoice in and delight in correction? Do you thank and value those who are willing to bring correction into your life?
2. Do you require people to bring correction in a certain way or jump through hoops before you will listen, or do you value hearing correction regardless of how it is presented?
3. Do you attack those who confront you? Do you admit you were wrong?
4. Do you blame others for your sin? Are you unwilling to be honest about your pride?
5. Do you look for people to affirm you in the midst of your sin, or do seek people who will confront you with the horridness of your sin? Giving God’s command to cut off those things that hinder us from God, which is more beneficial regardless of motives?
6. Is the sin you hold on to so tightly and love, more important than the relationships around you? How long have you allowed it to destroy your relationships? If it is more important to you than those around you, how can you say that it is not more important than God as well?
7. Being broken means being near God, do you pursue safety rather than God’s presence?
8. In a discussion, is your goal to win an argument or to pursue truth? Do you care about winning an argument, if so, why? What does this say about your heart and your pride?
9. What are you willing to do to win an argument? How does this destroy relationships?
10. In a relationship, is it ok if you’re the one who is wrong and the one who needs correction every time or do you want there to be equal blame, equal correction? What does this say about what your worth means to you, your pride?
11. Do you actively pursue where you are wrong? Do you seek out others who will rebuke you or those who will make you feel confirmed?
12. When was the last time your world was shaken to its core? When was the last time you allowed the trembling in God’s presence to restore and heal your heart?
13. Will you take all this lightly, or will you allow these words to sink deeply into your heart and destroy your world? How tightly will you hold onto your sin?

And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,

nor be weary when reproved by him.

For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,

and chastises every son whom he receives.”

It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.

(Hebrews 12:5–13, ESV)

God uses his word to expose us, but then washes us with his word and brings healing. Though God’s exposing our sin brings healing, we are “like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you” (Psalm32:9). We want to conquer our sin in our own way. In a way that makes us feel safe. We want to hold on to our pride. We have forgotten the promise of the Gospel,

Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven,

whose sin is covered.

Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity,

and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away

through my groaning all day long.

For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;

my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah

I acknowledged my sin to you,

and I did not cover my iniquity;

I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”

and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah

(Psalm 32:1–5, ESV)

Healing never comes from protecting our pride. But the love of God for us is immense even in this for it is in this state that God calls to us. “Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, ‘He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us’? But he gives us more grace. Therefore, it says, ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’ Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and morn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to morning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you” (James4:5-10). When we see ourselves as we are, we ought to morn and weep, for our sin is great. But when we understand this, we also understand God’s grace for us, and we no longer have to perform before God or man. We can lay down our performance. Jesus calls to us, “Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

One of the reasons we hold on to our pride is because the Gospel does not call us to live alone but calls us to walk this out in community. James is clear that healing comes from hearing the word of God. God’s word comes alive as we experience the body of Christ. We are not meant to hear God’s word alone. The scripture says, “Better is open rebuke, then hidden love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend” (Proverbs 27:5,6a). James ends his letter with this, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” As Paul admonishes us to put sin to death, he also encourages us to “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God” (Colossians 3:16). And in this truth, we are not only surrounded by the love of God but the love of the body of Christ.

And so sometimes when we get upset because a person is not being honest and vulnerable with us, the issue is that we don’t believe they exist. We filter out what doesn’t fit our “persona”. We forget that it is difficult to talk with someone if we don’t believe they exist.

And sometimes, we are unwilling to give up our “personas” because it means we would have to be vulnerable ourselves, even if it just means something as simple as admitting we were wrong in our presumptions.

It is important to realize that we all do this. Because of the fall, we are creatures of misinterpretation. Understanding that we are misinterpreters is part of learning to get to know people. When we realize we do this often, we don’t hold on to those “personas” very tightly, and we are willing to have your “personas” destroyed. In fact, we expect to have false ideas about people and begin actively listening to others in order to destroy our false perspectives about them in a search to truly get to know who they are.

If we stubbornly hold on and are unwilling to have our world views crushed and broken, and that on a continual and ongoing basis, we will miss out on the goodness and the joy of the Lord that are found in the wonders of the Gospel. Therefore, let this false wisdom fall away, let my world be crushed and my heart broken as God calls me into His Holy presence and I am changed and conformed into the image of Christ and brought into a love that will consume me.

Therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. – Romans 12:1,2

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise. – Psalm 51:17

Thus says the LORD,
“Heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool.
Where then is a house you could build for Me?
And where is a place that I may rest?
“For My hand made all these things,
Thus all these things came into being,” declares the LORD.
“But to this one I will look,
To him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word. – Isaiah 66:1,2

Our sinful nature endears us to defend and attack those who bring a rebuke into our lives. We want to defend our worth, our righteousness. How dare they attack me? And look at them anyways, they are so messed up. Who are you to confront me? Go repent of your own sins. Besides, we are not supposed to judge others.

We hide our sins. We hold them down like a beach ball in water, wavering and struggling as we try to keep them from coming out in the open. We keep people away. The water may be murky but if they are too close they might see the beach ball. And if someone should come close enough to see this beach ball in the water, we create elaborate lies to defend our kingdom and to keep them out. Because we are so focused on keeping this beach ball out of view, our view and focus becomes so narrow, and we miss so much.

And if someone does come close enough to see our beach ball and say something, no matter how slight. We are like a bear defending her cub. This is how dear our sins are to us. We will rip anyone up for even possibly coming close or having any hint of rebuke. We are like a ruthless lawyer not concerned with truth or the others, only that we defend our appearance of worth and righteousness, even if it destroys those around us.

Not allowing rebuke is destructive to our lives and to our relationships. Our lives become a cycle of living a lie, by keeping people away and ripping them apart if they get too close. And if the beach ball does come out of the water it comes out explosively, destroying those around us. Not only do we do this with others, but we also push God away. We look and focus on protecting our sin, instead of looking to Jesus.

The scripture teaches us a different approach to rebuke – put your guard down, and let the blow come. For as we let our guard down and that blow comes, we become covered with the oil of kindness and joy and delight. When we get the gospel and it becomes rooted deeper and deeper into our hearts, the more we want our hearts to be exposed. The more we want our ugliness to be laid bare. The more we long for our brothers and sisters to love us enough to rebuke us. Because in this we have freedom. We no longer have to struggle to hold the beach ball under water. We have died to our own identity, and it is now found only in Jesus. We have the freedom to be honest about our sin for it no longer defines us and we have the freedom to grow in intimacy. It is refreshing and a joy to be rebuked, because it is in these rebukes that our sins which once hindered our view of Jesus become revealed and are cast off, and we get to behold more and more the beauty of our Lord.

So let your guard down and let the blow come . . .

Good conflicts pursue understanding and truth, bad conflicts accuse without listening or knowing the other person.

The comfort is that sin is devastating, and we are helpless and worthless. There is nothing we can do. . . . And we don’t have to. . .. Jesus has done it all. Through the work and worth of Jesus, we gain more for more than self-worth when we come to Him. We gain the love of God.

So let us not be shocked or devastated by the depths of our messed-upness, nor make light of sin, for we have a glorious Gospel that is bigger than the deepest depths of sin. Let that depth be apart of our speech.

Are your conversations about your worth? If you are fighting for significance, to be worth something, to be right, to have it all together . . . you have already failed and have become foolish. Wisdom is not found in ourselves. The beginning of wisdom is to fear the LORD. In dying, we find life. We were not made to find our own way, nor to be alone. We were made to be in a loving relationship with God. And in looking to Jesus, we know Truth, for truth and wisdom is found in a person. So let us reject our foolish attempts for glory and self-wisdom and accept what Jesus did for us at the cross and run into the loving arms of Jesus.

Well, the Kingdom of God is in vivid colors. . .

It is other. It is Holy. It is commanding. It causes you to tremble and engages the whole of who you are. It cuts soul and spirit and discerns the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

And the Door of the Kingdom is open to those who surrender and come through faith in the worth and work of Jesus Christ.

The problem is that the Word of God doesn’t fit into categories, not even close.

My prayer is not necessarily, how do I get others to change, but how can God change me, and help me to communicate lovingly in a way that breaks down any categories. In His grace, I want to be able to speak in a way that is gentle and loving and strong. To speak in a way that makes others feel welcome, maybe uncomfortable and maybe even hostile at times, but welcome. Jesus, spoke in a way that struck the hearts and souls of men. He was strong and many people rejected Him because of it. But He also said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”. And like Paul, I want to pray that the Holy Spirit will speak clearly through me, breaking down any preconceived categories men have and breaking down any boxes I put God into, so that they might hear clearly what God has to say.