To Those Who Need Hope – Part 3 – Grace

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It’s one thing to profess that you are a Christian, to commit good deeds, to participate in worship on Sundays, and to claim to believe the Gospel. It’s another to fully understand that we are sinners and totally reliant on the love and mercy of God, and to fully trust in His Grace.

These are words we may read and think we understand. These are “simple” words that I have heard and read for a long time now, so much that I seemingly gloss over them. Many of us may think we don’t, but we do.

How many times in our lives do we truly realize what a gift we have in the Gospel of Jesus, the Good News of Jesus, the news that tells us that we are loved—a love we can’t fully comprehend, a love that we can’t match, a love that can sustain us through anything because it’s perfect love, a love that is not human, a love without conditions? But is that last one true? A love without conditions? Aren’t we required to believe in Jesus and trust Him and love Him back with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength? That’s what God wants from us, definitely. He wants us to trust Him, to lean on Him, to love Him.

These things are true. But the wonderful, incomprehensible thing is: He loves us regardless.

He loves us the way we are—in our sin, in our suffering, in our insecurities and anxieties, in our brashness and piety, in our hypocrisy, in our inherent brokenness. He does not condone our sin, but he loves us regardless. God’s Grace for us is so much bigger than we realize.

As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:9, as he is addressing the resurrection of Christ to the church in Corinth, “For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain.” God used Paul, believed in him and loved him, even though Paul had persecuted Christ-followers and committed terrible sins against the Lord. At this point in his life, Paul recognizes the wrong he had done, and knows he is unworthy, yet God uses him in ways unimaginable to most of us.

As Christians, many of us are afraid to admit we are sinners, to admit how we are and what we are. But God knows. We don’t like to admit that not all of our good deeds are done altruistically. But God knows. We like to think that we are automatically in better standing with God than others because we attend church every week, because we donate to charities, because we don’t cuss or participate in secular activities. We may be kidding ourselves, but we aren’t fooling God.

We can fool our fellow believers, but we can’t fool God.

When we get to a point where we are utterly honest and transparent with God, where we fully recognize our sinful and imperfect state, we are then at a point where we are ready to put our full trust in God and in His love and Grace. In this state of clarity, we can fully, truly realize that we are loved despite our sinful condition.

Also to the church in Corinth, and in speaking of his pleading with the Lord regarding the “thorn given [him] in his flesh,” Paul says, 

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

Paul knows that God’s Grace and love is enough. It’s enough to sustain him—and all of us—through anything. It’s enough strength for us when we are in need, when we are suffering, when we have given up, and when we are doing well.

Accepting God’s Grace in our lives means giving everything up to Him. This allows us to let go of our burdens, to let go of the sin that holds us back from being our best selves, our true selves. It allows us to let go of the lie that we cannot change, that we cannot become better humans, that we cannot love our enemies. This letting go is the ultimate act of finding true freedom, no matter our circumstance.

We are loved. We are forgiven. We are not alone. When you comprehend just how massive, amazing, positive, encouraging, and unimaginable this is, everything changes.

To those who are suffering and need hope, to those who carry enormous guilt and shame and self-loathing, to those who are on the cusp of utterly giving up, remember this: God’s Grace—as demonstrated through the death, burial, and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ— is the forgiveness of all the sin in your life and an acknowledgement of your imperfections; it is the cradling of you in His arms and an outpouring of His endless love; it is the perfecting of you in His holy eyes and the revelation that you are not alone.

If He can forgive us and extend His grace to our brokenness—and His forgiveness and Grace is much larger than us and all of our issues—then we can give ourselves a break, be honest with ourselves, and put our trust in Him.

We don’t buy, pray, commend, or justify ourselves into Heaven. God’s Grace is a gift.

And that’s truly the most wonderful news there is.

…

 

Painting by Steph Moraca

To Those Who Need Hope – Part 2 – The Pursuit of Perfection 

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We are broken people—all of us. We live in a culture that continually tells us two opposing things: 1) that we are perfect just the way we are (look at the popularity of the “self help” genre of books and articles) and that it’s society that needs to change, and 2) that we are doing something wrong and hurting others—sometimes even if we don’t realize it or if it isn’t true (look at our current “cancel culture” ethics).

It’s no wonder (and no secret) that we live in a polarized world. Therefore, it should come as no surprise to realize that we seem to also have two ways of looking at perfection: 1) we obsess over being perfect and become miserable because of the pursuit; 2) we realize that perfection is impossible, so we completely abandon the pursuit because there “is no point.”

I worry about the idea of perfection myself. My wife and I have a baby on the way, and I want to be the best father I can be. I’m concerned about making the right choices, and I want to be as “perfect” for our daughter (and future kids) as possible. But I know things won’t be perfect. I will make mistakes. I will get angry and say the wrong things. I will do the “right” thing, and learn later that I could have done something else that might have been better. If I get too wrapped up in being perfect, I will be miserable and possibly let it become obsessive, and that may have a negative effect on my family.

So what do I do? I realize that I, and my family, will not be perfect, but I will do what I can to be the best I can. I realize that I am broken and prone to making mistakes, so I will give myself some grace. I realize that life is unpredictable and that negative things will happen, so I will surrender to God and trust Him. I will let Him walk alongside me and be a part of everything I do. Because He wants to have that relationship with us. Relationships are a two-way street. They are reciprocal.

When it comes to discussing the idea of perfection, a number of Christians like to point out what Jesus says during the Sermon on the Mount: “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). Many well-meaning people use verses like these to either shame others for not being perfect, or to prove that “so-called” Christians aren’t really Christians because of their sins. But let’s back up a bit.

Jesus says this in the context of loving our enemies. He is teaching us—all of us—that we are his children, even the ones who persecute us, and that it is not enough to simply love those who are easy to love. Even those of us who are viewed as “the nicest person we’ve ever met” can be found among “the Gentiles” (Matthew 5:47), or those who are not Christians. We’ve heard it before, but it’s not enough to commit “good deeds” to get into Heaven and dwell alongside our Father. After all, who truly is good?

We are commanded to be perfect, even though God knows that we can’t do it ourselves. On our own, it is impossible to be perfect. Yes, there are ideals, and it’s important to strive for those ideals, but none of us can live a sinless life. And we know that God knows it’s impossible for us to live without sin, and that we are imperfect. He knows we struggle and mess up. He knows us better than we do.

This is where we lose a lot of people on this topic, even many Christians.

So what in the world do we do? How is this fair?

In Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, Christ speaks of His fulfilling of the Law (Matthew 5:17), in which He is telling us that we are made righteously perfect through our relationship with Jesus and His sacrifice for us. To state it plainly: through His actions we are made perfect in the eyes of God if we believe and trust in Him, therefore fulfilling God’s command to be perfect.

God is a just God, and justice requires us to pay the price for wrongdoings. We are given free will and the choice to take part in the relationship with God that I mentioned above, because true love has to be a choice. And God loves and respects us enough to give us free will and that choice. He has given us minds in which to think and debate and doubt and have faith. So there is a portion of responsibility on us. We have the Law to keep us in the right direction (remember: God made us and knows what’s best for us more than we do, even if we struggle to see that or understand it), but we struggle to hold up the Law. So there is Grace, and there is a mighty patience that God has for us. There is the sacrifice of Jesus to pay the penalty for what we’ve done wrong (justice includes fairness and atoning for wrongdoing). And Jesus isn’t merely some ambassador that God had appointed to take all the blame. Jesus is God Himself. And He chose to live amongst us—become one of us—and take quite literally the weight of the world’s sins on His shoulders and bear the punishment. And if that isn’t love, I don’t know what is.

—

Strive to be like Jesus, but realize that it’s impossible. However, do not realize this and think that there is no point to try, since you can never be as perfect as Him. You will always make mistakes; that is unavoidable. However, you must keep trying to do the best you can to best love and serve God, love and serve others, and love yourself (simply putting these things into practice will positively affect your life). You cannot despair in the fact that you are a sinner and always will be. You are not beyond saving. And why do you need saving? Because you can’t save yourself. 

Because of our imperfection and sin, we will always make mistakes, so know that no matter how hard you try, you will fall short in some way. But keep your head up and trust God. Let this knowledge give you freedom. You are imperfect but loved anyway. It’s not an excuse to do whatever you want, as actions done in that manner will lead you farther from God, and will have consequences in your own life. You will make your own miserable hell. God will not be inflicting you with punishment; you will be doing that to yourself. God knows the recipe for a good life. To reiterate, He understands humans and how they operate. He made them, after all. So He knows what’s best. More than we do.

Trust in God and love Him. Love others and work to better yourself. Another way of putting it that may sound familiar: 

“ ‘And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these’ ” (Mark 12:30-31).

 

Image credit: Sad Woman Looking Out The Window At A Sad Woman Looking Out The Window by Dave Konig

To Those Who Need Hope – Part 1 – Introduction

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Let me preface by stating something that’s obvious but not always clear, something that’s unavoidable and good to be reminded of: We all need hope.

This series – To Those Who Need Hope – is addressed to all of us.

There isn’t a single one of us who doesn’t need hope in his or her life. There isn’t a single one of us who doesn’t need the love of God. We need hope, and we need it all the time. We need the love of God “like we need a heartbeat,” as Rend Collective sings.

We are desperate for love and for hope. We see it in our movies, in our songs, in the art of history past and present, in each other, and in our own hearts. You can search “Why do we need hope?” on Google and read articles about “why hope matters” from Psychology Today, “why it’s so important to hope” from USA Today, and why we need hope as asked by users on Quora. We endure because of hope. It doesn’t matter if you’re an atheist, an agnostic, a Muslim, a Jew, a liberal, a conservative, black, white, man, woman, gay, or straight—you still need hope. You still need love.

Our lives are full of turmoil and despair and suffering, among moments of happiness and contentment. We can be easily trapped within the motion of things, within the flow of the world. We often find ourselves having to stop and take a step back, look at things in a different light, remember to breathe, and readjust. Our human condition makes it inevitable for us to desire and need both hope and love.

We need something to look up to, to look forward to, to aim at—to remind us that we aren’t alone. We need to know that we are suffering for a reason, that it is not done in vain. We need to be able to close our eyes and know that “this too shall pass.”

Many of us hope we get that job promotion, that special Christmas gift, that bigger, nicer house. We hope that this person we really like will like us back, that we don’t miss the plane, that it won’t rain tomorrow. While it’s okay to wish for these things, they don’t represent the same desire I am referring to. That desire is deeper. It’s within our souls and it longs for meaning and substance.

We are told to put our trust and hope into the Lord and his unfailing love (Psalm 147:11). That’s where our true, substantive hope lies. For every rejection, disappointment, struggle, death, every point of pain, there is the love of God, above it all. Bigger than it all. He suffers alongside us, and steps with us the entire way. If we put our hope in Him, all the worries, frustrations, and sufferings of life don’t seem as big anymore.

“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18).

Our suffering is temporary. God’s love is eternal. And our hope in Jesus Christ—our rock, our firm foundation—can get us through anything.

 

The next essay will deal with the pursuit of perfection.

Image by Freepik

The Way of Love

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“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).

Recently I was exploring Twitter and all-too-soon became bombarded with the bickering, bantering, toxicity, and chaos of “heroes from all sides” of every seemingly world-ending, catastrophic headline and social issue. In this wonderful world we know as the internet, anyone can speak their mind. Some share their opinions as an anonymous, untruthful source, while others shout theirs proudly and make sure you know who they are.

We like to be heard. We like to be seen. We like to make sure that people know what’s on our minds, and that what we are thinking and believing is absolutely correct. We must make our voices heard, because truth matters more than consequence…

Does that sound familiar?

It can be easy for us, as Christians, to unapologetically share the gospel. It’s good to share the gospel. As humans, we have this push inside us to prove to others that we know what’s best, that we are on the right side, that we are simply doing what’s best for others.

But we aren’t perfect. No one is. We live in a fallen world where it’s all-too-easy to fail and make mistakes. We live in a time in history when anyone can voice their opinion and share their input at the click of a button.

So while we may be trying to do what’s best for others, it’s vitally important to keep in mind a couple of things:

  1. We are sinners and will always be sinners. That does not by any stretch mean that we should simply accept that reality and not try to better ourselves. But it does mean that we desperately need grace (and desperately need to give it to others) and that we will do things that harm ourselves and others (even if we have good intentions).
  2. With that said, it is absolutely necessary to remember the words of Paul:

 

“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 ESV.

 

We need the love of God. We need the resurrection of Jesus. To some, these two points are corny and out-of-date. But if you take a look around, and if you look closely (and it doesn’t even have to be that close), you can see the inspiration of God in the nature and beauty of the natural world, you can see the evidence that we humans have the capacity for both good and evil, and you can understand that under everything lies a principle of morality. You can experience love.

The first verse in chapter thirteen of 1 Corinthians is especially applicable to our modern world: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” As much as we want to share the gospel and get as many people “on our team” as possible, we have to remember that we must do it with love.

Jesus died for us out of love. If He can do that, then we can certainly take pause, consider our actions and words, and practice love, the most renewable resource in all of creation.

 

Image by freepik.

Hardwired to Give

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Giving back doesn’t just help those in need; it also helps us. Many of us realize that giving is better than receiving, that we are instructed by God to give generously, and that giving makes us feel good. Let’s focus on that last point.

Giving makes us feel good.

Is that why we give? It may seem easy to argue that we only give because it makes us feel good—because, after all, it really does— but there is more going on there than we may realize.

“Accusations that you’re only giving to make yourself look or feel better can leave people feeling like they’re giving for all the wrong reasons; but researchers have expressed that without outside influence, participants almost always chose to give earnings or “gifts” to a charity, anyway,” says United Brain Association. “With the veil of anonymity at their fingertips, the feelings of joy they felt by being charitable compelled them to give regardless.”

So are we hardwired to give to others, as the quoted article suggests? There is ample psychological evidence that points to this being true, which serves as further evidence for the truth of what scripture says about giving:

“You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him, because for this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake” (Deuteronomy 15:10).

&

“Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you” (Luke 6:38).

There are many temporary and fleeting feelings in our lives. In fact, we can easily fall into the trap of hedonic adaptation, which happens when we do too much of a pleasurable thing to the point where the excitement is gone.

But this doesn’t happen when we give! The previously mentioned article by United Brain Association mentions a study conducted in the early 2000s. Because of the study, “[Researchers] found that acts of charity increased activity in the portion of the brain known as the anterior prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain associated with self-initiated behaviors, planning, and social cognition. This part of the brain is also associated with the pleasure centers, which encourage us to seek out mood-lifting behaviors and pleasurable activities.”

God has hardwired us to feel good about giving to others! Every little thing has been thought out, and the Lord keeps his promises.

We give out of the goodness of our hearts, and for the glory of God. The feeling we get is a byproduct, and an awesome one at that. We are instructed to give, and when we do so we feel the effect physically, psychologically, and spiritually.

 

Works Cited

United Brain Association. “The Power of Giving – The Psychology Behind Giving Back.” United Brain Association, 30 June 2022, https://unitedbrainassociation.org/2020/12/30/the-power-of-giving-the-psychology-behind-giving-back/. 

Photo from churchleadership.com: https://www.churchleadership.com/leading-ideas/giving-for-the-right-reasons/#prettyPhoto 

Community Outreach

We Are All Neighbors

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At Fairhaven, we like to use the word neighbor. Why is that?

 

Neighbor is a word to describe everyone we interact with, including our clients, our staff, our volunteers, our donors, our friends, our family, our community members, our church members, grocery store staff, bank tellers, restaurant workers, gas station attendants, mortgage lenders, coaches, teachers, CEOs, office managers, the people who reside next door—literally everyone. Our fellow human beings. We are all each other’s neighbors.

 

There is an invisible divide—sometimes even a barrier—that many of us have put up unintentionally between what we perceive as “us” and “them.” It doesn’t matter the context. “Us” and “them” could be seen as: rich and poor, believers and nonbelievers, secure and homeless. We can look at someone and say: “They don’t go to church,” or, “They are sleeping on a park bench,” and form an opinion or judgment about them. Not all judgment is bad, and some of these observations can help us navigate the world and practice discernment, but nevertheless sometimes these statements and judgments and opinions can form a divide between “us” and “them,” as if we aren’t all in this together. As if we aren’t all human and guilty of sin. As if we aren’t all children of God.

 

This is why we look at everyone we interact with as our neighbor.

 

There isn’t a single one of us who is infallible. There isn’t a single one of us who hasn’t done something he has regretted. There isn’t a single one of us who isn’t capable of committing sin. There isn’t a single one of us who can look in the mirror and say to herself that she has lived a perfect life.

 

We all have these things in common. All of us. We are all each other’s neighbors.

 

We need to lift each other up. We need to be courageous. We need to be discerning and careful, but not hide away from those who are suffering. We need to love, just as God loves us. We need to love and help our neighbors, just as Jesus did and continues to do.

 

“For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Galatians 5:14).