Recently I was in a meeting of sorts with a variety of individuals from different walks of life. As we tried to talk about the church, the same topic continued to come up. People talked about how they started going to church and they stopped doing all the stuff they use to do that was bad. There is a pretty constant list of those behaviors that are not acceptable that we give up in the Christian church, but I wonder as I spend more and more time focusing on discipleship, does behavior modification equate to life transformation? I am not so sure.
Let’s look at the list of behaviors that are typically modified. People usually quit: drinking, smoking, swearing, using, abusing, chewing, gambling, stealing and lying. There are all good behaviors to quit doing, but how many of those behaviors can be changed apart from Christ? It seems like there are non-believers who get themselves off many of those things, with help of different methods and plans. Do they really equal transformation, or is this simply behavior modification?
II Peter chapter one gives us a picture of life transformation and the process. As we begin the transformation and the things that grow in us as we grow in Christ.
“For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, 7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. 8 For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 2 Peter 1:5-8
Those qualities are things that indicate the transformation that comes from Christ, and they fall in line with the Fruit of the Spirit. This passage in II Peter shows us how we begin in faith and grow until we can show the agape, unconditional love.
My fear is that we have so many with behavior modification, but don’t have love. We know from I Corinthians 13, all the behavior modification in the world apart from love means nothing. I see so much of a lack of love for the Saints and love and compassion for the world. I see this movement towards end times fanaticism where we want this pre-millennial rapture and then the years of tribulation to punish all the lost people. It reminds me of Jonah sitting on the mountain side, waiting for destruction to fall down on Nineveh. Jonah had no agape love for the people, and I wonder if we are any better. Are we being transformed, or are we simply cleaning up our act in an attempt to impress God?
When I’m focused on the things of Christ I don’t even pay attention to those “behavior modifications,” they may happen but that is not the goal. While the world has the behavior as the end goal, our goal is God’s glory and the behavior modification is a by-product. When one is consumed with their Savior they don’t even notice the modification behavior, but others do, and we give the praise to Him!
I like what Oswald Chambers said about this. He said .. referring specifically to the Beatitudes .. that they were “.. not behaviors to be emulated .. anyone can do that .. but that they’re roadsigns to let us know the Holy Spirit is having His way with us”.
I think he went on to explain that, when we see those changes occurring in our lives when we weren’t just trying to “do that”, that’s when we know God’s changing us.
Incidentally, that was the first clue to me .. nearly 50 years ago .. that I truly was a believer. Profanity and racism suddenly became repulsive to me, when they hadn’t been, before.
I would imagine that most of the people who just change their behavior are not doing it to impress God, bot to fit in with the Christian culture they find themselves in. A lot of Christians add to scripture by requiring certain behavior or avoiding certain things in order to be a ‘good’ Christian. But I agree with Bob: when I first became a believer, some things, like racism, became repulsive to me. Over time, with the nudging of the Holy Spirit, other things have changed too. The point is, it’s not because I just tried to change my behavior, but let God change me. As usual, I’m still a work in progress.
“I see this movement towards end times fanaticism where we want this pre-millennial rapture and then the years of tribulation to punish all the lost people.”
God does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked, nor do I.
Understanding eschatology can lead one to believe that Jesus is, in fact, coming soon and therefore motivates the believer to warn others to be ready.
Would that not be loving to do so?
Regardless of one’s viewpoint on eschatology, we’ve all probably encountered a person or (worse) a pastor who talk about the judgment passages in Revelation with a glee about the lost’s destruction, rather than a sobering confidence in the justice of God. I think that’s what Dan is trying to get at.
Well said Josh Collins.
Dr. J.S. Bell said years ago, “Never say A-Men when you preach about hell.”
I am not at all advocating that all pre-mills are unloving and want to see the wicked get destroyed. I have seen a growing sentiment among the American church since 9/11, frustrated that Islam encourages them to kill us, and Christian faith encourages us to love them. The result has become an increase in the study of God’s wrath, much like Jonah wanted to see Nineveh destroyed.
As we were having lunch today, Dan revealed a secret to me. He put that line in there mostly to annoy me. It worked.
Wait a minute. Maybe a rock just fell on my head. Dave Miller, does Dan Barnes, the well educated C.E. guy serve with you?
No CB, I’m at the Godly SBC Church in Sioux City.
Dan,
I was about to fall hard into the sin of envy.
Agreed, both good points.
I am extremely comfortable with knowing that God WILL repay the wicked. Paul even reminds us of God’s promise to repay in Romans 12:9.
It’s more of peace of mind knowing there will be divine retribution against any and all things that infringe on the holiness of God. One of the great promises of Scripture is that one day God will judge the wicked.
However, as a believer, I understand that if it were not for the grace of God I would still be under that penalty and so we ‘plead with men to be reconciled to God’.
I hate clichés but I think this one fits pretty good here – hate the sin, love the sinner right?
Sometimes cliches become cliches for a reason, I guess.
‘return good for evil’ . . .
‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do’ . . .
‘you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good’ (Genesis)
The ‘holiness’ of God is far above our understanding, I think.
Dan – GREAT POST!!! Thanks for the reminder to check our Faith and our walk against the Biblical standard not each other. I must admit that I sometimes find myself closer to the beginning of that process than towards the end.
Dan – I read this again and got something different out this time.
Why are we so hesitant (or incapable) of discipling one another? We have to give up on our “so called life” in this country and begin to get into each other’s lives more if we are to walk with one another in discipleship.
I have no long-term or concrete examples of this in my life. But I want it and want to be a part of it in others lives: to grow and watch others grow and become more like Jesus. To see Him change people from the inside. I hope that this can happen at my current church.
I’m a post-mil and want to see the whole earth converted, beginning with this generation and continuing for a 1000 generations and thousands and thousands of planets, as mankind reaches the stars. My ordaining pastor and Dr. R.G. Lee were noted and known Pre-mills, pre-tribs. There positions in my opinion was the result of eschatological manipulation by people from the 1600s-1800s, transmitted from England by J.N. Darby through Scofield and his Bible, and the aim originally was to get Rome off the hook as the antichrist. Filters work well at preventing us from seeing those verses that might contradict what we want to believe. Our problem is the scientific method, the analytic focus, which never notes that sometimes the original hypothesis and the null hypothesis, too, can both be true. What is needed is a more synthetical method. Dr. Jess Moody of FBC West Palm Beach said back in the 60s, “We are suffering from the paralysis of analysis.” Thinking outside the box, looking outside the parameters established by others is a necessity in history, if one is going to get at the truth…as in, for example, Black History. The same goes for theology and interpretations of the Bible. Just consider the impact of the idea on my thinking as I look at the Book, the idea that: The Bible is inspired by the Omniscient God, and, therefore, it follows that it must reflect that depth of wisdom commensurate with the fact of its inspiration. that idea opened the Bible up to me in a way I had never considered previously. It made me appreciate Pastor John Robinson of the Pilgrims who participated in the Synod of Dordt at the invitation of the Dutch Reformed and his statement to the effect, “Who knows what new light is getting ready to break forth from God’s word.” The production of a country like America, inspite of the masonic type structures erected upon its biblical foundations is a tribute to ideas that sprang forth from the pages of holy writ. Now that the atheists and agnostics and others are beginning to get a hold of the reins, we shall see the bibilical aspects vanish from our way of life with a consequent loss of all freedoms. All of these blogs might well be good evidence to convict us all and send us to mental institutions as one chaplain of the United Nations, head of the first Bush’s Outcome Based Education desired and declared concerning Bible believing preachers. We might well be seeing one another in prison sooner than might be expected.