one big word

Reality is many things. Reality is that I am not going to post much during this season of my life. Reality is that this is for a lot of reasons. Reality is that they are not all legitimate reasons. Reality is that I spend a huge amount of time up at my house working on it. This leaves little time for family and such. Reality is that with my wife teaching she has been using my computer most nights, meaning I cannot post then. Reality is that when I do try to post the pathetically slow rural internet connection can take literally hours to publish, and sometimes not at all or only after repeatedly losing what I have written. Reality is that I likely will never again hold a job where I can spend hours each workday reading and studying my Bible and posting about it. Reality. Reality is also that I am not reading my Bible as much as I need to. Reality is also that I have an ongoing struggle with contentment, sovereignty, prayer, life purpose and a host of other spiritual issues. Reality is many things. Reality though is that God is good.

In Sunday School this past week I had my iPad so I could use the Strong's Concordance app to look up words during church. This may or may not be a good thing. This verse was one that was being discussed:

1 John 3

"19 By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; 20 for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. 21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; 22 and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. 23 And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. 24 Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us."

The focus of the lesson was on prayer, but I was seriously hung up on this word translated "confidence". It is translated in different ways in different places in the Bible, and in truth it is used in a lot of different ways. I like words like this when I find them. It means that this is a big word. English doesn't have many words like this. There are four main words that this one can be translated. Confident, Bold, Plain, and  Open. This is a great word. I want to put an example of each one so I can remember how God uses this word in the Bible:

Acts 28:31: "Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him."

Ephesians 3:12: "In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him."

John 16:25: "These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall shew you plainly of the Father."

John 11:54: "Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews; but went thence unto a country near to the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim, and there continued with his disciples."

The hard thing for my monolingual English bred brain to realize is that it is not that this one Greek word can mean four different things. It is that this one Greek word carries one idea that encompasses all four and means them all concurrently. Now that is cool. This is more than a word, it is a state of being. What would it mean to be confident, bold, open, and plain at all times? It would mean to be real. Churchmen use the word "authentic". To know who we are, to be unashamed of it, to not hide it behind an entire vocabulary of of overused cliches and to live that reality openly before the world. That is what this word means. To be real. To make truth your reality.

Historically I have found little of this word in the church as I have known it. I have found only a little of it in myself, and that only recently, and now in the last two months, when pulled from my safe culture, has what small measure I had of it faded? The key phrase is found in the 1 John passage. It says that I will have this word... if my heart doesn't condemn me. My heart. I know from so many past studies what is meant by the heart. It is my innermost part. The part that makes me "me". The seat of the emotions and thoughts. My person. My very identity. If that part doesn't condemn me, then this is a word that will describe my existence. What a challenge. It is hard and to a degree judgmental to state that I believe that the vast majority of those who claim the name of Christ lack this word because they are condemned by an exposition of their hearts. They are about themselves. Whether they serve legalism or materialism, whether they are chained to their hedonistic lust or their ascetic pride, they stand condemned by the fact that their heart is not in line with the heart of the Creator whom they claim to serve. A term I have heard before is "token fealty". Does it describe the average churchgoer? Does it describe me?

Really this is what I have been going over with that "okay" post from a few weeks ago. I could have posted again on it. Since that time I have read lots more of the Word and all I see is men and women who measure happiness and grief, pain and pleasure, success and failure, safety and danger and so much more by the impact it will have on the next world not this one. It is a hard thing to study and leasure yourself against. Paul, on death row, states this:

 "17 But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion's mouth. 18 The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom" (1 Tim. 4)

What was victory? People heard the gospel. What is rescue and safety? His heavenly kingdom. Death row didn't factor into it. It had no bearing; carried no weight. Because Paul's heart didn't condemn him. It exposed that his entire being, all that he ever would be, was wrapped up in the purpose and glory of God. In fact those were his next words:

"To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen."

After a TINY amount of trial and testing (compared to what so many have gone through and go through now in many places), I am unsatisfied with the condition of my heart. I cannot compare myself to other Christians any longer. If the kid in the desk next to me got a 40 on his test, it doesn't make my 52 look any better. I must ask questions like "What scares me?", "What makes me happy?", What would I need to be content?", or "What would it take for me to die ... confident ... bold ... openly and plainly"? Until the answers to these questions are conformed to the person and will of God, I will remain where I am too much of the time. Doubting, intimidated, anxious, guarded, and private.