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A Prayer for When You Face Disappointment Posted: 05 Oct 2012 09:52 AM PDT When we face disappointment, rather than wallowing in it, we can pray, Lord, I don't understand why all this has happened. But I do know you want me to keep walking, keep looking for you, keep remembering that it's what I do with disappointment that matters. Help me…to surrender both my memories of the past and my hopes for the future to you.   -Christine Caine, Undaunted: Daring to Do what God Calls You to Do   More from Christine Caine on facing disappointment: 5 Steps to Overcoming Disappointment

Jesus on Religious Hypocrites: A Good Show vs. A New Heart Posted: 04 Oct 2012 07:35 AM PDT “If you are ever bothered by religious hypocrites,” writes John Ortberg, “if you've ever wanted to post a scathing blog about how they turn your stomach, you'll have to get in line behind Jesus.” Find out why hypocrites got under Jesus’ skin, and explore the difference between good behavior and true goodness, in this excerpt from John Ortberg’s book Who Is This Man. -Adam Forrest Learn More What makes “a good person”? The good person is the person whose heart — whose inner being — is bathed and pervaded by divine love. Therefore the good person is not simply one who does good things; it is someone who genuinely wants to do good things… Jesus' teaching about the condition of the heart was so compelling that it entered into the moral vocabulary of the human race. The word hypocrite is used seventeen times in the New Testament. Every time it is used, it is used by Jesus. I know of few other words that are so singularly his… Contrasts between hypocrisy and genuine goodness are laced through much of Jesus' teaching. But one entire talk, placed by Matthew a few days before Jesus' death, is devoted to this single topic. If you are ever bothered by religious hypocrites, if you've ever wanted to post a scathing blog about how they turn your stomach, you'll have to get in line behind Jesus, because I do not know of any address by any enemy of religion that is more stinging in its rebuke… According to Jesus, hypocrisy is not just the failure to live up to what we aspire to. Everybody does that. The core of hypocrisy is deception — mean-spirited and selfish, although sometimes even unconscious, deception. The messed-up inside of the cup is simply fallenness; it's the washed-up outside that marks hypocrisy. Why would someone whitewash a tomb? To make people think there's life in it, not death. It's not just that religious people neglect justice and mercy and faithfulness. On top of that, they give a tithe of their spices, this tiny area of their financial lives, to convince people of how faithful they are. I deceive you to get you to think I'm better than I am. I hide my secret dislike for you behind a polite smile. I pretend to help you when I'm hoping you fail. I portray myself as loving when inside I'm full of judgment or selfishness. I may even convince myself I'm devout or loving or kind. I can be hypocritical without knowing it. Just as we have yet to discover the outer limits of the universe, so we have yet to discover the outer limits of the human capacity for self-deception. Case in point: “Eighty-five percent of medical students think it is improper for politicians to accept gifts from lobbyists. Only 46 percent think it's improper for physicians to accept gifts from drug companies.” … Where goodness begins Because of Jesus' emphasis on the heart, goodness does not begin with right behavior. It begins with openness to the truth about the mess in my inner being. “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” The truth will set you free. But first it will make you miserable… In Jesus’ world, human wrongdoing is not so much the violation of a moral principle as it is hurt and disappointment to a Friend, who is also our Creator. This gives sin a haunting weight beyond the human capacity to fix it. “Foreign to Plato was the cry of Saint Paul, 'For what I do is not the good I want to do; no the evil I do not want to do — this I keep on doing.’” This led to another approach to healing: that because of our creatureliness and fallenness and self-deception, we cannot heal ourselves. C. S. Lewis wrote… The Christian way is different [from trying to become a better person]. Christ says, "Give Me All. I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don't want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down… Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked — the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: My own will shall become yours." It turns out that the good life is only available to the good person… It is ironic to me that perhaps no religion has produced more hypocrites than Christianity. It is also painful to me — there is so much hypocrisy in me. It is both convicting and comforting that no one has ever diagnosed and denounced hypocrisy with more power — no one has ever even offered hypocrites themselves more hope — than Christianity's founder. -John Ortberg (@johnortberg) Learn More Learn more in John Orberg’s new book Who Is This Man: Daring to Do what God Calls You to Do   Q: Are you tempted to act “especially good” around certain people or in certain situations? Do you ever feel like you’re trying to “put on a good show”? If so, why? What do you hope to hide, and what do you hope to achieve? -AF (Some styling in this post is a blog-exclusive feature not included in the text of the featured product.)

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