Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil (Eph. 5:15-16).

All of us must examine our priorities when it comes to how we spend our time if we are to make the most of our days on earth. Our examination must also include the use of technology. Are we being “wise or unwise”? Are we making the “best use of the time”? To this end, consider how the internet is used and whether or not you are wasting or redeeming your time online.

Become a Facebook fan and join the discussion.

The wrongheaded nature of this counsel is revealed when we consider that the sole object in focus is the other individual in the relationship. At first glance this may seem like a pure fulfillment of the “Golden Rule” but let’s take a closer look. In Dr. Chapman’s model, the worth and feeling toward the object (the spouse) is the focus of the effort. The trajectory of this type of emotion-based teaching embraces feeling-oriented, creature-focused relationships that are not based on the truth of God’s Word. Simply put, Jesus never acted like this nor did any of his teachings pivot on a “you meet my needs I meet your needs” mentality. Although Dr. Chapman never puts it this bluntly, this is exactly what the dynamic entails. What we need today are truth-based relationships that then find ways of serving one another in creature-oriented expressions of love.

The key is that the priority of my creature-oriented expressions flow from the worship and honor of the Creator first and the creature second. Notice the distinction. I totally believe that I am to pursue my wife’s “love languages,” but I do so out of reverence for Christ and His Lordship. I am called to love my wife, my kids, and everyone else in this way precisely because it is the right thing to do according to God’s Word. I am commanded to do this even when my wife or my kids or anyone else for that matter doesn’t fill my “love tank” and, frankly, may not even like me at any given moment. So, while I would encourage anyone to learn and employ their “love language”, do so out of reverence for Christ and then for the good of your marriage. In this way the Holy Spirit will exalt Christ in your life and bring balance and health to your relationship(s).

The Holy Spirit loves to empower a Christ-centered relationship. But know this, the Holy Spirit will be quenched when a person cherishes a creature’s “love-tank” over the commandment to love given by our Creator. On the other hand, the Holy Spirit has been given preciously to aid us in the cherishing of Jesus in how we think and live as we employ resources like, “The Five Love Languages.” I don’t want to eliminate the use of these types of incredible resources I just want to make sure they are used in the right priority. If we don’t get the first-things-first then the second things lose there effectiveness to truly reform and we begin to slouch toward idolatry – putting the desires of the creature over the Creator.

Pastor Pat sent me an article this morning in which Justin Taylor cites David Powlison (buy everything he writes!) on this very subject. I couldn’t agree more and thought you would find this extended article very helpful. Be sure to download the original article by David Powlison as well.

First, consider the life-focus that Jesus had that served as a backdrop for all of His decisions:

“I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by Himself; he can only do what His Father is doing.” John 5:19

“By Myself I can do nothing,…I seek not to please myself but Him who sent me.” John 5:30

“When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am the one I claim to be and that I do nothing on my own…for I always do what pleases Him.” John 8:28-29

“For I did not speak on my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it…so whatever I say is what the Father has told me to say…” John 12:49-50; (c.f. 7:16;10:25;14:10; 17:7)

Jesus made choices in life based on the desires of Father-God. Therefore, all of the actions of Jesus can be categorized as being “true.” Everything that Jesus did had the highest spiritual and moral quality so as to be completely right (or, “righteous”) for each situation. Yet Jesus, being fully human, experienced the full spectrum of emotions and feelings that we have. So, how did the truth and human feelings converge in perfect harmony in the life of Jesus?

For the sake of discussion let’s try to boil down all of life into four categories that Jesus experienced and that each of us will experience as well. The categories that fit this description are: God, Family, Friends, and a Job (for those older) or School (for those younger). In each of these categories of living Jesus always prioritized pleasing the Father (doing what is right or true) over human feelings. This doesn’t mean Jesus didn’t have strong feelings (see *note). It means that in the life of Jesus truth and feelings worked together like a orchestra under the direction of a conductor. The relationship between truth and feelings is analogous to an orchestra playing from the same sheet music written by the composer. The sheet music represents what is true while our feelings function like a conductor giving unique emphasis and providing a level of coordination between musicians. When the orchestra plays the music before them it will have variations depending on the style of the conductor. The conductor may emphasize a particular section of the music based on his interpretation of the piece or he may emphasis a certain section of his orchestra due to the proficiency of a particular musician or a group musicians. Regardless of what a conductor can influence, the foundation and fundamental performance of the symphony will be judged based on how well the musicians played the music written by the composer.

In short (I hope my analogy was not more confusing than helpful), Jesus experienced all the varied feelings of humanity (represented by the role of the conductor) yet never deviated from the sheet music written for Him by the Father. More importantly, Jesus’ feelings never dictated what was the true and the right to do (e.g. The wilderness temptation, His betrayal, His arrest, the “judicial” proceeding before Caiaphas and Pilate, Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, The Crucifixion, etc.). Jesus actually countered His feelings and emotions with what He knew to be the true desire of His Father (“…your will be done”). In this way, the emotions Jesus felt were harnessed by the truth Jesus believed and the Person Jesus trusted. The same model is to be our blueprint for sanctification today.

Therefore, in our lives, we also need to make sure we vent our emotions but never at the expense of what is the right thing to do given what God’s Word says. God’s Word provides us with a reservoir of truth from which we instruct our feelings in all areas of life. We allow truth to wash over us and create a reality that is informed by God’s perspective and was modeled perfectly by Jesus. The following diagram represents this dynamic with the added dimension of the influence of the Devil and the World (I John 2:16).

*In Mark 3:5, Jesus is being set up by the religious leaders of the day and they use a man to try and give vent to their malice of heart: “And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.”
When it says that Jesus “looked around at them with anger” it means Jesus swept around the room looking deeply into the eyes of the religious leaders and was mad! The word used to describe the anger of Jesus is orgē (ὀργη). It is a type anger that is directed toward people who violate the just desires of God (c.f. Matt. 18:34). This type of anger is from God because it affirms His holy standard. The religious leaders do not care for this poor man they simply want to use him to catch and condemn Jesus. If Jesus would not have felt anger at thewretched actions of the religious leaders, he would have ceased to be the Holy One sent from God. We cannot love good and not hate evil. The hating of evil surfaces the emotion of anger against evil. A.T. Robertson quotes Gould as saying; “Anger against wrong as wrong, is a sign of moral health.” Wuest, K. S. Wuest’s word studies from the Greek New Testament.

We serve an amazing God! To provide for our eternal salvation and to give us a representation of Himself in Jesus?! Simply amazing. Look to the Son for understanding for He is God’s chosen object of affection through which the Father’s love is expressed to us who believe.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14

Brian was a typical suburban teenage guy in the 11th grade. Brian was growing up in a family of achievers. Each had his niche in life firmly established. Brian’s dad was a ladder-climbing businessman. Brian’s mother was the ever-present keeper of the house, juggling schedules with the skill and detail of a mechanical engineer. Even Brian’s younger sister was smart and, to Brian, “almost” as popular as he was.

The Change

Through a series of events, Brian became a follower of Christ through the faithful witness of a friend. It seemed that overnight Brian had changed. Brian noticed that he would get uncomfortable with certain friends telling “those” jokes. On the basketball court, Brian became painfully aware of how often people would mention the name of God, and not in a complimentary way. Although this hadn’t bothered Brian before, he was now struggling with what to do about these new feelings. These feelings were pointing to more than being uncomfortable about a seedy joke or a careless word. Brian started to see the world as a needy place, a place where so many people had life-wrenching cares and needs. As time went on, Brian noticed more changes in how he viewed life. Brian had always considered himself to be successful, but now “success” had lost its definable edge. He also seemed to lose his place at the table of popularity. To the casual observer, it was obvious that Brian seemed to fall to the back of the pac when it came to being a member of the “in” crowd. Even so, Brian had been told at church that some people wouldn’t accept his new faith. Brian privately wondered how cool could he be with his friends and still be a real Christian? Brian’s “identity crisis” began to grow more intense when it started to affect what he considered fun. When he was asked about what he did on Friday night in first period class on Monday morning. Brian no longer had juicy stories of going to the big party or watching the latest movie or pursuing that attractive girl. As a matter of fact, Brian started to feel dirty about things that seemed to just appear in his head. Sure, Brian found pleasure in being a Christian, but he also missed the fun he had before he became a Christian. Even so, Brian told himself that being a Christian was worth missing out on the fun with his old friends. After all, he had heard other Christians say that becoming a Christian helped them discover how much fun they could really have in life. Christians made it sound almost like the party would never end. Brian assured himself that he just had to figure out how to see life through this new lens, and then everything would be great.

Reinterpreting Life

When Brian became a Christian, his definition of being a successful teenager, of having status and of what he defined as fun, fundamentally changed. Without even realizing it, Brian had traded in his unwavering loyalty to the lusts of the eyes (success), lusts of the flesh (pleasure), and pride of life (status) when he became a follower of Jesus Christ (I John 2:16). There was just one big problem; Brian didn’t recognize this and had no model of how to make the transition from living by his self-satisfying impulses to now being a follower of Jesus Christ. So, Brian instinctively did what a lot of people do in his situation; Brian simply substituted worldly categories of success, status, and pleasure for religious categories of success, status, and pleasure. As a Christian, Brian naturally began to define being spiritual as being successful in living a “good life.” Brian’s itch for status was scratched by working his way into the leadership in his church’s student ministry. Brian also morphed into a master at talking about standards of purity, while cultivating a harvest of secret pleasures. Brian would often fight back the guilt by reassuring himself that these “private sins” would go away when he got married. To the average outsider, Brian was living a normal Christian life. But, if the truth were told, Brian had simply become a Christian and substituted worldly categories of life for religious ones. Brian is skating on the proverbial “thin ice.” Unless Brian can come to see a clear understanding and model of what success, status, and pleasure are in terms of being a follower of Jesus, he will continue to create an illusionary world in which he is more like a player in a religious drama than a true and healthy Christian.

Questions that Must Be Resolved

How does Brian reshape his definition of what being truly successful is? How does Brian wrestle through the responsibility of having status among peers and yet not allowing it to be his motivation for fitting in? How does Brian harness the sinful private pleasures? Unless Brian makes this migration through each of these life-issues, he will never mature and reap the life-benefits that trusting in God has supernaturally provided for him.

Brian is at an impasse in life… and he doesn’t even realize it.

Find out how Pastor Dan used this life-story as a backdrop for the teaching on the Sun., Jan. 31st.

While I naturally (and rightly) have emotions like joy and sadness and anger and happiness, etc. along with desires to be loved and respected and cared for, etc; I don’t apply them rightly since my emotions and desires are warped and sinful rooted in a trust of myself. My good emotions and desired turn into ruling emotions or desires when they are not rooted in a trust or obedience to the Father.

Jesus naturally (and rightly) had emotions like joy and sadness and anger and happiness along with desires to be loved and respected, etc. and yet perfectly applied them because His emotions and desires were rooted in a trust of the Father. The desires and emotions of Jesus never ruled Him because Jesus looked to the Father for His guidance. In a real way a “ruling” desire for Christ was to trust the Father in all situations.

Example: God created the human desire and emotions of love and the expression of sexuality. I have two options: I can either trust God to provide for me a person through whom I can express love and express my sexuality or I can enter in to an illicit sexual relationship (e.g. previous to marriage, with a person of the same-sex, or with someone to whom I am not married). The illicit relationship would be an expression of desire and emotion that is rooted in a trust of myself. How do I know this for sure? This act is a rejection of trusting in God since this goes against God’s expressed will for me according to the Bible. In other words, this choice would be sinful. Even though the initial emotion/desire was natural, the desire went too far and now is a ruling desire. A person in this condition this is called to repent (change his or her mind) about what they have done and bring their ruling desire and ruling emotion under the authority of the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

Series Big Idea: My understanding of who Jesus Christ was then will determine how I relate to Jesus Christ now.

So, I experience human emotions and human desires (just like Jesus) and need to choose to not let them be rooted in my will (ruling desires and emotions) but God’s will through trusting Him.

Therefore, on the one hand, human emotions and desires should not be repressed but enjoyed. It is simply part of being human. On the other hand, I must remember who Jesus was then (in His humanity) as the perfect example for how I should apply my emotions and desires as expression of trust in God now. I need to seek to walk in His truth and by His Spirit and thereby avoid allowing my natural desires and emotions to become ruling desires and ruling emotions. This will happen when I walk as Jesus walked, trusting in the Father.

14 Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery… 18 For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

This section of Scripture conveys an extremely personal Jesus. A Jesus that is incredibly human. When it comes to the humanity of Jesus, we often buy the hype of a superman-like Jesus flying above the radar when it comes to real struggle. However, the Bible doesn’t give us this option of thinking. Jesus was a person like any other person. In this teaching we consider that:

Jesus had to grow in the understanding of who He was

Jesus had to give up the independent use of His attributes

Jesus had to qualify to be our Savior

In each of these dynamics of life, Jesus rooted His life as a human in a trust for the Father. In each of these categories, the overarching passion of Jesus was to do what the Father wanted, to trust Him. In this way, Jesus demonstrates that He is the Savior and can extend to us His righteousness precisely because He was fully human and never sinned. My hope to be accepted by God is found in the obedience of Jesus a He lived his life. To minimize or neglect the humanness of Jesus is to minimize my hope and standing before God the Father.

MP3 download.

To this end, Al Mohler offers some startling statistics in the article, “Like the Air They Breathe” — The Online Life of Kids. The article will provide for you and your child a cultural wake-up call.

Question: When is the best time to start this discussion? At least by 6th grade.

Idea: Have your kids read through this article and then take time to discuss it over dinner. Start with some of the ways you may struggle with this issue. Remember the principle: openness begets openness. Have the kids pick out at least one thing they agree with and one thing they may not agree with. In this way as your child reads they are improving their discernment skills. Also, you will be able to pick up on their feelings related to the study (pro or con) and will give you a gauge of how much work you have in order to better equip your child.

Key: The more hostility you see in the responses of your child, the more they have become addicted to their regular media-fix.

More:
If you have other suggestions or questions regarding how to develop this type of equipping dynamic in life with your child, feel free to post a comment or contact me via my email. Also, you may want to contact our Director of Student Ministry, Kyle Valencia (kyle,valencia@forGodsfame.org). Kyle is all over student culture issues like this and stands ready to help in any way he can.