Dale Cresap's blog

Is your faith making you better or worse? Do you find this question disturbing, and think that your faith can only make you better? Yet have you ever met anyone who used their faith to justify a narrow, exclusive, judgmental approach toward others and could only see righteousness and justification in themselves? Seeking to justify yourself is a bad practice in any situation and attaching it to a faith practice only makes it worse. Do you refer to my word as a sword, dividing soul and spirit? Do you use it as a weapon against others or a scalpel on yourself?

Do you make a distinction between universal truth and particular truth? You meet people who have particular interests such as their hobbies, and they are quite knowledgeable about them but you may have no interest in those subjects. Yet there is also universal truth that applies to everyone, questions of eternity and being, identity and meaning and purpose. Some people studiously avoid pursuing these questions and claim no spirituality or beliefs but they cannot escape them because everyone is affected by them.

Is prayer your first resort or your last resort? For some, prayer is only considered after every other possibility has been exhausted. For others, prayer is where they start, but they go no further. Both approaches are wrong. Can you think of prayer as an integral part of a combined effort, as a means of guidance in the steps you take to act? In this approach, prayer is involved from start to finish, but it doesn’t stand alone. It provides direction for you to follow. Try this and see how it works.

Are you holy? Is it easier to think of yourself this way if you consider yourself in an individualistic and isolated way? Yet that is not the way you live. For you live in a community and the more you identify with common humanity the more substance there will be to your righteousness. How are those who regard themselves as holy in their isolation seen by those who observe them? Aren’t they regarded as alienated and therefore less holy rather than more so? When you interact with people your fears, insecurities, and vulnerability will collide with theirs.

Do you see a linkage between psychology and theology? One is the study of human interaction and the other is study of human interaction with God. Could these be related? Could they be the same thing? Consider some content from the Bible that supports this. How can a man say that he loves God whom he cannot see if he cannot love his brother whom he can see? And when did we see you hungry and thirsty and naked and sick and in prison? Verily I say that inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these, you have done it unto me.

Are you bored? Do you find some things to be boring and others to be fascinating? Do you think that these are inherent properties in the things you observe, or does your response depend on you? There is a difference between saying, ‘this is boring’, and saying, ‘I’m bored’. The first is a judgment and the second is an admission that the problem may be you even if you don’t see it that way. What is your view of reality? Do you understand that every time you open your eyes you see something that I made and every person you meet is created in my image?

Have you ever defied authority? Was this a righteous act or not? When the apostles were reprimanded for proclaiming the gospel, they said, should we obey you or obey God? This was an act of righteous resistance, but how much defiance of authority is of this type and how much is just ordinary rebellion? It is easy to judge your own motives favorably rather than objectively. Do not confuse your own comfort and preferences with the cause of righteousness.

Do you ever act in such a way that doesn’t reflect your true feelings? If your boss wants to tell you about his vacation and it is something you have no interest in, do you tell him he is boring and walk away? In that case your true feelings would not align with your best interests. You know very well that your future depends on your boss having a favorable impression of you. And aren’t you suppressing your true feelings to be more gracious? Is this an acknowledgment that you true feelings are ungracious? Can you extend this principle beyond your boss?

Do you want to learn and grow? Do you like the comfort of being reassured that your current understanding is correct? Do you see the conflict between these positions? If you would be teachable then you must admit that you still have things to learn. Can you recognize that the things you already know may interfere with the things you have yet to learn? Do you see the process of learning as building a structure with more stones placed on stones previously placed, reaching higher and higher? Has it occurred to you that you might have to go back and remove some stones previously placed?

If the church were a business, what product would it be selling? The forgiveness of sins? Businesses need customers. Is there enough demand for this to keep the church in business? Have you found that believers, who are already forgiven, take sin seriously, and unbelievers, who are not, do not? So you have something they need and they don’t know it. How do you go about giving something to someone who doesn’t want it? Better advertising and marketing? You have the message of life. How can you present it so that it resonates with your audience to satisfy a need they are aware of?