Back to our conversation about how can we learn to love others more.
The spiritually mature Peter (the one who wrote 2 Peter later in his life, not the one who denied knowing Jesus despite being told he would and adamantly rejected the idea that he would), suggests that we have all the divine resources available to us to live the kind of life where we naturally and routinely love others. Isn’t this essentially the same thing that Jesus preached? Didn’t Jesus say that the kingdom of the heavens is available to us now?
The question is how to we tap into these divine resources? Jesus talked about staying attached to the vine. Let’s get specific. How do we do this? If we are followers of Jesus, then we should want to know how he did it. That is why we need to eat the gospels. Yes, eat them (see Revelation 10:10). Take them into ourselves and digest them. Live them. Have you or are you doing that? They will give us some pretty direct examples and teachings to follow. What are those?
21 comments:
i think we have kind of already went over how to "tap in" to these divine resources...like pray and all that stuff...
i have been finding that if you are patient with people you can usually love them...i know there is more...but that is one that just came to mind as i read that question...
Yes we have talked about it. Have we mastered it? Pray? That is a general term. Foster wrote a book on prayer with a chapter devoted to each different type of prayer. The book had 21 chapters. What type of prayer are you referring to? If we do intercessory prayer will we tap into it?
Patience is a by-product of life in the kingdom, not a means (one aspect of the fruit of the Spirit). How do you get patience? Have you experienced what it is like to be really patient? What did you do to get patient? Did you just will it?
I would suggest all this needs to be cultivated. There are some specific means that the saints of the church have used reliably. At that retreat I attended a couple weeks ago, the woman that presented taught us about some of them that were used by the desert fathers and mothers from the 3rd century. These involve contemplative practices. I may be wrong, but I am not sure we can get where we need to go without a regular dose of contemplation. That seemed to be Jesus' approach if you read the black letters. Mastering the practices of contemplation require more than "going over." How about spending the next 3 years practicing?
Did you get my point about the gospels?
contemplation is a good one...but does that mean if i contemplate on how i should love people that i will get it? like you said practice too...but i think that its going to take more than three years on contempation to really get how to love others...its going to take a little more than that...
We do what is in our hearts (will/spirit). If we are not loving others as we should, our hearts are not in the right place. In this case, the heart is probably being influenced by the other powerful forces of our self.
Do we know from where those other influences are coming? If we do, maybe there are some disciplines that we could do that would transform the offending part.
In addition, where are the divine resources when we need them? They are there, but we need to tap into them. Contemplative activities are a means to tap into them. It is not so automatic. We can think about it all we want. We can desire it. We can ask for it. We can study it. We can blog on it. But these will not get us there by themselves.
It would be a good assignment to ask spiritually minded people how we can become present to the divine resources. What would they say?
i dont know what they would say for sure...i dont really know what i would say...what would you say to that question?
Uncle Mark!!!!
How's it going?....I just saw that you posted on Jakes Blog....he has some great poems and things like that on there.....and also a link to mine! I can't wait to see you guys this summer at the beach!
Hey Tommy! Can you help Aaron out here? How would you answer the question: How can one become present to the divine resources spoke about in 2 Peter 1?
The beach!!! It is going to be good, real good.
Whew....this is a great conversation...I like how you both bring up good points and ask great questions...this is what Jesus and the people of his time did in the synagoge. They read scripture and then talked deeply about it. they bound and loosened things by doing this.
Aaron, earlier you were talking about loving other people. And my brother Jake brought up an interesting point the other day. Jesus tells us to loves others as we love ourselves....but how are we supposed to do this if we don't even love ourself? I think that too many Christians don't know what it looks like to love themself in a healthy way, in a way that Jesus implies. The first step into knowing how to love others starts with knowing how to love yourself...
Gotta get back to work...but look forward to continueing our discussion!
Hey Uncle Mark, I found your blog too!
This conversation just blew my mind! All I can think of is that as a teacher it is really hard for me to love my students (cuz I usually just want to ring their necks!). It seems like when I try to love them I just get frustrated, but if I ask God to love them through me he usually does. It's just a matter of me remembering to invite God into the situation even if I don't know what to pray for, or how to pray for it.
thats a good point about loving others as you love yourself...never really thought much about that one...at least like that...
i understand the whole getting frustrated when you are trying love some one...that has happened to me a few times...expecially if the person is someone who i find annoying or something...its hard to love those kind of people...but those are really the people i think i dont do a very good job of loving...cuase its easy to love those who love you(i think that is a quote from someone...dont remember who...)...and i think i do pretty well with that...i mean there is deffinatly room for improvment...but the whole loving people that are hard to love is what im not so good at...
p.s. Mark...if you going off on one of your "being three different people at the same time" like you did that one time on the stumin forums...kudos for thinking of creative names!...
Aaron:
Hahaha...no, they are really my nephews! But now that you mention it, that would have been great to do! I just discovered that they are bloggers. (Tom and Jake, I have been known to go schizophrenic and take on different identities online, like you apparently have Jake!)
Great comments, but remember the subquestion at hand. How do we tap into the divine resources? God is more concerned about who we are rather than what we do. He wants us to become the kind of person who easily and routinely loves others, even those that are annoying or worse, like that Cho dude.
This is not supposed to be hard, like trying on our own to love everybody. Jesus said to "learn from me...my burden is light." So if it feels like we are having to try too hard or we keep failing despite our intentions, we are probably going about it wrong.
Let's go back to what Peter said. He said we have all the divine resources available to us in order to live like Jesus did. If you go back to my graphic of "Paul McCartney" several posts ago, it shows what I am now calling the "McCartney Effect." Which is basically living life in the kingdom now. It shows a heart that is in touch with the divine resources. How do we do that?
Stop everything else you are doing until you can get some answers to this question. The standard church answers are probably wrong so go beyond them. Stand on the shoulders of giants!
Hey Uncle Mark, I'm not trying to but in on your blog, I just really love your question, and I want to know what you think about this!
I literally have been thinking about it all afternoon. How do we tap into the diving resources available to us to live like Jesus, and really love others?
My first thought is that we can't. There will always be sin getting in the way of us living perfectly like Jesus, obviously. But I say that because I think our younger generation of Christians uses that as a cop-out. In our society I feel like we have more of the attitude of live how you want and hopefully God will work through you.
But we forget about discipline. Your thought on contemplative activities was interesting to me because I think everyone I know would have a hard time with it. In a world where we have constant distractions bombarding our every sense, we have a hard time being still and contemplating anything!
So then I started thinking about Jesus. Being fully a man, he had to tap into his Father's divine resources, and I really believe that he did that when he went off to be by himself (in the black letters of the gospels). He was always going off alone, and I assume it was for contemplation/prayer.
Uncle Mark, you said it would be good to get to a place where loving people wasn't a struggle, but maybe Jesus' human nature struggled with loving people. I'm just thinking out loud here, but I feel like human nature compels us to love ourselves first. It's so unnatural for us to love others. Even when we think we are loving others, most of the time we are really loving ourselves first (have you read Till We Have Faces by CS Lewis?). I know God is love, and that Jesus was God, but he was also man and struggled with the same stuff we did, and that's why he was always going off alone to have his contemplation time and tap into those divine resources.
So, we have the Holy Spirit, the almighty love and power that was available to Jesus, actually living inside of us. We just have to tap into that and release it! But how?
I believe that the Holy Spirit will not work fully in our lives unless we let Him. He isn't pushy, and waits for me to be willing for Him to take over in my life. And unlike salvation, a once and done thing, I think it is a continual thing, of constantly being willing to be used by him.
Practically, for me, it is simple. I just have to REMEMBER God throughout my day. Whether it's contemplating, praying, or dwelling. But it isn't simple! I feel like it's a battle just to not forget about him after 10 minutes of daily life. We always think about it as a battle with swords and spears, but it is much more difficult than that. It's against spirits and principalities of our dark world, and their main goal is to get us to forget about God through regular, every day life.
What would it look like to dwell on God for one whole day? I think it would look like Jesus, and I think his Spirit would love people effortlessly through us. And dwelling on God like that takes lots of training, discipline, and times of contemplation like Jesus did.
Sorry this is so long, I just really want to know what you think!
i agree with that...so maybe the real question is not "how do we tap into the divine rescources we have"...but "how do we let the Holy Spirit control our lives in such a way that we will constantly be tapped into the divine rescoures"...or something like that...
and your little comment about sin and that it will always be there to hinder us brings up a fun little side conversation that me and Mark have had before which is...do you think that as humans we really cant be perfect until we go to heaven or do you think that it is possible to be perfect as a human?(Jesus did say that he wanted us to "be perfect as the Father is perfect"..)...just an interesting question...cuase if we are able to be perfect...then this whole loving others and everything would be so very much easier...
Tom and Jake:
You are not crashing our party. This is what we do. Stay and post as long as you like. I am sure Aaron would appreciate hearing from someone else!
Excellent thoughts Jake and Aaron. Jake, you did well to look at Jesus' life. He is our master, we are to learn from him about how we are to live.
Can we learn to love others like Jesus? This is the trust Jesus part of being a follower. You have to assume that we can do what he commanded. Otherwise it is all a cruel joke. Assume progress. Many Christians do not. Their theology messes them up. They are waiting for heaven and missing the point of Jesus' message.
So what did Jesus do? You correctly observe that he got away on a semi-regular basis. What did he do when he got away? The black letters say three things about those times: he goes away alone or with a few trusted disciples (solitude), he spends some time (hours), and he prays. How did he "pray?" You get a hint from John's gospel around Chapter 15 where Jesus said that he said and did only what the father told him. So, you can safely assume that he did not spend 40 days or even hours doing intercessory and petitionary prayer. He did not go with a list, he went to get a list. Based on what his followers have been doing, he probably did some form of meditation at first to push back the distractions of the mind and body. Then he listened (silence). It is here where he gets centered and is able to discern what was the Father's will. It was during this time that his will and the Fathers were one.
Okay, as a Jesus follower and apprentice. Are you doing this? Do you have a method that you are learning? Have you experienced what happens when you try to do this? You are right, we are not good at it. But I have gone on record and said that I do not think you can enter into kingdom living without doing this? Do you see why?
But that is only one part of the equation. Some monks had it wrong, at least the ones that stayed cloistered. The monks who figure it out, after few years, left the monastary to engage with society of do great things. Jesus was that way. When he came down from the mountain, he was busy. More busy that we are. So how was he during this time of busyness? Read the black letters. What do you note about how he was engaged with others? How did he stay connected to the divine resources during those times. How does he notice the touch of a woman in a crowd when he is one his way to raise some important person's daughter from the dead? How did he notice Zacheus in the tree and know to call him down. What do you call this way of being? You are getting close with the remembering God practice. Is it working? Are you having some succes with this?
It has been called practicing the presence of Jesus (a la Brother Lawrence) or mindfulness. Do you know what these practices are and how to do them? They two require a learned skill.
These two practices, contemplative prayer and mindfulness (which the disciples of Jesus have taught over the centuries) are linked in an important way and are important practices for kingdom living.
Check out how Jesus operated with these two practices. Read through mark, rather eat it. Take it into you. Notice how he would be with others. He was attentive to the spirit and mindful of the present moment. Contrast this with his students. After you reflect your way through Mark, spend another 6 months going through the other gospels. You will begin to get a real sense of how Jesus did it and how we are to do the same.
Just tonight, I was talking with a friend who is learning this stuff. He described an experienced he had during his contemplative prayer time. I will post on this as it is instructive.
Aaron:
Jesus was perfect. How about his # 1 trainee, Peter. Did he become perfect? How about John or James?
Awesome! I love Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence. It's so hard to do though! It really does take practice.
"as His Divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue"
- I love how we read over things like this all the time and don't really think twice about it until someone actually askes a question about it. I LOVE IT
I think His divine power is the Holy Spirit. And I agree with what Jake said earlier about how it is a continual process of yeilding yourself to Him.
Why do you think Peter doesn't explicitly state how to "tap into the divine resources?" I like your thoughts about how Jesus takes time away from the busyness and has His contemplative time, but what does that exactly look like? Is it the same for everyone? I know I feel close to God when I am in nature...and Jake I know you can relate...you have always had a desire to be alone in the mountains with God......but what about others.....sometimes the best way for me to actually relax and sit at the feet of Christ and listen..is to play my guitar, sometimes without singing just playing a chord progression and just sitting at His feet.
But there is the other side to tapping into it too. Not only is there the contemplative side, but there is a side of action. Dicipline not only in the quiet moments but also in the busy/active moments of life. Moments where we have to step out in faith with something...in a way that we are screwed unless God shows up. That type of action, perserverance, virtue, self-control, godliness.....the things mentioned in 2Peter5. Some of the most blatent and divine power intances/examples in my life are when I am putting faith into action. (ex. sharing my faith). And I think the more we do that, the more we begin to understand and clearly recognize the Holy spirits power and leading in our life.
Thoughts?
The bible is short on process, probably for good reason. Can you think of some good reasons? Unfortunately, the church is also short on process, to the detriment of its mission and participants. And, no, most certainly not all methods will yield the same result for everyone, but the overall process is probably the same. There are many methods for contemplation. But I am not sure you can do kingdom living without a healthy does of it. There are also some common obstacles that we need to be aware of.
But this is all head stuff. Our avenue for the divine resources (Holy Spirit) starts at the core of our being (heart/will/spirit), not in the mind or body. Jesus had lots of teaching about the heart. How good are we at getting down to that level? If we are not, what consequences does this have?
I think the bible is silent on the "process" of this because God never really works the same way twice. I forget who said that quote "Never make a principal out of your experience, let God be as original with others as he has been with you".
I meant "principle"!
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