know thyself

I really enjoy stumbling across a word like "godliness". To think you know what a word means and then find out not just a deeper meaning, but really an entirely different meaning is a great experience. However today I am struck by a different experience that is also pretty cool and even a bit sobering. I read the following passage and looked up all the words I underlined:

"11 But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness.12 Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses."

Looking up all those words I discovered ... nothing. They all mean basically exactly what they look like. Some were incredibly basic. Man of God translates anthropos of theos. The most basic way to describe a human. any human. But he is of God. It displays though the great marriage of attitude and action. I really am tempted to paste in the James passage on faith and works, but it's so familiar and I feel that it is again represented here. After a call to the attitude of godliness, Paul goes on to encourage and explain the ACTIONS that will arise from that attitude. When I first began to get excited about truly following God and loving him and having real relationship with him and my wife and other believers I was enthralled by this relationship attitude concept. All you need is love. After an early life spent being hit over and over again with actions actions action and appearance appearance appearance it was so amazingly refreshing to see that my God, first and foremost, wanted me to have an attitude of love toward him. My actions didn't define my faith. My actions didn't matter. Oops. Did I just write that? I sure did. I wrote it because that is how I began to think and it was an unhealthy swing in the opposite direction.

I overreacted. I was so intoxicated by the freedom of having a relationship with God that was more about love and relationship than performance that I somehow managed to overlook an incredible amount of Scripture. Maybe I can say that I had seen the do's and don't of Scripture for so long that ignoring them for a while to focus elsewhere was warranted but I have to honestly say no. It wasn't truly healthy. I had exchanged one unbalanced view for another. This has changed again though.

I was talking with my wife last night and I have learned a bit about myself from talking it out. I'm now a complete mess. I still seem to have as a bit of a default setting an impersonal view of God that overlooks his love. When I begin to slip a bit and live in my own strength I tend to follow God out of ... well I don't really know what to call it ... reality. I follow God because he's true. I don't really have a choice. There's not a post-modern bone in my body. When I know something is true, I adapt. But that's a loveless faith. It's my default. I don't like it. It works both ways. When I live this way, I not only express my love to God less, I basically live like I think that he doesn't love me. He's just that impersonal all powerful God. It's gets fairly fatalistic. It came up because my wife told me that she knew we would be okay whether I got a job or not. I basically felt like "it doesn't matter if I think we'll be okay or not, God's gonna do what he's gonna do". All I can I do is buckle up and deal with whatever he decides to throw at us. While not entirely wrong from a theological sense, it does show that I do indeed have a lack of the understanding of the deep love of God for me, and also that there is no way I can have this attitude and love him as I should. In short, it's a problem.

This is where all this comes back around. It is true that attitudes such as godliness are primary. That discovery won't change. But to be of primary importance is different than to be of solo importance. This is the truth that must be a reality in my life. Primarily, Paul calls Timothy and his congregation to the attitude of godliness. Then, after that, he also calls them to FLEE, PURSUE, FIGHT, and TAKE HOLD. All strong concepts. I've taken the godliness step. I revere and respect him. But these are actions that now must follow. They are strong words. Fighting verbs. Action verbs. They are the types of words that describe warriors. According to Paul they are the words that describe anthropos. People. of God. If I am a man of God. If I am simply a weak basic human who has aligned himself under the kingdom of the Almighty, then I will have an attitude of godliness. I will also FLEE, PURSUE, FIGHT, and TAKE HOLD. It's time for action.