How To Live Integrated...

After my last teaching on Relationships – It's Complicated, I received the following response:

“For most sermons including this one I find myself leaving a little frustrated. Mainly because a challenge or goal is usually the focus of the message without much attention paid to how these goals can be achieved in a practical way. How has the speaker succeeded or failed in practically achieving the goal? How have others attempted to achieve the goal? In this case integration. Without any how, challenges and goals feel frustrating and unachievable.”

First off, thanks for asking... nothing like asking a preacher to keep preaching! You're right, I need to include more of the practical “how to” in my messages. I love the “why” and the “what” and often do not include enough of the “how.”

I find that the application of a message is very personal. A traditional way of preaching is to give a point or two, an illustration or two and then an application or two. But in our world what works to apply a Biblical principle in one person's life may be totally meaningless to the person sitting next to them. So I intentionally do not give specific applications but rather challenge people to figure out how to put the principle into practice in their lives. Although examples of how I or others have done it is a valid and meaningful need, and I'll strive to include more of these in my teachings.

I once read an interview with a leading business man. He was talking about visiting a city and wanting to go to church, but didn't want to go to just any church. He wanted to hear a sermon where the preacher challenged him to do something impossible. That impacted me. If I challenge people to do what is possible in their own strength then I'm only a self-help guru. But if I challenge people to do what is impossible, then they will be driven to call out on God and find the strength and resources to fulfill the call supernaturally. My job is to steer people to God – so in one sense feeling frustrated is good. That means I'm asking people to do hard things, and things that I hope will motivate them to cry out to God, seek divine input in their lives and through those means find change. I see Sunday messages as an invitation, or a launch toward something more – never a self-contained resource. I desire people to leave wanting more.

HOW do we become more integrated individuals:

First - understand that being integrated is the goal. “If you lack a target – you'll never get a bullseye.” Most people that I interact with are totally uninformed about this very important aspect of life, and Biblical identity. Understanding that integration is key (perhaps the most important key) to a healthy whole life is absolutely vital. So accepting this truth is step one.

The primary way I have found that helps me in this area is to look for inconsistencies in my life. Am I living in contradictory ways? Is there some act (body) belief or feeling (soul) or religious/spiritual dynamic (spirit) at work in my life that is not consistent with my God-defined identity as being “hidden with Christ in God.” Years ago, after I was a Christian I would drink to the point that I was clearly under its influence. I also realized that I was keeping it secret – I was not letting others know I was drinking booze, and I certainly didn't let them know how much. Thankfully, I did not wait until I was “found out” or made some stupid mistake, like getting arrested for drunk-driving to admit that this was inconsistent with my confession of faith. I realized that this inconsistency revealed that there was some brokenness in me that I was using drunkenness to avoid. There is an old saying: “pain seeks comfort.” What pain in me was looking for comfort (numbness of drunkenness)? Asking this question and seeking God for the answer helped me to unravel many issues in my heart and deal with underlying pains that were really on a soul level. These issues would never have been revealed if I'd assumed it was “okay” to get a little drunk now and then.

When there is an inconsistency in our life – that means there is a fracture, or a fragmented part of us. Part of us thinks it's okay to do, feel, believe something part of the time, but we know that it's not right all of the time. Now this could be simply caused by social norms or “peer pressure” so there needs to be an element of prayerful consideration. Is this (drinking, smoking, cussing, lusting, or unbelief, believing an error, etc.) something that God is not pleased with? The question must come down to – is this aspect of my life PLEASING to God. God will tolerate a lot, but my goal is not to be tolerated by God but to be pleasing to him. If its contrary to being “hidden with Christ in God” then I reject it from my life.

Here's something that I practice on a daily basis. If I look at someone and I feel tempted to be lustful (if they are attractive some way) or disgusted (if they are unattractive in any way) I take those feelings (soul issues) to the Lord. Right then and there. I try to go to God in “prayer” and say, “God, what's the deal here? How do I respond to this person and my feelings.” Often, if its an attractive woman God reminds me to see her as His daughter, or someone else's wife, or a sister. How would I think of and treat her at church? This gives me the standard to live by in the moment. If it's someone who I disagree with or am disgusted by, I do the very same thing. I ask God in the moment. And then I behave toward them out of what I find in God.

I also firmly believe that our emotions, our feeling, are under our control and that we are not be be under the control them them. Nevertheless most people think their emotions are “free agents” and they live at the whim of their feelings. I refuse to accept this.

Paul says, 1 Corinthians 6:13 NKJV (13) “Foods for the stomach and the stomach for foods, but God will destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.” And again, 1 Corinthians 9:27 NKJV (27) But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.” We are not to be controlled by our “flesh” but rather live having our desires under the control of our newly created spirits, our new person “hidden with Christ in God.” If I desire something, I can say “no” to it, and even more - I can change what I desire.

A practical way to learn HOW to do this is to fast. If you can learn how to say “no” to something you genuinely need (food) then it becomes easy to say “no” to things you do not need (over-indulgences, sin, error, etc.). Living a fasted life involves saying no whenever we are tempted to even desire things that are contrary to our new life in God. When I look at a beautiful woman, I can acknowledge her beauty and not be tempted to move into lust, because I see her as a daughter of the Lord. And it helps for me to bring my wife into the discussion. Just last night while at the grocery store, rather than merely notice that the clerk was attractive – I asked my wife, “Hey Kathie isn't her hair pretty?” or something of the sort. My wife agreed and the clerk was complimented. If I allow myself to enter into lust, it would have a destructive effect on myself, my relationship with my wife – and even would have been demeaning to the clerk.

This is getting long but I want to quickly point out the other side of the coin. We must develop CONSISTENCIES. Behaviors (body) thoughts and emotions (soul) convictions and spiritual practices (spirit) that reinforce our true nature. Daily reading the Bible, and having time in prayer is absolutely vital. Developing genuine community with others who share your values and faith. Living accountable to them and allowing them to confront you when they see contradictions in your life.

Maintaining a consistent emotional state is keeping our soul in balance. A book I'm reading right now, The Life Model: Living from the Heart Jesus Gave You, The Essentials of Christian Living, Revised 2000-R (link below) by James G. Friesen, explains how one of the most important lessons in life is learning “how to return to joy.” Wow. We can learn how to return to joy. This is a mark of maturity. Our emotional and spiritual state is able to be influence and maintained through spiritual disciplines that we bring into subjection to our relationship with Christ. To me all of this flows out of a life that is “hidden with Christ in God. (Col. 3:3)”

Spiritual consistency is developed by rejecting worldly and demonic influences. We first need to learn how to discern these things. As James so powerfully states, James 4:4 NKJV “Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” We cannot maintain a close friendship with God if our spirits are comfortable mingling with worldly and demonic things. How do we develop this in our personal lives: daily spending quality time with our Father, meditating on His nature, learning to see Him, hear Him, feel Him. Then when the things of the world or the enemy present themselves, we will easily reject them as cheap counterfeits to the substance, love and reality of God.