Instead of telling people what to do,
We need to tell them who they are.
Some of us have been told what we want for our lives. ‘You need to go to college.’ You need to become a lawyer.’ It just doesn’t sit well with us.
We’re told by someone what God wants us to do and not do. We’re told we shouldn’t drink or cuss or watch certain movies. We’re told we should want to have “quiet times” in the mornings and talk to strangers about “a relationship with God.” We’re told we should want to go on “mission trips” and “witness” to people, so we do it even if we don’t really know what the words mean. But often just for a while.
After long enough, what looks like faith isn’t really faith anymore. It’s just compliance. The problem with mere compliance is it turns us into posers.
Rather than making decisions ourselves, we do what everyone we respect tells us we ought to do, and we sacrifice our ability to make choices of our own. The fix is as easy as the problem is hard. Instead of telling people what they want to be/do, we need to tell them who they are.
We’ll become in our lives whoever the people we love the most say we are.
God did this constantly in the Bible. He told Moses he was a leader and Moses became one. He told Noah he was a sailor and he became one. He told Sarah she was a mother and she became one. He told Peter he was a rock and he led the church. He told Jonah he’d be fish food and, well, he was. If we want to love people the way God loved people, let God’s Spirit do the talking when it comes to telling people what they want.
All the directions we’re giving to each other aren’t getting people to the feet of Jesus. More often, the unintended result is they lead these people back to us.
When we make ourselves the hall monitor of other people’s behavior, we risk having approval become more important than Jesus’ love.
“So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.” Colossians 3:12-17 NASB