A Foreign Language

This post isn't really that theological, just something I've been thinking about.  On my first date with my girlfriend, Leah, I asked her what her love languages are.  Her top one is my bottom one and my second one is her fourth, but my top one and her second one are the same.  It worried me slightly at first because it's a shift in how I usually express affection and so if one or both of us didn't successfully shift, the other could end up feeling unloved, despite the true feelings of both of us.

As I got involved with her, though, I found that the shift for both of us came easily.  It got me wondering whether we're supposed to have primary love languages or those that don't speak to us.  It seems that our love languages are set when we're kids by those who know how to express themselves well in one language or who express themselves terribly in another.  For example, I heard so many different things about myself growing up that words of affirmation started to be meaningless to me.  I'd be complimented to no end at home and then ridiculed by my friends.  It seemed over-the-top both ways, but I felt it was more likely that those insulting me were telling it like it is since it's easier to be nice (especially for family who love you) than to say hard things, so I started ignoring the words of affirmation.  It's been difficult for me to give a compliment since and they still don't mean much to me when I receive them.

But is this how it's supposed to be?

Somehow, I just don't think so.  Consider Jesus.  He showed all five love languages almost constantly.  He spoke kindly and encouragingly to those who were lost.  He served by walking to those who were sick and healing them and then by washing the disciples' feet.  He spent three years constantly with the disciples, giving them quality time.  When He healed someone, it was almost always through touch.  And He gave us Himself, salvation, and then the Holy Spirit, not to mention the two separate occasions he turned a small amount of food into enough for thousands.

He accepted their praise and when they touched Him (I'm sure He was hugged countless times by those He'd healed).  He accepted an act of service when the woman washed His feet.  He accepted gifts as well (unlikely that He had enough money to support Himself and twelve other men for three years from his earnings as a carpenter), including the expensive ointment the woman used on His feet.  And He died so that we could have an eternity up in Heaven with Him.

I think we were meant to show and accept love equally well in all five love languages and that we've been limiting ourselves and allowing ourselves to feel less loved than we are by ignoring some of these based on our past.

Here's what I want you to do: examine your love languages and ask yourself why you do or don't feel loved when someone shows their affection that way.  If the answer is something in your past, I want you to forgive the person (if they turned you off to that language) and then, either way, try to start balancing your love languages out.  Maybe you'll never get to the point where all of them are equally accepted and given, but we shouldn't be limiting how we feel loved because someone else failed in our lives.  It may take practice and reminding yourself at first, but I think once you realize where your aversion came from and have let it go, embracing love in that way will come more easily than you think.

As this is just a theory I came up with a couple days ago, I'd be very interested in hearing feedback, either here or on my facebook page.

Justice and Grace

It sounds like they're two opposites, doesn't it? Justice is getting what you deserve and grace is being shown mercy, i.e., not getting what you deserve. As Christians, I think we fall into one of two traps: we either ignore grace and try to earn everything or we ignore justice and forget that our sins, any one of them, are enough to earn us hell for eternity. In other words, we forget either grace or we forget justice because we figure that they both can't apply, being opposites.

I want you to look at this a different way. I want you to consider how meaningless grace is without justice. If you were in a foreign country and broke one of the laws they have there that they don't have here and a cop stopped you, told you what you'd done, and then let you go without a penalty, it wouldn't mean much if your violation was one that didn't have a penalty associated (there actually are such laws, oddly enough). You could do that violation over and over and the worst thing that would happen is an inconvenient conversation with an officer, asking you to stop but powerless to make you do so.

Now imagine the penalty was 20 years in prison. It wouldn't matter whether you thought the penalty was fair. You are in another country and subject to their rules. (Ignore for now things like your country's gov't stepping in to negotiate.) You're quickly found guilty and sentenced. As you're being hauled off to jail, the judge steps in front and says, "Let him/her go. I will serve the sentence in their place." The guards take off your handcuffs and put them on the judge. Then that innocent judge goes willingly to take your place while you are set free. How much does grace mean to you now? That judge took your place so you could be forgiven.

"Why didn't he just acquit me?" you may be asking. Because if he did, he'd be making a mockery of the law that he has sworn to uphold. The law, and by extension, the judge's integrity, demand that someone be punished for the crime. If there was no punishment, it would not truly be grace, but corruption. God did exactly this for you, but on a much grander scale, saving not just you, but all who would call on Him from punishments infinitely worse than 20 years in prison. He created the laws, knowing full well you would break them and be guilty of the punishment necessary. Then, because He cannot be holy or good if He is not just, He knew that someone had to bear the punishment for our sins, so He took it on Himself because He loved us.

"Why not just not make the laws in the first place?" 

Because in that case, too, God is neither holy nor good. You are without crime in a state without laws, but you're not law-abiding. You are in an amorphous state where neither good nor bad exist. God cannot be in this state and be holy at the same time. To be holy, by definition, requires the possibility of unholiness. 

Perhaps even more importantly, the core of God's laws are choosing Him instead of yourself.  The purpose of the Universe, after all, is to glorify its Creator.  If there is no law, then there is no difference in which you choose, which would greatly diminish Him, which is something that cannot happen since we will never be even fractionally comparable to God. Conversely, if God compelled obedience, then there would be no possibility of love, since love, like holiness, requires the possibility of its opposite to exist.

Thus, the laws are required for God to be holy and good.  His laws require both the possibility of breaking them and, once they are broken, punishment for those infractions, or else they are meaningless.  That punishment was taken by Jesus because He wanted to be merciful to us.  Without the law, though, that grace and His sacrifice would have been meaningless.

Render Unto Caesar

I was reading Matthew 22:15-22 this morning. In this passage, the Pharisees tried to trick Jesus into saying something against Caesar or the Roman government, so they asked Him if it was right to pay taxes if He doesn't regard men. Jesus asks for a coin and then asks them whose image and inscription is on it. They answer, "Caesar's." Jesus replies, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's." For years, I thought this just meant that we were supposed to pay our taxes and submit ourselves to the governments where we live, provided they are not commanding us to do something against our beliefs. This morning, it meant something totally different. Jesus asked whose image and inscription was on the coin and when they said it was Caesar's, Jesus' reply means the coin is Caesar's because it has his image and inscription on it. The coin belonged to him. The Bible says we are created in the image of God. Also, God created us, much like an artist creates a painting. In most paintings, the artist signs his or her name, even though they often leave signature strokes in various places that separate their works from the works of any other. You won't find some small tattoo of God's signature on you, but you can see His signature in the brilliant complexity of everything in your body, from larger organs like the brain to almost infinitely complex human DNA strand that the body replicates perfectly countless times a day. If you are imprinted with His image and have His signature on you, you are His. The Bible says we are to give Caesar what is Caesar's and give God what is God's. If we are God's, then we are to give ourselves to Him. Another aspect of this is Jesus didn't say, "Cut the coin in half, then, and give half to Caesar." The whole coin was given. Likewise, we are to give all of ourselves to God, not just a certain portion. Here's where the analogy breaks down a little: most people had multiple coins, only some of which were required in taxes, but you have only one you and God wants far more from you than Caesar ever did. Your entire self belongs to Him. The advantage, though, is that He knows what to do with you far better than you know what to do with yourself. In a movie, one kid picked up a guitar and started playing, but the music was awful. A father figure came in, took the guitar, played a few bars perfectly, and handed the guitar back to the boy, saying, "It sounds fine to me." The guitar was the same, but one player was a novice and the other a master. In your life, you are that novice. You pick at a few strings and try to find the right chords, but you're slow, clumsy, and sound flat or sour notes more often than pure ones. God is the master. He knows exactly what to do in your life to make the most beautiful song possible come from it. It doesn't mean you'll enjoy every bar as it happens to you, but the end of the song is going to be triumphant on a scale that the Hallelujah Chorus can only dream of...but only if you give your life to the Master. It's His anyway.