The Test

I remember some mischief a friend and I got into during a Sunday morning service when I was about thirteen years old.  We were just old enough to sit in church in a row toward the front, where our parents could spy on us to make sure we were listening to the sermon.  Unfortunately for our parents, we were sitting just enough out of reach to be corrected.  And here is where our story begins . . .

 

Toward the beginning of the sermon, one of the girls in our row leaned over and handed an “Intelligence Quiz” to another friend on the other side of me.  The quiz listed several easy instructions, and the lucky test-taker who could complete the entire list without fail would prove to be “intelligent.” 

 

Here is the list: 

 1.  Using a pencil, draw a circle around a quarter 10 times.

2.  Pick up the quarter.

3.  Roll the quarter from your chin to your forehead, without dropping it.

4.  Roll the quarter back down, without dropping it. 

5.  Roll the quarter from one ear to the other and back again, without dropping it. 

 

Handily, we happened to have a quarter (probably someone’s offering) and a pencil.  How lucky for us!  My friend took the test with all due diligence.  And it was there in the fifth row of church, on a Sunday morning, that I realized what the point of the test really was.  (I would encourage you to take the test if you have any questions.)  I’m sure the pastor was a little startled to look down from his pulpit and spy a young teenage girl with a penciled “cross” drawn across her face.  He shared good company with some startled parents as well. 

 

Not all tests reveal only what is listed on the paper.  Jesus gives a test like that in Matthew 5:44.  “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.”  Do you see the test?  It’s not a test of performance.  It’s a test and a cure for bitterness, all wrapped up in one.

 

We all have enemies, and we all struggle at times with bitterness.  I have--more than I want to admit.  Sometimes enemies hide their hatred for us behind “lying lips,” as Proverbs speaks.  And we hide our hatred back.  Nodding politely, even offering assistance at times—but hiding that secret hatred beneath the surface, despising any good report of our enemy, watching from a distance to make sure they fail.  Bitterness is ugly business because it sprays more graffiti on the vandal than the object. 

 

The commands of Christ always have a probing effect on us, exposing our hearts while we scurry around trying to fulfill an easy list of surface commands.  Tracing quarters, but missing the real “test behind the test.”  

 

Love your enemies.  There is hardly an end to the ways that people find to make themselves our “enemies.”   We are tempted to watch for opportunities to hurt back--maybe with just enough information passed along at the right time to damage a reputation, sometimes even recruiting allies to support our hatefulness. 

 

My tendency to be selfish is revealed when I compare my actions toward my enemies with the way I would purposefully treat someone I know I love.  Love is hard to hide—and so is the lack of love.  If I find that I just cannot love back—bitterness lurks.  Where the Holy Spirit wants to empower me to love, I am quenching Him.  Roots of bitterness are tangling up my heart, suffocating the work of Jesus.  There’s the test. 

 

Bless them that curse you.  To “bless” means to speak well of, to speak good things for the other person.  Proverbs 24:17 warns us that if we gloat when our enemies stumble, God will refrain from dispensing just punishment because of our hateful attitude.  God will not be made into my personal “hit-man.”  Vengeance truly is His. 

 

I have not been cursed (that I know of . . .).  But all of us have, at some point, been unfairly accused and gossiped about.  When we receive the startling news that someone has been hosting a “whisper campaign,” what is our response?

 

The words come too quickly, and we want to expose our enemy to the world. Many times the first place where bitterness surfaces is in the titles we give our enemies.  Teenagers with bitterness reduce their parents and teachers with titles like “old man” or just a last name.  Bitterness despises respectful titles. 

 

If everyone around me knows who my enemy is because of how I have spoken about him, I am bitter.  If I would be chagrined to hear a good report of my enemy, or if I work hard to straighten out the story to make him look bad, I am bitter. If I find satisfaction when bad things happen to my enemy, I am bitter.  If I question or dismiss any good thing my enemy does, because his awfulness is necessary to justify my hatred, then I am bitter.  No blessing to be found.  There’s the test. 

 

Do good to them that hate you.  There will always be haters.  If the world could hate Jesus, of course they will hate us!  They hate us for having an accent, or for having more money or better cars than they do.  They hate us for being from a certain city, for not knowing as much as they do, or for winning their prize in the contest.  To acknowledge that I have an enemy is to acknowledge that I have an assignment.  What good have I done for my enemy?  My selfish heart wants to settle for the easy way out: The silent treatment would be so painless.  On paper, we have done nothing wrong, but we have still neglected the central command:   Do something good.  If I were taken to court for loving my enemy, would there be enough evidence to convict me?  There’s the test. 

 

Pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.  Jesus was slapped and beaten.  He knows the pain of intentional direct hurt.  He doesn’t ask us to explain away other people’s evil motives and actions.  We aren’t asked to lie or creatively assign moral motives to malicious behavior.  We are commanded to pray for them.  And lest we give in to the temptation to pray only imprecatory prayers (“Let his children be fatherless!”), we are reminded still to “bless” even in our prayers.  God loves my enemies, even when I don’t.  God has a much bigger, better plan for my enemy than the life he is living right now—using and persecuting me.  I need to pray for God’s good plan to unfold in the life of my enemy.  I need to pray for his salvation and for him to find victory over the sin that is tripping him up right now.  I need to pray for mercy, as I hope that others pray for me when I fail so often.  “But it is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed,” Jeremiah lamented.  All of us. 

 

Bitterness is the ultimate form of judging.  It is impossible for me to be bitter at someone if I acknowledge that I am capable of his sin.  My self-righteous heart wants to resist:  “But I would never do or say that!”  Or maybe I would.  It is only my imagination that allows me to live in a world where I am better than my enemy.  Only the Lord’s mercies have prevented me from being consumed by His judgment. 

 

“He hath showed thee, O man, what is good;

and what doth the Lord require of thee,

but to do justly, and to love mercy,

and to walk humbly with thy God?” 

Micah 6:8.

Stand up anyway

After our class on Wednesday evenings, the kids in our church love to play Dodgeball for the final 5 – 8 minutes of class.  No other game compares to dodgeball.  I have tried many other games, but the request for Dodgeball always comes back—and that is how Dodgeball became a permanent institution at Believers Baptist Church.   Last week, Josh managed to achieve his first victory in Dodgeball: He actually hit a girl with a ball.  She and I were both equally surprised that his lightly-lofted ball hit her, but she had been caught off guard while aiming at her own target.  For the rest of the evening, Josh just smiled to himself from the back row of boys, basking in the satisfaction of his first successful hit. 

 

One of the real lessons in Dodgeball, though, is how to take a hit, and sometimes that’s much harder than taking correct aim.   Foam sponge balls don’t generally cause injury (provided they are directed below the neck and not reaching velocities that compete with the speed of sound—Junior high boys, please take note).  But even without pain, it’s offensive to be targeted and then hit.  Venturing away from the safety of a remote corner can be risky.  The truth is, Dodgeball is much more than just a fun game.  It has a way of teaching us to face both deliberate opposition as well as friendly fire with some fortitude.  The fellowship hall may be filled with an army of sweaty kids aiming foam balls at you:  Stand up anyway.  Don’t flinch.

 

Fear cripples.  Almost undetectable at first, it drapes invisible cords around us and then pulls them tighter when we’re not looking, pulling them like reins and steering us away from discomfort, ridicule, and loss.   But those cords themselves bring loss —often more costly than whatever pain we were avoiding.  When the slothful servant was asked why he did not invest his single talent, he responded, “I was afraid.”  (Matt. 25:25).  Fear of rejection and punishment distracts us from the mission God has sent us to do. 

 

Stand up anyway.  Don’t flinch.

 

Fear deceives.  Quiet and sneering, he rarely makes a sound.  Unlike other vices, whose presence is well-advertised and distained (anger, substance abuse, gossip, hatred, laziness), fear lurks beneath the surface like mold, anonymously wreaking damage before anyone can even identify the mysterious threat.  Fear hides underneath a lie, disguised as “personality”, or “carefulness,” when in fact it is turning our eyes away from the One Who has our lives under His control.  “Fear thou not,” said God, “for I am with thee.”  (Isaiah 41:10).  “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”  (John 8:32).   

Stand up anyway.  Don’t flinch.

 

Fear trains our affections toward selfishness.  It is impossible to “look on the things of others” (Philippians 2) when our scope is filled only with self-preservation.   Fear creates a sense of “victimhood,” leading us to believe that we are being threatened more than other people around us are threatened.  Fear vigorously instructs us not to try anything risky, not to give more than we can afford to give comfortably, not to befriend someone who might reject us.   “But perfect love casteth out fear . . .”   (I John 4:8). “But God commendeth (showed) His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”  (Romans 5:8).   

Stand up anyway.  Don’t flinch.

 

Fear makes liars of us.  Fear tells us what to say, until we forget who we really are and what we really believe.  “The fear of man bringeth a snare.”  (Prov. 29:25).  Fear tells us to adjust our core beliefs to match the approval of those around us.  “For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.”  (Gal. 1:10). 

Stand up anyway.  Don’t flinch.

                     

 

 

“What time I am afraid,

I will trust in Thee.” 

Psalm 56:3