When I was a teenager I was into music and songwriting. Most of my writing were my thoughts around my faith. One song I wrote has particular implications today and shows my thinking. It was called “Not a Pharisee”. In the lyrics, I begin with those words, “I Am Not a Pharisee, I pray I never will be.” Then I recount the Biblical message in the lyrics toward the characteristics of a Pharisee.
The Appearance of the Gospel
I was a believer at a young age and my unity in Christ was confirmed. But as I think back about those lyrics that I wrote I realize a struggle was going on in my heart to understand the difference between believing in my appearance of the gospel versus my clear understanding of it. The very nature of the song expresses my desire to ‘not be like those sinners’. It was a way of being that was about the approval of others, a sort of performance-ism and perfectionist that would define most of my faith for years to come.
The naivety in this line of thinking is that it has since been revealed to me the distinction in my faith and that truth has been twisted. It is not that I should strive to ‘not be like the Pharisee’, but that I acknowledge the fact that I am the chief of sinners and identify with them, as bad as the pharisee, the harlot, the adolater. My heart is desperately wicked and this is where the change starts to permanently happen in a heart.
I believe I am not alone in this kind of propensity to believe in myself over true faith in God. I am a doer and a fixer at work, at home, and pursuing my own path and accomplishments. What is the juxtaposition of a culture that wants to believe that we are good enough rather than a realization that we instead must ‘come as we are’? We come as we are in our wicked desperation for God. God wants us to boast in the Lord and in our weaknesses where we prefer to boast in what we have done or are doing in our own might. A desire to ‘not be a pharisee’ is a subtle desire to boast in myself.
The Path Toward Maturity
1 Corinthians explains the path toward maturity, wisdom, and life with Christ. And Paul starts in chapter 1 with us boasting in the Lord and in our weakness. Our success in life is an abundant life that is contrary to our understanding of worldly success. Yet, how do you counteract this in a Christian sub culture that for years has praised their full-time ministers with monetary gifts, applause, and the approval of men? Even the non-full time minister desires the approval of their minister, rather than their God. They seek to ’not be a Pharisee’.
Enter the Holy Spirit and With It Abundance in Knowing Joy and Peace
The Holy Spirit makes us alive in Christ Jesus (Rom 8:9-11). We are no longer constrained to the temple and God’s presence. We now are the temple of God and He works in and through us.
The abundant life means spirit-filled living and is about the presence of God even when we feel far from Him. Like living water rushing into our body, it uproots that which is dead, fallow, and hard and replaces it with what is true and living and good.
There is always a tendency to believe in my will, i.e., ‘the Pharisee’. A good Christian does the right things, attends church, reads the Word some, and serves in ministry. At the same time, you can live desensitized to the Holy Spirit’s work of abundant life in Christ when you live in selfishness. Selfishness hides your inner struggle with fear and shame. We look like we’re living live on the surface when we are really dead inside. Now with the internet, we can move into further degrees of our wickedness living one way in public and another way in private.
The Fruit of the Spirit is a Heart In Line with God’s Abundance
The Fruits of the Spirit are love, kindness, faithfulness, self-control, patience, joy, and peace. For years I did not truly understand peace and joy, they seemed distant and vague. Instead, I often believed in where my heart was turning, the fruit of the ‘internet’ or the fruit of the ‘corporate work world’. What are characteristics of those things when that plagues and desensitizes us in our true identity as a believer of Jesus? We miss out on abundance, not abundance of worldly success but one of “secret and hidden wisdom…what God has prepared for those who love him”. This is a wisdom of the heart living in the kingdom of God on this earth and in Heaven.