Jim's Footnotes: 2013

God wants His children to grow into the fullness of the image of Christ.

Ephesians 4:13 NKJV

13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;

We often feel that it is our job to simply manage our faults to the point that we don't lose our friends, our job, our marriage, our freedom. Society will tolerate our faults to a point. But if we don't manage our faults at least to some degree, we will lose our friends, our job, our marriage, our freedom.

God is not interested in helping us manage our faults. God is committed to helping us identify and overcome our faults. All of them. Obviously, this is a lifelong quest – to be conformed to the image of Christ.

God tells us to go out and tell others about Christ. We often misinterpret this to mean that God wants us to help others be like us. We know the truth, and we believe the truth has set us free; therefore, we must help others be like us. But this idea is far from the whole truth. When we witness to others, we are really inviting them to join us on a quest to be completely conformed to the image of Christ.

The first goal of parenting is to teach children that God loves them unconditionally. God is never disappointed or angry with His children, young or old. Anger and disappointment are the result of surprise, and God is never surprised by anything.

As children become more mature, they are capable of learning that they are not perfect. That is when they are taught "the rules." This is a necessary evil. Since children are not capable of complex rational thought, the rules must be simple and clear. When they keep the rules, they are rewarded with the approval of their parents. The more they keep the rules, the greater the reward. As the child moves into adolescence and society expresses its approval, the child becomes even more motivated to keep the rules.

I say that this process is a necessary evil because it ultimately becomes a hindrance to maturity. The young adult who has been greatly rewarded for keeping the rules may develop an internal sense that they have achieved conformity to Christ. They are unaware of the complexity of the righteousness of Christ, and they have no awareness of their need to grow. As a result, they feel free to criticize others, and they have a tendency to impose strict "rules" on their children without much concern for any demonstration of God's unconditional love.

So how is this young adult suppose to overcome this fault? How are they to become conformed to the image of Christ? This is extremely difficult and sometimes painful because it involves a recognition of the fact that the righteousness of Christ is greater than the righteousness that was taught to them by their parents. They might perceive this to be an outright rejection of their parents, and this presents a huge conflict because they love and adore their parents.

This can be especially difficult for people who grow up with abusive parents. Children who are never affirmed by their parents may live their entire lives trying to earn that affirmation. This again sets the parents up as the ultimate standard of righteousness and prevents these children from catching a vision of the true righteousness of Christ.

This conflict of moving from the parental standard to the standard of Christ is the basic conflict of all those who seek maturity in Christ, and as I have mentioned, it is can be the source of a devastating and destructive conflict. I read about a very successful engineer who was so depressed that he twice attempted suicide. Knowing that one's religious beliefs are the primary determinate of one's personality, his counselor asked him about his religious beliefs. The engineer said that he was a scientist and did not believe in God because he could not see God or prove that God exists.

The engineer said that his mother and father were ministers who always talked about the love of God. God loves the world. Jesus loves the little children. Love, love, love. He said he did not believe in God because he had never experienced this love.

When the engineer was asked about his childhood, he said it was terrible. He was beat all the time – with switches, paddles, belts, etc. As he talked, the light went on. His parents did not demonstrate the love that they talked about. The man ultimately realized that for years he had found it easier to reject God than to accept and deal with his parents' imperfects. Again, it is extremely difficult and sometimes painful to move beyond our commitment to our parents' standard of righteousness.

One interesting aspect of this phenomenon is that it can also work to the detriment of a child who is never given any rules. These children are taught that they are perfect and that they should never allow anyone to tell them otherwise. As these children seek the approval of their parents, they too rebel against the rules of society. As a result, they become trapped in a conflict between their parents and society as well as a conflict between their parents and God. It is extremely difficult for these children to ever catch a vision of the glory of the righteousness of Christ. They are obsessed with self love and therefore have great difficulty understanding the glory of God's love.

God loves us unconditionally. If He spared not His own Son, would He not also give us all things. God will go to extreme lengths to help us grow into the image of Christ. He will sometimes allow almost unbelievable pain and suffering in order to help us grow. This is seen in the life of the prodigal son, who had to endure great misery before he would open his heart to the love of God.

When God allows pain, we may continue to resist God until we can stand the pain no more. If we do not cry out to God, we may pursue one destructive alternative after another to ease the pain. We quit our job, we find another spouse, we isolate ourselves from people, we try to end our lives.

All those who call out to God, find a happy ending. God takes us to the Bible – God's revelation of Himself. The Holy Spirit opens our minds and hearts to the glory of God's unconditional love. We see that God is not angry with us and He truly wants to bless us. We see that the extent of God's blessing in our lives is dependent upon our willingness to grow in our understanding of who God really is. As we see more and more of the glory of the righteousness of Christ, the walls of superficial righteousness crumble around us. By God's grace, we move into the full measure of the stature of Christ.