“And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, ‘There is yet one man by whom we may inquire of the Lord, Micaiah the son of Imlah; but I hate him, for he never prophesies good concerning me, but always evil.’” – 2 Chronicles 18:7

Well, at least we aren’t the first people to try and avoid listening to those who would correct our course and put us on a godly path! There’s a natural tendency to seek only advice that reinforces what we’ve already decided to do with our lives. In fact, one of the prevalent lies of modern American culture is that anyone who disagrees with our choice hates us!

However, God doesn’t exist just to put a stamp of “YES” on whatever our personal plans and preferences might be. He calls us to radically changed lives of faith and obedience that are seldom our first choice. He calls us to the greatness of becoming more and more like Jesus, which isn’t natural for us at all! Far from hating us, the person who tries to guide us onto God’s path loves us far more than all the yes-people surrounding us!

Many today seek to ignore, avoid, or explain away God’s hard teachings about how we are to live. In our comfortable, prosperous, and radically independent culture, we want to do everything our way and seek a god who will simply smile and nod. That isn’t the Living God of the Universe!

Ask yourself, whenever you bump up against God’s teaching and word with your own desires and passions: Will you serve and follow the God who created you in His image? Or will you instead create a parody of God in your image? That was evil King Ahab’s mistake, one he would soon pay for with his life!

“I will pay attention to the way of integrity.
When will you come to me?
I will live with a heart of integrity in my house.”
– Psalm 101:2

Integrity is far more than simply telling the truth. Integrity describes a wholeness and consistency that exists across every aspect of our lives. A heart of integrity takes what we believe about God, Christ, and the Gospel and applies it to every part of our thoughts, words, and actions.

Jesus had perfect integrity – there was no inconsistency between His heart, His thoughts, His words, and His actions. As His followers, we‘re called to be the same way. While we’ll never be perfect, God’s Spirit within us empowers to live lives of ever-increasing integrity.

However, that requires us to pursue lives of integrity. To grow in integrity, we can’t be consuming God’s Word for a few minutes while consuming garbage throughout the rest of the day. Likewise, we can’t be praising God at certain times while trashing people at other times.

Like the Psalmist, we need to desire, pray for, and pursue lives of ever-increasing integrity. Such lives are often quiet, humble, and anonymous, but they are the lives that profoundly change the world and advance the Kingdom of God in their own community!

“So with yourselves, since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church.” – 1 Corinthians 14

Paul was writing to a church that was having a bit of an arms race regarding spiritual gifts. We are told that every Christian receives at least one gift from the Holy Spirit – an ability, skill, or passion that did not previously exist before we believed in Jesus. In Corinth, Christians were using their gifts in a sort of competition to be the best super-Christian. What a bunch of nonsense! These gifts aren’t given for our entertainment or to enhance our status. The Spirit gives gifts so that we can build up the local church.

The wide variety of gifts (knowledge, wisdom, teaching, helping, administering, hospitality, etc.) are distributed to believers as Christ sees fit to strengthen His church. As Christians, we’re responsible for putting our gift(s) to work. The best way to identify our gifts is to try serving in various ministries and see which surprise us with supernatural joy or excellence we didn’t anticipate. Often our gifts are pointed out to us by other faithful Christian who notice them before we do.

The best way to use our gifts is to actually put them to work. Knowing your gift is inadequate. Every Christian of every age has a role to play in building up the church – in reaching those who don’t yet know Christ or in loving and discipling those who do. No Christian should be “sitting on the sidelines” even if there is a pandemic going on. We must each find ways to put our gifts to work to glorify the One who gives us these gifts!

“And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” – 1 Corinthians 13:2

As political season kicks into an even higher gear, it’s helpful for Christians to remember this truth!

No matter how valid our critique, how high our IQ, how many our degrees, how insightful our facts, how long our experience, or how deep our understanding of the issues may be, if our expression of all that isn’t motivated by love and fails to communicate the authenticity of our love, we are nothing.

No matter how deep and life-changing our faith may be, if we aren’t actively and obviously operating out of love, not only is our faith in Christ critically deficient, but we are working against the advance of the Kingdom of God. We are nothing.

As followers of Jesus Christ, we are people of truth. We must obviously speak and type truth at all times. But that truth must be wrapped in the deep love of God that we ourselves are unworthy recipients of. If our lips aren’t communicating love, we should close them and if our fingertips aren’t typing love, we should remove them from our devices until such time as we are so full of God’s love that it overflows out of us.

“As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.” – 1 Corinthians 12:20

Christians were not made or meant to go it alone. As individual temples of the Holy Spirit, we are re-made in Christ to worship, fellowship, love, and support one another in churches. Each of us is made and gifted to be an important part of a local church. Together, we form the local body of Christ.

In recent years, there have been many who claimed to love Jesus but argued they could worship God and live apart from any church for their whole life. This is ultimately a trick of the devil! Of course any Christian can worship alone from time to time. But we were made, shaped, called, and commanded to be a part of the larger body of Christ – for our spiritual health and for the glory of God!

A long-term un-churched Christian is about as likely to be spiritually healthy and growing as an amputated big toe lying on the floor is likely to be healthy and growing! Of course being part of a church runs the risk of being hurt. Of course it can be inconvenient and messy. Nonetheless, that’s how Christ created the church and how He commanded us to be. We need to get over any illusions about loving Jesus while avoiding His bride – that’s a friendship that isn’t going to last!

We’ve been made to be part of the body of Christ. Let us joyfully embrace the opportunity that active membership in a local church offers for health and growth, both for ourselves and more importantly for God’s Kingdom!