Help for the Weak, Part 3: How To Exhibit Biblical Strength

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What Do You Think? Wednesday

 —To whom much is given, much is required (Luke 12:48). Selah.

Yes, that is one of those ‘think on this’ verses for me. I think about why this verse is there and why the more I get the more I have to give. Sometimes it just doesn’t seem right, at least in my human mind where I make up the rules and conjure my own strength. But this verse is biblical, supernatural, beyond our expectation and reach. But whatever God expects us to give we have the ability to give. He makes sure of that (Ephesians 4:11-13; 2 Corinthians 9:7; Philippians 2:13). This is true in all things, including exhibiting biblical strength.

In parts one and two of Help for the Weak I share what biblical strength is and why we are to exhibit biblical strength. This, the third and final part of this series, I explore how we should display biblical strength. First, those of us who are spiritually mature have the capacity to control our desires and allow God to bring the weak into a mature faith. Our faith keeps us centered on the macro of life (the Kingdom of God) and not the micro of life (what someone eats, drinks and other self-imposed standards that don’t go contrary to God’s word). This is important because there is a lot of work that goes into focusing on the Kingdom of God. Focusing right doesn’t leave us time to focus wrong.

So do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men (Rom 14:16-18—ESV).

To help us focus on the Kingdom of God, we must pursue righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Righteousness is correctness in thinking, feeling and acting; peace is tranquility between individuals; and joy is gladness that is caused by the Holy Spirit. We are called to renew our minds so we walk in the new life we have in Christ. This is the pursuit of righteousness; this is seeking to get our thinking, feelings and actions right according to the Bible. That alone takes diligence, but we are also called to live at peace with all people as best we can (Romans 12:18) and to focus on the joy of our salvation. Seeking the Kingdom of God is a full-time agenda. It is the macro of life. It is the best life.

We are able to pursue righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost because our faith is 1) in our convictions that don’t go contrary to God’s word; 2) solid enough to allow us to suspend our convictions so we don’t offend someone who doesn’t share our convictions; and 3) rooted in our confidence that righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost are superior to all else.

Those who have biblical strength are those who know how to seek righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Our firm conviction of our freedoms in Christ and our trust that Jesus Christ is Lord and that we have eternal salvation through Him should make focusing on the Kingdom of God natural to us. Asserting our rights to our freedoms in Christ is what those walking in human strength do. Righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost are where we must focus. These are the crux of our faith.

What do you think about this post?

Help for the Weak, Part 2: Why Give Up Your Freedoms

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On Friday I had a good time of fellowship with one of my good friends. We walked and talked and ate and talked, but nothing trivial was on our minds, though we laughed at the little things, like hurting legs and sweating like pigs in the 90 degree weather. We talked about her recent graduation from seminary, other ministry pursuits, our families, our concerns, our strengths, and our weaknesses. Then she asked me this: “Has anyone ever asked you about your love for jazz and have you had to explain it to them?” No one had and I never had to explain this freedom in Christ that I have. I told her this. She said, “I was just wondering if someone younger in the faith had asked you about it.”

“Personally, I don’t see how jazz could be a stumbling block for younger Christians. There are no words, sensual lyrics or other bad language,” I said. “But, there could be sensual notes, I guess. And the music could take someone back to a sinful time in their lives,” I added.

“Anything could cause someone to stumble,” she said. And I shook my head and nodded as she recounted her faith experience in a church that called any activity not labeled Christian as sin: going to the movies, listening to music and dancing topping the list. Her husband had to cease some activities on her sin list so she wouldn’t begin to question his walk with Christ and compare his walk with hers–his sinful and hers sanctified, and maybe even questioning if he were capable of leading her.

Through a number of experiences, including study of the Word, deep introspection and examining the lives of those strong in the faith, she has begun to walk in her freedom in Christ, publicly displayed at her 40th birthday celebration where a major portion centered on dancing (albeit to Christian music). She had begun to see that her denomination had put a burden on her that God Himself does not require. As she matured in her faith she was able to see that her attempt at pleasing God was structured by man and never intended by God. God had to reveal this to her, and my friend’s story is one we should well remember as we embrace biblical strength.

Remember, biblical strength is putting others’ needs above our own, not for some self-seeking martyrdom but for the glory of God’s Kingdom. So in the context of Romans 14 and 15, from which our text came in Part 1, we should refrain from dancing, drinking wine or listening to jazz if this will negatively affect a believer’s faith. Our voluntarily laying down our freedoms until others can grow in theirs is necessary for two main reasons: 1) so we don’t cause our weaker sisters to stumble and 2) it’s God’s job, not ours, to usher the weak in faith into maturity.

Through observation and listening, we will be able to tell which of our liberties could cause another believer to be drawn into sin. For instance, I know someone who had an issue with lust and seeing half nude images or reading a racy scene in a novel will cause her to have lustful thoughts that she will consider acting upon. I would never suggest us going to a movie or for her to read a book that might have sexual imagery, no matter how discreet or brief. We might think that all Christians should just walk in their freedoms in Christ so we might choose to encourage them to go see that movie or read that novel. When we do this, we are likely creating the stage for their downfall and trying to usher them prematurely into maturity. This is us walking in our human strength and trying to force others to ascend to where we are spiritually. We may have an understanding of our freedoms in Christ–a big part of spiritual maturity, but trying to force others to get there before time shows that we are trying to do God’s work and is a sign that we still have some growing to do.

Romans 14:4-10 challenges believers not to judge one another’s choices in honoring God because we all belong to God and He is the one who will judge us. Verse 4 gets to the crux of the matter: “Who are you to condemn someone else’s servants? Their own master will judge whether they stand or fall. And with the Lord’s help, they will stand and receive his approval.” God has the spiritually mature and immature in His hands and is well able, without our help, to get us to mature and please Him. As my husband, Pastor Flynn Smith, who directs our church’s Christian education department and years ago that took a group of us through a yearlong study in Romans, said: “The totality of the Christian existence is summed up in the fact that we belong to God and exist for His purposes.” We, therefore, must embrace biblical strength because that is what God has called us to. Doing so won’t cause our weaker sisters to fall into sin and will give God room to minister in their lives. God ministered to my friend and we have to trust that God will fulfill His word for others, too.

What freedoms have you had to give up so you wouldn’t cause another believer to stumble? What struggles have you had in conceding your liberties?

My One Thousand Gifts List

#651-660
Walking the Dequindre Cut with Joshua
Being available to care for a friend’s child
Flynn cooking dinner without me asking, just because he wanted to bless the family
Getting to the Prayer Walk on time
Seeing thousands of Christians gathered to pray to God for revival of the Detroit region
The wonderful praise and worship and the atmosphere of worship
God showing me four major distractions to revival: food, fellowship, fun and fame
A restful afternoon of a movie and sleep
Polishing my nails
Watching “Bride Wars”

Friday Feature: Six Ways to Stay Cool with Fruit

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The heat wave that has swept the nation has most of us thinking about how to remain cool. This is on my mind today as the high temperature in Detroit is expected to reach 100 degrees. With the exception of taking my mom to therapy in the morning twice this week, I have remained in my cool, air-conditioned house. And I thank God for my cool house because powerful storms this week knocked out power for many surrounding neighborhoods and they are feeling the heat. But if you have been blessed to still have power you might want to try my six ways to stay cool with fruit:

Cold Fruit—The most basic way to keep cool is simply to eat cold fruit. My family has been enjoying watermelon and pineapple mixed as a salad. I have added to my mix blueberries and cantaloupe and sometimes strawberries. I love how these taste together. At the end of my bowl I have wonderful fruit juice.

Natural fruit juice—You don’t have to wait until you get to the end of your bowl to drink fruit juice. In fact, to have cold fruit juice you can put the cold fruit in your juicer or blender and have a tall glass of freshness without refined sugar and other unnecessary additives. Use fruits with a lot of water to create a juice. Use these along with the softer ones, like banana, mango and papaya, for smoothies.

Smoothies—I make these almost daily for my boys and me. Their favorite is Mango-Strawberry-Banana with honey. I put these and about five ice cubes in the blender for a luscious treat anytime of the day. I even use frozen strawberries that I buy or freeze myself to add to the drink’s refreshing coolness.


Frozen fruit—Frozen fruit is not just for my smoothies; I like to eat them. My favorite is blueberries that tend to melt in my mouth. If I let my frozen strawberries sit at room temperature for a couple of minutes I eat those, too. Otherwise they are too dense to bite. My friend Carla loves frozen grapes. Frozen raspberries are a nice treat, too.

Frozen fruit ice cream—One treat that I love that sends chills throughout my body is ice cream. I just can’t eat it whenever I want because I don’t like the taste of, and even if I did I refuse to buy, cheap ice cream. Cheap ice cream has high fructose corn syrup and a bunch of other ingredients that I can’t pronounce and have no idea why they are in ice cream. When I buy ice cream I am eating Haagen-Dazs or some equivalent that only has cream, milk, sugar, eggs and a truly natural flavor. But with that ice cream being high in fat and cholesterol, I opt for frozen fruit. I like to freeze a banana, a ½ cup of chopped up mango and ½ cup of pineapple and then blend them with a little orange juice to give them that ice cream consistency. I get a sweet treat without the cholesterol and fat we all need to avoid.

Fruit juice popsicles—I wonder what natural fruit juice would taste like as popsicles. My boys and I pour bottled juice in ice trays to make popsicles so I think I’ll try juicing some fruit and freezing it to make popsicles. I can’t imagine that these won’t be good.

I hope you try or continue to use these methods to stay cool this summer or for a healthy treat anytime during the year. These have refreshed me and I hope they refresh you. Tell me; in what ways do you keep or plan to keep cool with fruit?

Help for the Weak, Part 1: What Does It Mean to Be Strong?

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What Do You Think? Wednesday

“Now we who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength and not just please ourselves” (Romans 15:1).

I’ve both embraced and shunned that verse, heralding my strong black woman mantle then tossing it when I can’t take the ‘be everything to everyone’ pressure anymore. This was my act of balancing extremes, seeking to be what was expected and retreating, knowing I could never do all that was expected of me. Many of us live this schizophrenic reality, only available to those of us who seek to allow others’ definitions and even our self-generated definitions to direct our actions and paths. But this verse doesn’t speak to strong black women who have fought on their own accord, defeating the worries and needs of family and ills of society. This verse speaks to all people who have had the privilege of God’s grace in their lives to be spiritually mature. This maturity enables believers to put others’ needs above their own, not for some self-seeking martyrdom but for the glory of God’s Kingdom. Since this is the case, we must understand 1) what strong means; 2) for what reasons we are to embrace this strength; and 3) how we are to exhibit this strength. I will discuss each of these in separate blog posts starting today with “What Does It Mean to Be Strong?”

In order to answer the question, “what does it mean to be strong?” in the context of Romans 15, we have to look at Romans 14 for our answer. Here the Apostle Paul talks about how believers should deal with those who are “weak in faith.” By default we know that the believers Paul is guiding are those who are strong in faith. To be weak in faith here means to be doubtful about what Christians can and cannot do. So those “who are strong” in Romans 15:1 and implied throughout Romans 14 are those who have no doubts about what freedoms in Christ they have. They are firm in conviction and faith, assured of their beliefs and confident in their trust that Jesus Christ is Lord and that they have eternal salvation through Him. Those who allow this type of strength to guide them operate based on their convictions that don’t go contrary to God’s word and in faith in the One who gives and sustains all life, physical and spiritual. This is the strength that the Bible is calling us to seek. Spiritual maturity is biblical strength.

Focusing on Jesus as the One who gives and sustains all life helps us to remember that we can’t give life to anyone or sustain anyone’s life; we are vessels that God chooses to use as facilitators between Him and others. We who are strong need to know this: when we forget that we are facilitators and not life sustainers, we cross over from biblical strength into human-defined strength and are left helpless, hopeless and totally spent. Operating in our own strength and not biblical strength is the reason we shift from taking up our strong black woman mantle to dropping it; we were never meant to carry that mantle and doing so will cause us to inevitably drop it. But with an eye focused on biblical strength, God will sustain us as we work to facilitate on His behalf. A part of our facilitating includes embracing biblical strength for the benefit of immature believers. More on that next time, but for now why not comment on the following?

How does knowing the difference between biblical strength and human-defined strength impact you? Please, tell me what you think.

In the next post, explore with me the reasons we are to embrace biblical strength.

Parental Disdain for Children

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The last two weeks have overwhelmed me with the number of child abuse cases I have heard about. The volume and the acts have both taken life out of me and infused me with new mother life, making me more diligent to love my children the way God intends for me to love them. Even with my own resolve, I was moved to challenge others to examine themselves for even the slightest case of parental disdain for children, particularly their own. Read more about this in my latest EEW column, that begins below:


I warn you now. This article ain’t pretty. But how can it be, examining parental disdain for children that encompasses child hatred from gross sexual and physical abuse to cruel and even subtle mental and emotional abuse? The only way depths of sin can be extracted and discarded is if we identify and search for it, looking externally and internally. The ugliness of this wicked world and, sometimes and in some ways, in our homes, challenges us to look at the ugliness in our own hearts.

I cried like a baby when I heard the news: a 10-year-old girl weighed just 32 pounds, emaciated and malnourished, starved by the hands of her mother who locked the child in a closet where the child slept and relieved herself. Undoubtedly, the child experienced more than physical starvation, longing for her mother’s love, hoping someone would relieve her from pain and shame and confusion and wondering why this someone wasn’t her mother, why her mother was the one to do this to her. Even as I write I cry when I think of her; the 3 and 4 year old whose mother left them home alone so she could go party; the 4-year-old stepson of gospel singer James Fortune who Fortune scalded in a bathtub; and the victims of Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State football coach found guilty on 43 of 45 counts of sodomy and rape of young men entrusted to his care. All this, and the thought that Sandusky is apparently guilty of many more abuses, including sexually molesting his own son, has had me sad and contemplative for days. Read more here.

My One Thousand Gifts List

#641-650
An invitation to speak at the Mother’s Day luncheon for the LIFT Women’s Resource Center
A relatively stress-free evening alone with the children and the challenge they presented (like one of the little ones wetting his pants and flooding the bathroom floor while I was trying to cook dinner
My husband demonstratively enjoying my house burgers
A rich time of fellowship with God in spite of Nate interrupting me
Another year for my sister
Getting an unexpected box of food from my neighbor that I was able to share with someone in need
Charyse doing my hair
Giving clothes to Sharon for Caleb, my nephew
A flattering and encouraging critique consultation from Ms. Burke
Talking to Nichole on her way home from Chicago