'Your Life Depends on This Issue" Action or Distraction?

[HKHaugan]

The most explosive issues in the country today are healthcare, the economy, the Middle East, gender identity and national security. You can add the ones you want. Politicians and their media will keep you edgy and anxious about them. Because they cause so much internal upset we have a tendency to seek their immediate solution. These issues take on a life of their own and consume the media at every turn. People form political groups to push their agenda about how to resolve them. Like all issues that are not eternal, they tend to absorb our energies as they look for a place to live in our mind, heart and spirit. The mind, heart and spirit are the courts of our body which Scripture calls a temple (1Cor.3:16, 6:19). What has happened to our temples and their courts?

Political, national and global issues search for a cover to give them form. They develop spaces called opinion and attitude reinforced by emotion and the next thing you know a tent posing as a permanent structure has been erected in the courts of our temple. Two wandering spirits called pride and fear can agitate and strengthen the cords of the tent if we treat any secular issue as though it had permanent significance. If we do there will always be the demand for an increase of tent space for the squatting attitudes of self-justification, rationalization, suspicion, distrust, defensiveness and blame which ride in on the anxieties any issue produces.

The problem is that these many issues look to build a tent in the courts of our temples. Remember the 'Occupy' movement and how the so-called 'occupiers' set up tents as they invaded parks, businesses and even state buildings? What did they really accomplish? In the wake of their riotous behavior they left trash, physical and emotional destruction as well as national disgust and no resolution. How much do we allow 'occupiers', issues we can' t personally resolve, to set up tents in our temples?

Consider also that our hearts are also crowded with local personal, interpersonal, social, economic, spiritual and political concerns that demand time and energy. Which should take precedence? The courts of our temples are crowded. How we deal with issues is the issue, the real issue.

All issues have relevancy. But it is how we approach any issue that counts. Let's start with our 7-fold approach as an example.

First, think spiritually. Am I approaching the issue spiritually? Thinking spiritually will get me to think of my own spiritual condition as well as the spirits that are agitating to make it divisive, tempting me to think I am right and how others are wrong, judging in terms of world values instead of God’s and reacting without first placing it in spiritual context. Is the issue global or local?

Second, think Holy Spirit. Global and national issues for the most part are wrapped in the sin-worn wineskins of immediacy and impulsive reaction using ‘life-threat’ language. Are we backing up and seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of real life? Is this a salvation issue or a world issue and am I to play a part in it? How do I spiritually evaluate my role as a disciple of Jesus in any issue? How realistic am I as an issue comes before me I can't really do anything about? Where can my mind, heart and spirit be most effective and how will I carry that out?

Third, think Jesus. Am I inadvertently inviting contrary spirits to set up tents next to Him in the courts of my heart? Am I trusting Jesus to handle what He came to handle that I can’t? I can still see Him confidently telling Pontius Pilate that His kingdom was not of this world and how He was always looking to please His Father in His daily walk. Is there a clue here that tells us how we think, feel and act locally is more important than what happens outside globally? In fact, that my local action is a global action?

Fourth, think the Father. He is the One to whom Jesus points. If we pray the Lord’s Prayer we begin by hallowing the name of the Father. Everything is centered in laying our mind and heart before the Father in Jesus’ name because everything is ultimately resolved in Him. How can we not see Jesus as He was tempted to answer a global issue about taxes and loyalty to the Roman emperor? “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God that which God's (Mt.22:21)!”

Fifth, think Scripture. We continue informing our minds with Scripture. In it God gives us exactly what we need for our pondering. What we read may not have anything to do with an issue directly but it will always speak to our hearts and provide us with direction and the peace that passes all understanding, enabling our minds to react in confidence right where we are. For Jesus it was the heart that concerned Him most. He wanted the hearts of people to be centered in Him for real life and real interaction on a personal and interpersonal level (Mk.7:18-23).

Sixth, think prayer. In the grand scale of the unseen dimension, the spiritual dimension, it is prayer that brings us to place all our eggs in the basket of faith because faith is the only light we have in the immense realm of spiritual reality. Prayer brings us to total dependency on God. Prayer is the great ballroom in which the Holy Spirit lets us dance before God as David did rejoicing in His presence.

Seventh, think like Jesus. Thinking like Jesus is thinking first of God’s presence, confident in His Spirit’s guidance and acting in faithful spontaneity as an issue beckoned Him to take action. This is exactly what we see in Scripture, Jesus walking toward Jerusalem and the Cross, giving everything He had on the way. His walk was a heart walk, a spiritual walk and a mind walk in the Word. Everyday He was met by situations and people who tried to sidetrack Him. The devil constantly worked behind the scenes to distract Jesus by distorting Him in the minds of those on every level of society. When Jesus was confronted with issues, He knew who was behind them enlarging their importance and magnitude with his deceiving spirits. Jesus always discerned an issue’s eternal value and the hearts of His questioners, loving each of them on His way to the Cross. His mission as an individual is ours as well. Finally, for each of us, that is what we are called to do.

The Lord can solve all issues if we His people choose to dwell in His courts and be doorkeepers in His house. His house is His kingdom and His kingdom has been planted in our hearts. If we are doorkeepers then we are called to keep the door to our hearts open for His coming and going through us. We also are called to invite others into our hearts that they too can meet the Lord. Then, hopefully, they too can be doorkeepers in the Kingdom of God.

“Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere;
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of the wicked (Ps.84:10-11).”

The courts of our hearts, the house of God, His temple, are the ways He has given us to focus on Him. We have the inner court of our relationship with Jesus. We have the outer courts of the gifts of the Spirit for ministry in the Body of Christ. We have a worship court where we praise and glorify Him. We have the court of our witness decorated with grace and love to share with others. We are the front edge of the Kingdom of God in this world. The courts of our hearts are always open. As we live in the world we extend those courts to replace the tents that the wicked have set up. We realize as Jesus did that the more hearts we bring to Him the more God works in one day to solve the issues the devil occupies to keep the world in turmoil for himself.

The Lord has given us The Great Commandments, The Great Commission and Himself as local action. The devil gives us the great distraction: absorption in global and national issues, and the 'occupiers' (evil spirits) to assist in his work to keep us constantly distracted, upset and anxious. “Choose this day whom you will serve...but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord (Joshua 24:15).”