Creative vs. Reactive Philippians 3
(Firstly, read Philippians 3 or glance over it whilst reading this blog, I didn’t want to include it as it is lengthy.)
So, this latest blog post comes from a personal place of me seeking God’s heart in a place of desperation and simply hearing Him say to me (and you) that “In God we are Creative, but outside of Him we become Reactive.”
Now...hopefully, with some prayer - I will begin to unfold these two states of ‘being’ – also, I did preach this message...although only to myself this morning in my devotional time, as is quite customary of me :-) weird as it may sound...it works for me, and my congregation of couches & walls show up faithfully, every time!!
A view taken from Servanthood
Going low in humility is something of value in our Christian walk as we go about doing life and I felt as though becoming a servant and a servant of all, as Jesus did is going to cost us. I felt that there are particular aspects/levels that we are to overcome and will explain them as such:-
1. External: when you feel this urging or nudge from within to be that guy (or girl) that has to offer up of yourself and your comfort for the sake of others – you may call this serving (servanthood). Yes, it should be so part of our ‘walks’, but for some it does take time and we have grace for that because I believe that Jesus does!!
Now the reality is, it’s way easier when you and I decide to step into something when the whole world is doing it, when you and all your buddies are set on something and you go for it, it’s awesome and sometimes it doesn’t even feel like it costs...because it plainly doesn’t cost you a thing, in terms of our comforts etc.
So one of the first obstacles to cross is this attitude of, “Why me and what about them?!” looking to the outside (external) and wondering why has God chosen me and not in this angelic awe-sens of God’s favour towards you, the ‘chosen-one’, but rather – ‘why me, I seriously don’t want this!!’ kind of attitude.
2. Internal: picking up from that last thought and secondly, feeling to serve in a particular area may lead to questions about, ‘Am I ready?’, “Am I even good enough?” etc.
One may argue that it exposes insecurities but hey, whatever surfaces – that’s fine, God is certainly big enough and not nervous about choosing you – and I believe that He will deal with you and the root of whatever it is that causes you to tense up when even just thinking about the task up ahead.
3. Serving: you have finally overcome your fears of being alone, isolated and self-worry and you have risen to the occasion and have stepped out in service and all is going great. You are focused on God and He totally delights in you and your only response to Him is to worship Him – because He alone is worthy!!
Yet, somewhere along the lines your heart gets tested and your motives are exposed for the world to see...WHAT NOW?!
You see, in God we are Creative, right :-) We are called to co-labour and release Kingdom in all we do and all this functions so well apart from the fact that in some cases we find this downward spiral of becoming self-serving!!
4. Self-serving: the enemy of true servanthood!! This happens when our joy slips away and all of a sudden we find that the poo-poo has hit the fan!! Everyone can see the fan, the poo-poo and your hands...all covered in poo-poo!!
Yet, we become Reactive with shouts of, “You told me to do this”, “Don’t you remember that time, when you said this and that”, “Hey you, can you remember that time that ‘Jack’ said bla bla bla, do you remember!!??”...”IT’S NOT MY FAULT!!”
All of a sudden everyone around you, your great cloud of witnesses, are no longer routing for you and they become those that have deceived you and you play the blame game until you are drained. Everything you worked for, laboured at and saw being created is now coming tumbling down at a rapid pace and you cannot do a thing about it because you are stuck in a self-serving state and when the ground work should have been done, you had your eyes on everything else but serving your Master...it’s almost too late, but never really is, as God will always help you along, in His merciful way.
One thing I really felt to explain is this self-serving vs. serving concept – as I believe it’s either one or the other. Either you serve and you serve God or you serve yourself!!
The servant’s heart attitude is one of plain servanthood – not expecting anything in exchange for the serving, yes the serving (job etc.) may include remuneration but what or rather who are you serving – the Master or His riches?
God’s Kingdom, the Kingdom of Light is not at loggerheads with the kingdom of satan, darkness. The battle has been won and Jesus has conquered death, but long before Jesus conquered the grave He conquered flesh!!
This is quite important for me and every believer in fact as yes it’s awesome that Jesus arose from the grave and now that’s the amazing story of the cross but most (probably ALL) of us reading this havn’t been to the grave yet, but we are living and in fleshly bodies, just as Jesus did!!
So what’s so dramatically radical about that, well Jesus knew no sin but was tempted the same way as you and I. Just a tiny disclaimer, I don’t by any means downplay Him overcoming death but do we realise that there was no temptation that Jesus faced that you and I don’t either OR rather, every temptation that you and I face, He did also – and yet He stayed above water...that’s miraculous!!
You see; if we go back and forth playing as if one moment the Kingdom of Light is winning but then the next moment, the kingdom of darkness is winning we have a wrong view of what Christ has accomplished – once and for all!! If we swivel between sacrificial servanthood and self-serving, all we are doing is deceiving ourselves and it’s not long before the choice we made to follow Christ comes into some serious question and doubt rocks up!!
When we trade Creativity for Reactivity we come into this place of choosing whatever god you want to serve at that moment. Every belief out there has a paradise and some sort of enemy and every belief, believes that their god will get them to paradise (eventually) and when we bow down to this we got a ‘all-roads-lead-to-heaven’ gospel, which is no gospel at all!!
It reminds me of a Tweet I read this week which I shall paraphrase, “Getting drunk is easy, getting high is easy but choosing to follow Jesus is hardcore, it’s rebellious.”
For us, following and modelling Jesus is going to be rebellious, rebelling or rather moving in the opposite spirit of this world!!
You see, everything about God’s Kingdom is C-R-E-A-T-I-V-E and everything that the enemy has lined up for us is the kinda stuff that tires one out, the Reactiveness and forever having to explain or defend your position on matters, when what really matters is just becoming a servant and when you do muck up, to own up but carry on :-)
To end, I asked God to give me a little bit of an example to cement this Creative vs. Reactive concept and it takes the form of a rugby game, which I guess is God’s sense of humour as I am not in the least clued up on the game of rugby, but I have watched quite my fair share of games lately.
My understanding is that the perfect game would be one where the teams playing are adhering to the rules of the game 100% and making perfect passes, tackles and setting up plays that will eventually lead to a tri being scored.
A tri therefore can only be scored when there is a deficiency in your opponents attack.
So, watching your favourite team go; playing beautifully and doing just everything right, you sing from the sideline, “Go!! Boytjies!!”, with much enthusiasm and encouragement. This I would call being Creative – spurring each other on :-)
The flip side is the supporter of the defeated opponent, watching with much nail-biting and negativity brewing inside, little Johnny exclaims something like, “No!! Idiot, you can’t play this game, why did they even choose you...you are useless!!”, ja ja...that’s none of us, hey!? But do you see how that is a very Reactive approach :-(
When the cards are in our favour, it’s easy to praise and be creative in our ways but when the chips are down and ‘it-is-what-it-is’ we become reactive to every little thing and the very people that need our support we end up just driving them further away and in fact if you are the one caught out, the last thing you should be doing is having a shouting match with all those around you – realise your mistake, own up and carry on...don’t leave any room for bitterness to take root.
So in closing I really hope, pray and trust that Holy Spirit has been speaking to you about living your life out in Creativity :-) and being one that rebels for JESUS!!
Love you all muchly,
Ryan
