Peter Witkowski Discipleship

So…Yeah…Christians Really Love Church

love churchThe clean soul with a clean conscience loves church. David writes in Psalm 26:6-7: 6

I wash my hands in innocence and go around your altar, O Lord, proclaiming thanksgiving aloud, and telling all your wondrous deeds. O Lord, I love the habitation of your house and the place where your glory dwells.

Those who have been forgiven of their sins through faith in Christ’s life, death, and resurrection want to be at church every Sunday. They love to sing. They love to evangelize their children, their grandchildren, and their neighbors. They look forward to Sunday because they have experienced the cleansing power of God. The believer does not determine to attend church because the pastor called him five times, because the children’s pastor provided his kids with a ‘wow’ experience full of green slime, or because the music was stirring. While not bad, those things do not explain the believer’s motivation. The believer attends church because he has been forgiven of his sins and dwells with Jesus. She knows that God does not remember the, “sins of my youth or my transgressions” because she is covered by the God’s “steadfast” love (Ps 25:7). Those who love Jesus cannot help but love God’s church, because God writes his covenant upon the hearts of his people (Jer. 31:33). The believer’s DNA is fundamentally changed at conversation. From that point on, she possesses an undeniable bias for the things of God. She loves his house.

The church should pursue sheep that wonder from the loving boundaries of truth, but people ultimately stay because they love Jesus. They also leave church because they have not been washed clean from their sins. The woman who slowly drifts from church, finding antique shopping to be more engaging evidences that she has never been saved. The church must love people well, encouraging, admonishing and meeting needs.  But the church does not have to plead with people to attend church any more than woman should have to plead with her fiance to love her.

Sadly, some churches do not value the life changing power of the gospel. They are filled with pastors, elders, deacons, powerful leaders, and gossips who make a wreck of the faith through bad preaching, immoral living and harsh words. Christians may leave these dysfunctional assemblies for these churches resemble the “assembly of evildoers” that the Christian should hate (Ps. 26:5). But those who love Jesus will leave the hypocritical church intent upon finding an authentic assembly of believers. Trying to keep believer from church is like trying to keep a hungry lion from red meat. He’s getting to church for he loves the habitation of God’s house.

How about you; do you love church?

Peter Witkowski Discipleship

Don’t Post…Pray

As the post coronavirus world spins about with seemingly little regard for the axis of sanity, men and women find their hearts weighted down by tomorrow’s fears. Like the soothsayers of old, they dissect the animal of social media, seeking to extract messages about the future. Equipped with unverified tidbits of truth, they take to social media, believing a barrage of tweets and articles linked to their Facebook page will convince the world that social distancing will lead to the downfall of the United States. Others fear a lack of facemask will result in thousands of needless deaths. Regardless of the fear, most American seek the same anti-dote: social media validation. This should not be the practice of the Christian. We should find our hope in the sweet closet of prayer, tucked away from buzzing highway of social media.

David wrote Psalm 3 as his world descended into chaos. His son, Absalom, had declared himself king. As David fled Jerusalem, his top advisor joined the rebellion. In the space of a few hours, the comforts of home were replaced with the fears of death. The whole world had gone against him. David writes, “Many are rising against me; many are saying of my soul, “There is no salvation for him in God (Ps 3:2).” Though David’s world lacked sanity, David did not lack hope. He knew God was his shield. Though men had turned against him, David knew God had placed him on Israel’s throne. God’s could not be overthrown by a rouge prince. David placed his trust in God.

Christian have even more cause to place their trust in God because he has died for their sin. The Christian’s glory is the glory of God given to her at salvation. God died to save her, lifting her from death to life. Since God saved her, she has every reason to trust God with her coronavirus fears.

Facebook post cannot keep you or I from catching the nasty virus. Twitter battles cannot prevent the downfall of our nation. But God can. Not only can God protect us, we can trust him to protect us for he hears our cries for help. David writes, “I cried aloud to the Lord, and he answered me from his holy hill.” Though David slept in a tent while Absalom slept atop David’s castle, God heard David. Though fears may dance atop our hearts, God still hears and answers our prayers from the pit of chaos.

The Christian’s Instagram post will not change the thinking of the President, of the Governor, or of the mayor. They will not hear the Christian’s theory about what the doctors are really up to. If the truth-be-told, most of our friends will not take our concerns seriously. But God hears the cries of his people. The ruler of the universe who directs the hearts of kings and who laughs at the armies of earth hears our prayers. Our Facebook posts cannot prevent anarchy. But, God can. Our Twitter wars cannot heal the sick. But, God can. Our Instagram posts cannot keep the church from mishandling the coronavirus crisis. But, God can. E.M. Bounds notes,

National affairs need to be prayed over…Lawmakers, law judges, and law executives need leaders in Israel to pray for them. How much fewer mistakes if there was more praying done in civil matters?

Do you fear death, the destruction of the economy, or a police state? Follow David and pray to the God who hears you. To whom will you take your fears?

Peter Witkowski Church History

Recapturing Biblical “Self-Love” With Augustine’s Help

If Christians read the writings of the fourth century church father Augustine, they will discover a biblical definition of self-love that can help Christians to fulfill the Christians life.

When they come to the evangelical table to exchange ideas, many Christians place the term self-love in the psychological chair. For example, Christians discuss salvation, forgiveness, and spiritual growth as elements of self-forgiveness. In this model, liberation form sin comes when the soul absolves itself from all the pain that it caused its psyche while it got drunk, indulged in sexual immorality, and self-destructed on Instagram. After they look to God for redemption, many at the evangelical table attempt to grant themselves a secondary form of salvation, following the secular, therapeutic models of self-love.

Though the this concept of self-love now has a reserved spot at the evangelical table, the concept lacks biblical justification. Jesus did not tell his disciples to forgive themselves. He told them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it (Matt. 16:24b-25).” Moreover when Christ tells his followers to love their neighbors as themselves, he appeals not to humanity’s inherent goodness but to humanity’s inherent evilness (Mk. 12:31). Jesus declares that all of us come into the world corrupt and evil and with hearts wrapped around the pole of selfishness. As Paul notes in Ephesians 5:29, no one comes into the world hating their own body. In short, the command to love others as we love ourselves does not demands us to practice self-love. Rather, God encourages us to transfer our self-centered self-love to others. Such self-denial appears to leave little room for the evangelical notions of self-love.

Yet according to the fourth century church father Augustine, Christians do not have to abandon the concept of self-love. Rather, they should guide the term back to its vintage, theological seat. Augustine writes,

Ourselves we love the more, the more we love God .

The church father believes men and women should pursue self-love, for love descended from God’s righteous character. Though men and women could not fully discover God apart from the Scriptures, their love of love would direct them to their need to know God. As their knowledge of God grew, they would grow in their ability to love love which has originated in their minds through the handiwork of God. The love of love that originates in the human soul will lead Christians to love God and others more. To borrow from John Piper’s terminology, Augustine believes men and women will be most satisfied when God is most loved. Augustine writes, “The mind’s self-love is true…for its own good, only when grounded on the love of God.” The man or woman who pursues the love of God loves their own souls the best. In short. Augustine believes God-centered self-love spurs men and women to love God and neighbor with biblical truthfulness.

According to Augustine, such righteous charity needs be highlighted by the church for it benefited human society. The church father writes,

What is love perfection? To love our enemies, and to love them to the end that they may be our brothers.

Proper self-love leads the believer away from self-concern to a concern for God that then manifest itself in a concern for another’s well-being. The Christian who is motivated by love longs to see his cruelest enemies become his dearest spiritual confidants. Instead envying the wealth or fame of his antagonist, the man who knows biblical self-love will pray and work for his foe’s salvation. Augustine notes, “You love him, not what he is but what you would have him be; thus, when you love your enemy, you love your brother.” In short, Christian self-love does not lead to self-forgiveness but to the forgiveness of others.

For Augustine, this understanding of biblical self-love became the defining test of the Christian faith. Those who love love express their faith in Jesus through loving others. Augustine concludes,

If you love the Head, you love the members; if you do not love the members, neither do you love the Head.

Since Augustine thought all Christians should love non-Christians as if they were Christians, he believed all true Christians should love both the head, Christ, and the body, those who had believed and those whom Christians hoped would one day believe. In short, those who knew biblical self-love will love others well because God leads, “us to do things for the benefit of those we love.”

Though the physiological idea of self-love runs afoul of Scripture, Augustine employees the term theological to express the rich Biblical ideal of Christian love. Evangelical Christians should not dismiss self-love terminology from the evangelical table. Rather, they should help the term return to its vintage, Augustinian seat that champions love of God and the love of neighbor as the truest manifestations of self-love.