Job Description

Conflict brings out how we really feel about ourselves, how we feel about others, and what we feel is our role in this world. Do we seek justice? Do we crave revenge? Do we offer grace? What do we do in those moments where something clearly must be done in regards to a conflict or dispute with a friend, coworker, family member or peer?

I have a problem. I'm fairly good at arguing and I have an inherited knack for noticing faults, flaws, and shortcomings in most people within a reasonably short period of time. Those observations make it incredibly difficult for me to be patient with certain people. The larger problem they create is that they can stir within me a deep feeling of superiority over other people whom I deem immoral, hypocritical, shallow, disrespectful, insecure, or just lacking in authenticity. That feeling of superiority is hands-down the greatest barrier in dispensing love to people who need it the most. Deep down I do want to love them but only after they change this, stop doing that, and ask for forgiveness for all the ways they've wronged me or others around them. In reality and much to the contrast of my human nature, the love which Christ calls us to has no prerequisites.

I think we can all agree that Billy Graham has lived pretty close to the standards God calls us to, or at least as close as we can hope to live up to them. Surprisingly, I found that he has encountered quite a great deal of criticism by fellow evangelical Christians over the years. I guess, in retrospect, that isn't surprising based on the common tendency of religious, moralistic beliefs to create the sense of superiority I described in myself. We have a profound ability to ignore that log in our own eye yet spot that speck in our brother or sister's eye from a mile away. I digress. Apparently in 1998 after the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal broke, Billy Graham attended a fundraiser for President Clinton and caught a ton of crap for it. In the end, all Graham said about it was "It's the Holy Spirit's job to convict, God's job to judge, and my job to love." Well put.

What's the most important commandment? It's pretty clear in Matthew 22 and Mark 12 to name a few places where we can find the obvious answer. How come we still can't grasp what this looks like fulfilled in our own lives? Generation after generation has failed at this. I think it may be because we get confused by all that the Bible tells us to do and we forget how simple our job description really is as disciples. Love God, love one another, the end.


P.S. Andy Stanley has a great 8 week sermon series on the difference between a Christian and a Disciple based on this principle. Check it out!  http://northpoint.tv/messages/christian7