Are Christians Hypocrites?

“Cleared once, Catholic priest faces new sex abuse allegations.” “NE Pennsylvania Pastor charged with killing wife in 2008.” “South LA Pastor arrested in teen sex case.” All you have to do is look at the news to realize the church is far from perfect. And no doubt, many people have been disappointed, deceived, and sometimes severely harmed, by professing Christians they have known.

All this is enough to turn many people off of Christianity completely. “Why should I believe in Jesus when his followers do such awful things?” they ask. It's a perfectly legitimate question. But I think the answer to this question requires some careful thinking.

First of all, it is important to remember that some of these “hypocritical” Christians are not genuine Christians at all, but merely people who claim to believe a set of doctrines but who have no real love for Christ.

1 John 3:18-20a says, “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us.”

What John is getting at is that it is our actions that demonstrate whether our faith is genuine. Protestant Christians do not believe that people must perform good works in order to be saved, but good works are the sign that a person has been truly converted. True faith is always accompanied by good works.

Luke 6:43 says, “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit.” Here, people are compared to trees. Just as a good tree does not bear deformed or sour fruit, so also a genuine Christian should not be habitually doing things that the Bible condemns as wrong. If a person is habitually lying, stealing, hurting others, shirking his or her responsibilities at home or at work, etc., and does not see these things as wrong nor repent of them, it is doubtful whether this person is a Christian. Real Christians sometimes do experience periods of backsliding, but they will always eventually be convicted in their hearts and repent.

That being said, the second point to consider is that Christianity sees people as essentially sinful - that is, all people are born with a tendency to do what is wrong and not to do what is right. Romans 3:23 says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Ever since Adam and Even ate the forbidden fruit in Eden, the inclination of people's hearts is continually towards what is evil and not what is good. Take children as an example. Everybody talks about how children are so innocent, but then why is that we have to train children to be good, and we never have to train them to misbehave? Children misbehave naturally, and they must be trained to behave well.

You may say, “Well, what about people who spend their lives doing lots of good things and giving to charity?” While giving to charity is certainly a much better thing than living a life of dissipation, if it is not done for the glory of God, it won't get you to heaven. Furthermore, Scripture says that anyone who transgresses one commandment in the law is guilty of breaking the whole law. So even if you were able to go through your life only breaking the law once (perhaps by telling one lie or stealing one item from a convenience store,) you would still be guilty of breaking the whole law, and liable to punishment.

This seems harsh to us, because we are always comparing ourselves to other people, and since all people are sinful, it's easy to find others who are “worse” than we are. We tend to think of life like a scale, with our good works on one side, and bad works on the other. As long as the good outweighs the bad, we should be fine right? But this is not the way that God's standards work. God's standards are not like ours. God is perfect in every way, and his standard is perfection. It is an impossible standard for us to meet, which is why it was necessary for Jesus to die for our sins, thus paying the penalty that we would have had to endure.

The point I'm getting at is that because from a Christian standpoint, all people are naturally sinful, it should not be surprising when you see people, even Christians, sinning. Once you become a Christian, it does not mean that you will stop sinning altogether, but rather that you are able to fight against sin and you ought to be sinning less and less. We will never be perfect in this life, but we should be becoming more and more like Christ.

Even the Apostle Paul talks about struggling with sin. In Romans 7:21-25, he says, “So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

Paul's point is this: Even those who are Christians are tempted to sin, and often fall. Thankfully, we are able to repent of our sins and ask for God's forgiveness, which he willingly grants us because of our faith in his son Jesus.

So what do we make of professing Christians who fall into great sins? First, we should ask whether they appear to be repentant. Have they acknowledged that what they did is wrong and are they seeking to make amends and change for the better? If the answer is “no,” it seems doubtful that they are truly Christians, though as I mentioned earlier, sometimes true believers do go through periods of backsliding where they may even deny the faith that they once claimed. But if they are true believers, they will eventually repent. Second, it is wise to learn from others' mistakes. Often, Christians fall into big sins because they have been neglecting reading the Bible and praying regularly, they have avoided being held accountable by others, they are not regularly sitting under the preaching of the Word and taking it to heart. Christians need to be careful to be regularly making use of the “means of grace” (prayer, Bible reading, sacraments, and preaching) and living transparently and in accountability to others.

Going back to the question of whether Christians who fall into great sins should be a cause for people not to believe, I would say that whether Christianity stands or falls is not dependent on the lives of Christians and whether they seem to be living up to certain moral standards. This is not a completely irrelevant point, but it is also not the only crucial point to consider. The main question that must be resolved is, “Who is Jesus?” If Jesus is who he claimed to be – the eternal, perfect Son of God, who is just but also merciful and compassionate – then we ought to believe in him, regardless of whether his people experience periods of backsliding. Jesus recognized that his followers were not going to be perfect – his own disciples abandoned him as he hung on the cross – but he nevertheless promised to love them and be faithful to them to the end. And it is His words and his person in which we should place our confidence, and not in the good (or bad) behavior of his followers.

N.B. I realize this post focuses more on an apologetic question rather than a question of Christian living, which is what the rest of this blog has focused on, but I do think this is an important issue to consider, and I thought people might be interested in an essay on the topic.

How People Change

If you could create and market a pill that people could swallow and then instantly have the willpower they needed to make changes in their lives – everything from dieting to being kinder to their spouse, to learning to love their not-ideal job – you would be an instant millionaire (or billionaire, more likely).

Nearly everyone has something they wish they could change about themselves (and the ones who don't probably don't know themselves very well!). But actually making the change is one of the hardest things to do in life. Just acquiring the desire and motivation to change is hard enough, let alone having the creativity to generate a plan to change and then mustering the courage and perseverance to stick with it.

The Change Process According to Rick Warren

So how does real change happen? In his book God's Answers to Life's Difficult Questions, Rick Warren says the change process involves four steps or phases: crisis, commitment, confession and cooperation. Most people need to go through a crisis – a really difficult situation – in order to realize that they need to change. Without a crisis, the vast majority of people are content to keep on doing what they've been doing. After all, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right?

The second phase, commitment, is about sticking with the change process. It's not enough to just have a crisis and realize you need to change. The next step is to dedicate yourself to changing and to walk into that process with a measure of dedication and enthusiasm.

The third phase, confession, involves acknowledging to God (and others, if necessary), that you've screwed up and need his forgiveness. It's about owning our sins and shortcomings and asking for grace and strength to overcome them. This is a vital part of the change process, because generally the things we need help changing have roots in wrong attitudes or beliefs or habits that we've developed, often as a result of things we've been exposed to from other people or from the media. Although we may have acquired these bad things because of other people's wrongdoing, it does not mean we are not responsible for our sins. If we were perfect and incorruptible, we wouldn't be tempted to think, say, or do wrong things, even if we saw other people doing them.

The fourth phase, cooperation, is all about cooperating with the Holy Spirit so that God can change us. We can say we want to change all we want, but if we're not cooperating with the Spirit, it's kind of like saying, “I want to lose weight,” and then going off and eating a big piece of chocolate cake.

If you're truly interested in changing some aspect of your life, let me suggest doing the following. Pick a habit or attitude or thought process that you want to change, and then spend some time answering the questions below (which I have adopted from a similar list created by a counseling professor of mine at Westminster Seminary, Dr. David Powlison). Have one or more people you trust hold you accountable and ask you each week how you're doing with regard to that issue. And pray, pray, and pray some more that God will forgive you for the times that you blow it and give you strength to overcome.

Questions:
1)Describe the habit/attitude/thought process you're trying to change. What actually are you doing or thinking? How long has it been going on? When and where does it happen? Why do you think it happens? Who are you around when it happens?

2)What are the roots of your behavior/thought process? What kinds of things have happened in the past that may have contributed to it? How did it develop? What underlying beliefs about yourself, others, or God do you have that may be causing you to think or act in these ways?

3)Describe what it would look like for you to change. What would your life look like in an ideal world with respect to this issue? For example, if you are struggling with sexual impurity, what would it look like to be pure? What would you be thinking about instead of your impure thoughts? Remember that the goal is to love God and love others more, so think about how you could focus your efforts on those things instead of the behavior or thought pattern you are struggling with.

4)Develop a plan for change. This will usually involve regular prayer, studying and/or memorizing Bible passages relevant to your struggle, reading other books that will shed light on your struggle, thinking of practical ways to curtail the harmful thought process or avoid (or replace) the problematic behavior, and finding someone (or multiple people) who can hold you accountable in this area.

5)At the end of each day, evaluate yourself. How did you do today? How did things go? Take time to repent of the times when you fell back into old patterns and habits, and to ask God for his help as you continue to seek to change.

Finally, remember that change is a lifelong process, not a one-time thing. It's like living a healthy lifestyle - it happens by adopting new ways of thinking and doing and then constantly putting them into practice. It's not like a crash-diet, where you lose a lot of weight all at once and then go back to eating potato chips and twinkies.

If you start to feel overwhelmed or discouraged, take a break. Spend some time alone, relax, and think about why you're trying to change. Ultimately, we should be motivated to change not because we want to impress others or become proud of ourselves, but because we want to become more like our friend and Savior, Jesus. Don't feel like you have to become a totally different person overnight - God only gives you what you can handle, and change is best accomplished by biting off only what you can chew and working slowly and steadily toward your goals.

Resolving Conflict

The love or goodwill you have in your relationships with others is like a beautiful but fragile robin's egg. When you experience conflict in your relationships, how you handle the conflict will either preserve your love and keep it healthy and whole, or it may cause it to break into pieces and turn into a crushed, sticky mess.

Conflict is all about desires that are at war with one another. You might have a conflict at work because your boss wants your paperwork done a certain way but you don't think that's the most efficient use of your time. Or you could have a conflict at home because when your husband comes home from work, he wants to relax and watch TV, while you want to talk about your day. Sometimes you experience conflict with friends because you're annoyed by their habit of arriving late to everything or saying they'll do something and then not following through.

James 4:1-3 says, “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”

So often, conflict arises because we are seeking comfort, or pleasure, or love, or respect, and we do not receive it. These are not bad things in and of themselves, but our desire for them has become warped when we want them so much that we begin to harbor bitterness and resentment against those who do not give them to us.

So how should you handle conflicts? How do you know who's right? How can you handle conflicts in a way that helps preserve the goodwill in your relationship instead of destroying it?

- Before you start yelling at whoever has made you upset, take some time to stop and think things through. What specifically did the other person do that has made you angry or caused a disagreement? What is the other person valuing and what are you valuing that is causing the disconnect? Sometimes you figure out that you may both be wanting the same overall goal (e.g. a workplace or home that functions smoothly), but you may be disagreeing on how to arrive at that goal.

- Try writing something down or talking things through with someone you trust. This can be helpful for sorting through your thoughts and getting a fresh perspective on the situation.

- Evaluate. Are your desires and wants realistic? And more importantly, are your desires in line with what God wants for your life (i.e. are they in line with what the Bible says we should pursue and desire)? How about the desires of the person with whom you are in conflict?

- Ask yourself: Is the conflict over a matter that is important enough to make a big deal about, or is it something you can forgive and forget? Here, it's important to be aware of your own personal tendencies. Do you tend to run towards conflict, or avoid it? If you are conflict averse, you are going to be more likely to sweep things under the rug that ought to be addressed. But if you have a confrontational personality, you may be more likely to bring up anything that annoys you – even if it really shouldn't be a big deal. Here again, it may be helpful to ask for advice from someone you trust and see whether they the issue at hand is something worth discussing.

- If you decide the conflict is important to bring up and discuss, seek to be as gracious as possible in the way that you address the issue. It's important not to make blanket, accusatory statements (e.g. “You never pay attention to what I think!” or “You're always making things difficult!”), because the person you're talking to will simply feel attacked and will start becoming defensive. Instead, you can try something like, “When you do (or say) _____, it makes me feel _____. Next time, could you try ______ instead?”

- Be quick to acknowledge your own shortcomings and sins and ask forgiveness for them. This is very, very important! If your spouse doesn't complete an important task you asked her to do and goes shopping instead and you yell at her afterward, remember to ask forgiveness for your angry words. Yes, she should have been more responsible, but you are also responsible for your reaction, even if you feel like you couldn't help getting mad.

- Remember that your ultimate goal is to become more like your Savior, who is the ultimate example of patience, long suffering, kindness, and love. He is very patient with us, and we should seek to be patient as well with those who have offended us.

Helping the Depressed, Part 2

Where is God?

Last week I wrote about depression as a loss of hope and a feeling that one's life will always be one-unending, monotonous, gray landscape of sadness and despair. An aspect of depression that I did not mention, and one that generally contributes to the sense of hopelessness, is the feeling that you are far from God. I went through a period of depression during my sophomore year in college, and during that time, it often felt like my prayers were going nowhere. It was as though my prayers were balloons hitting a concrete ceiling and getting stuck there, unable to make their way to the intended destination.

It's really the most awful feeling, because it seems like just when you need him most, God is nowhere to be found. There is no comforting sense of peace, no sense that you are God's beloved child, no feeling that this is temporary and that you will soon be delivered. That very downcast verse at the end of Psalm 88 (“You have taken my companions and loved ones from me; The darkness is my closest friend”) begins to aptly describe your life. So what do you do with these feelings? And how do you help someone who feels this way?

What next?

If you are the depressed person, it can be helpful to examine your life and discover what you may be doing or believing that might be perpetuating these feelings. Sometimes, people are engaged in some kind of disobedient behavior that is causing them to feel far from God. However, this is not always the case, and if you are a friend to a depressed person, it will not be helpful for you to immediately assume that your friend must have done something dreadful, otherwise he or she wouldn't feel depressed. It is very possible that your friend may not have committed some sort of deep dark sin that has led her into depression. Perhaps she is depressed after losing her job or after losing her mother to cancer. Or perhaps she simply feels like her life isn't going anywhere – that she is stuck on a never-ending plateau. But whatever the cause, a person's thought process during depression tends to play a big role in determining whether the depression will continue indefinitely or lift in a fairly short period of time.

Self-deprecating thoughts like, “I should have done X, Y, and Z differently. Then this never would have happened!” or “I can't believe this happened to me. It must mean that I'm a failure!” reinforce depression. Even thoughts like, “I thought I was a strong person, but being depressed for this long must mean I am emotionally weak,” can really erode a person's morale. To help a depressed person, you can strive to understand what kind of dark thoughts are oppressing your friend, and then seek to counteract those thoughts with the truth. Even if the truth is that your friend really should have done something differently, you can remind them that God is always ready and willing to forgive us for our failures and shortcomings, and that he loves us in spite of these things.

Depression as a test of faith

Depression often tries a person's faith. When faced with the sense that you are suffering (because depression is a form of emotional suffering) and God is distant, what do you do? Do you assume that this must indeed be the case, and that God has abandoned you? Or do you remind yourself of God's promises to never leave us or forsake us (Joshua 1:5) and his affirmation that he is close to the brokenhearted (Psalm 34:18)?

It is easy to give into hopeless thoughts when all your emotions are screaming that you feel miserable and that God isn't listening. But it's often helpful for depressed people to be reminded that, first of all, feelings of deep sadness and misery are not unfamiliar to God's people (see Psalm 88, and the book of Job). It can be tempting to think that depression is a very un-Christian emotion, and if we are subject to it, it must mean either our faith isn't real or that we're pretty unredeemably lousy Christians. But quite frankly, David writes plenty of psalms in which he describes being sad, lonely, and distressed, and plenty of missionaries, pastors, and other faithful Christians have experienced depression. Second, these depressed feelings often persist because we don't understand God's plan at the time and we begin to doubt his love, justice, and wisdom (again, see the book of Job). Doubting God's character always brings confusion and unhappiness. Third, we need to be reminded of the truths that God expresses in His Word and of his past acts of faithfulness and love. God is truly a faithful and loving Father, and it's essential for us to cling to that factual reality, even if at the moment, our emotions seem to be undercutting the truth.

Helping the Depressed

Moments of sadness make their mark at some point in everyone's lives, whether due to illness, a break-up, death in the family, loss of a job, or any number of other causes. For some, these moments become drawn out into days, weeks, even months or sometimes years. Unremitting sadness usually gets labelled depression, and while about 20 million Americans experience depression at any given point in time, it can be difficult to know what to say to a friend who is struggling with these dark feelings.

Most of the time, depressed people don't want to interact with others. They prefer to hole themselves up somewhere and dwell on their negative thoughts. It's much easier to shut yourself off from the outside world when you're depressed than it is to engage with it. Emotionally healthy people tend to look at this as though it were absolute foolishness, and when you're on the outside looking in, it is, but most healthy people tend to discount depression's oppressive power.

As Christians, we are engaged in spiritual warfare, and Satan uses all kinds of lies to deceive us. Depressed people struggle with the lie, “Life is painful, hard, and joyless, and it's always going to feel this way.” It's easy to dispel this lie when your melancholy feelings only last for a few days and then clear up, but when they drag on for weeks or even months upon end, it becomes a lot easier to believe that things are never going to get better, and your life will simply be miserable forever. As Elizabeth Hurtzel wrote in the book Prozac Nation, “That's the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it's impossible to ever see the end. The fog is like a cage without a key.”

Ed Welch always tells the students in his Helping Relationships class that depression can feel like different things to different people. For some, it simply feels like waking up to empty despair, morning after morning after morning. For others, depression is like the absence of feeling, a coldness inside that refuses to be thawed by either joys or tragedies. The little things that used to make you happy now make you feel no different than life's calamities. You could come home to a good meal or to an empty house and it would make no difference. You would remain unmoved. If you're talking to a depressed person, it's important to ask what exactly their depression feels like – does it feel like sadness? Emptiness? Something else? What you tell them may change depending on their response.

Ideas for Helping a Depressed Friend

I don't know that there's one key to overcoming depression, but here are a few things to keep in mind when you are dealing with a depressed person.

Don't avoid the person just because he or she is depressed. In fact, try to seek the person out on a regular basis. Yes, it would be easier to avoid him or her, but it will be worse in the long run. Your friend will likely recover faster if he spends time with others rather than stewing alone in his misery.

Know that it will be easy for the depressed person to self-medicate with drugs, alcohol, TV, video games, food, or other types of temporary pleasures. Sometimes it is advisable to try to probe gently to figure out what the person is doing to help himself or herself feel better. Your friend may need to seek professional help if his depression is closely linked to an addiction of some kind.

Be willing to listen to what he has to say. Don't immediately launch into a lecture on how it's ungodly to be depressed. Remember that David writes some pretty dark psalms. However, do try to instill some hope in the person. It might be helpful to ask him if he can think of past instances when something bad has happened and he felt like everything was ruined, but later, things changed. A college professor once told me, “Faith is looking at God's past faithfulness and trusting that he will continue to be faithful in the future.” A person can do that both on an individual level and on a corporate level, seeing how God has been personally faithful to him and also how God has been faithful to his people through the ages, as attested to in the Bible.

Encourage the depressed person to continue to be faithful in loving God and others, even though she doesn't feel like it at the moment. A lot of serving God involves patient perseverance in doing good, even when it doesn't feel like what we're doing is worthwhile. Faith involves going forth in obedience to God's commands in all seasons of life and in all circumstances, and as we grow in our walks with Christ, we will also grow in our ability to obey him even when it's the last thing we want to do.

Reassure the person of your love for them and your commitment to walking with them through what they're facing. Depression can be a lonely battle, and letting a person know you will be there for her is important.

Cultivating Intentional Conversations

Intentional conversations are often the key to to helping change people's lives. Spiritually intentional conversations deal with what's really going on in a person's life, and often help people see themselves (and others) more clearly. Author, counselor, and Pastor Paul Tripp illustrates this vividly through the following story: “My brother Tedd, who has always been a mentor to me, was riding home with me after a conference on marriage and family counseling. We were going about sixty-five miles per hour when he said to me, “You know, Paul, we probably should apply the principles that we learned this weekend to our own marriages. Why don't you start?” He then proceeded to ask me a series of questions about my relationship with Luella. I don't remember any of the specific questions, but I do remember the profound impact they had on me. It was as if God was tearing down thick velvet curtains that stood between me and an accurate understanding of my marriage. I saw myself with clarity, and what I saw wasn't pretty! Through those questions I watched myself do and say things I could not believe. Through those questions I finally understood Luella's experience and her frustrations. I saw my defensiveness and self-righteousness, and I saw that I had to change for the sake of the Lord and for the good of my marriage. Those questions were truly life-changing for me.”

Tripp recorded that story in one of his books on counseling, called Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands. What I love about that story is how aptly it illustrates the importance of asking good questions! Good questions are one of the keys to having a fruitful intentional conversation. If you can learn to ask people the right questions in a tone of voice that is inviting and not overbearing, it will be much, much easier for you to approach sensitive topics with others and also much easier to avoid having your friends or family feel like you are lecturing them. Although I should add, much also depends on your willingness and ability to be a good listener and not interrupt too frequently.

How to Have Intentional Conversations

Rule #1: Before you even start asking people questions, the first rule of thumb is this: people will only talk to you honestly if they trust you. Sounds simple and obvious, right? Sure, but ask yourself, “Am I the kind of person people would be willing to trust with the more intimate details of their lives?”

So what does it mean exactly to be a trustworthy person? The following list of questions might be helpful to ask yourself:

Do I often ask people how they're doing, and do I really mean it? Or am I just expecting them to say, “I'm fine” and move on with life?
Do I gossip about other people and share their personal news with others, or am I able to keep things in confidence?
Do I pray for others often? And do I pray with others often?
Do I genuinely care about other people's difficulties, or do I hope they'll tell me everything is going well so I don't have to face their pain or hard questions?
Am I able to give other people's burdens to the Lord in prayer, or am I weighed down by their sorrows or trials?
Do I share openly with others about my own struggles and am I willing to ask them to pray for me? This is key. People will feel more comfortable sharing with you if they know you are also willing to be vulnerable.

You don't have to be a perfect person before you can help others, but you should at least be aware of your weaknesses so that you can seek to grow in those areas.

Rule #2: Start at the surface and work your way down. To quote Shrek (the jolly green ogre of animated movie fame), “People are like onions. They have layers.” Don't try to get to the inner core before you've gradually worked at peeling back the outer layers. If you're just getting to know someone, it's not a good idea to start by asking them things like, “What's your biggest fear?” or “What's your greatest weakness?” or even, “How can I pray for you?”

Try to start with basic questions like, “What have you been up to lately?” “How is your family?” “What's new with you?” etc. Over time, as you get to know the person, you can start to introduce questions that are designed to go deeper, like, “What has the Lord been teaching you lately?” The goal is to get to know people well. As my Professor Ed Welch would always say, you want to know people well enough that you're aware of at least three areas of struggle for which they need prayer.

Rule #3: If you want to have an in-depth conversation with someone, choose an appropriate time and setting. In other words, standing in the church foyer at noon may not be the best place to have a long conversation about the struggles of the past week. Your friend is likely to be shifting his weight and looking at his watch because he's in a hurry to go home and eat lunch. If you want to go deeper with someone, set up a lunch date or meet her at a coffee shop. Setting is important, because people's expectations often heavily influence conversations. Most people do not expect to have deep conversations when they see you in passing, so it's best to save your more intentional questions for a time when they'll be relaxed and ready to chat.

Proverbs 10:20 says, Proverbs 10:20 says, “The tongue of the righteous is choice silver, but the heart of the wicked is of little value.” God clearly tells us here that wise and gracious words are invaluable. So don't be afraid to ask good questions. As long as you ask them graciously, most people will be happy to answer. If they're not, it may be because they're not ready to open up yet. If that's the case, just do your best to be a good and trustworthy friend. That in itself will speak volumes.

Growing in Love: A Sign of Maturity

Sometimes it seems like “Love your neighbor as yourself” has become a Christian stock phrase, right up there with, “I'll pray about that,” “Jesus loves you,” and “Everything happens for a reason.” Not to say that any of these phrases are wrong in and of themselves. Each phrase contains a powerful truth that, when applied correctly, can be life-changing.

Take loving your neighbor, for example. Most Christians realize this is what they should be doing, but many think this means having warm and fuzzy feelings about all the people you meet. As everyone knows, this is virtually impossible. So what does it really mean to love your neighbor? And how are we supposed to show our neighbors that we love them?

Something that has struck me during the past two semesters of biblical counseling classes is that loving people is a lot more fundamental to my Christian walk than I am inclined to think, and it also involves a lot more effort and sacrifice than I'm inclined to muster. Prior to seminary, my typical reasoning about loving my neighbor ran somewhere along these lines: “I'm supposed to love my neighbor, so I guess what this means is that I should love my family, be a responsible employee, be nice to my friends, and be cordial with everyone else I meet.” So far, so good.

But while that sounded perfectly fine and nice when summed up in a neat statement like that, I began to realize that I had dumbed down my standard to fit what I was comfortable with. This realization was hammered in for me when I took a pivotal class at Westminster called Helping Relationships, taught by Ed Welch. Dr. Welch talked a lot about what it meant to love people, and a few of the ideas that he introduced me to were the concepts of enjoying others and letting them move me. What he meant by this was that part of genuinely loving people means enjoying them. In other words, actively savoring being around them, the way you do when you're around a good friend who makes you laugh and brightens a bad day. Learning to enjoy another's presence is harder when you're with some people than with others, of course. Some people just seem to rub me the wrong way. But I began to see that if I wasn't actively searching for the good in other people and actively looking for something in them that I could appreciate, it was going to be practically impossible for me to love them.

The other concept Dr. Welch outlined for me was the idea of being moved by other people. Let me explain what he meant by this. For Welch, letting someone move you meant letting their words make an emotional impact on you – really letting them touch you inside and not letting what they were saying simply be water under the bridge. Another way of putting it might be to talk about being fully present in your interactions with others and really listening to what they have to say. As Dr. Welch talked about these things, I began to see how it was easy for me to be “nice” on the outside to people without really being moved by them. How easy it is to exchange pleasantries with someone, smile, and be polite, without really caring for them!

Maybe for you it seems like there's not much to be moved by in your conversations with people. They're just not telling you anything that's that interesting. At this point, it may be time to pause and ask yourself, “Why is that? Am I bored because I'm preoccupied with things in my own life, or is it because this person is just not telling me the full story?” Engaging stories nearly always involve conflict, and anyone who has any age on them will have stories of heartbreak and suffering and relational difficulties and spiritual struggles. Whether they choose to share them with you will depend very much on whether they feel they can trust you.

More thoughts about how to actively love people to follow next week...stay tuned!