Intentions

Tonight I am gathering with some friends to reflect on Isaiah 58, a passage we have been assigned to study, meditate and reflect on over the past month. As I have been reading through it, it speaks about INTENTION. My, our intention to worship God, serve Him, and love Him. The audience (God’s people) this passage was written for is a people who, for whatever purposes, had lost their focus on what true fasting is, what worship and service is. Listen to this:

“Declare to my people their rebellion and to the house of Jacob their sins. For day after day they seek me out; they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God. They ask me for just decisions and seem eager for God to come near them” (but…..) 58:1b-2

This is one of many examples in the Old Testament where we see God’s people, and their intentions are not honoring God. Like us they are broken, flawed, disobedient, selfish people. As you read the whole passage, their perspective is quite different from God’s. They appear to be under the impression that they are “doing the things they need to be doing” -- but God’s favor, His blessing is not there. God uses Isaiah to expose the true intentions of their hearts. They practice their religion but they aren’t religious, they fast but not in an acceptable way. They say they love God but do not show His love to others. Their practices are oppressive and do not reflect the love and grace of God. Listen to what John Oswalt says in his commentary on Isaiah about this passage:

“We return again to the inability of the people to do righteousness, as they were commanded in 56:1. Whereas in 56:9-57:13 their own attempts at righteousness were depicted as idolatrous, here their attempts are seen as selfish and oppressive. Instead of their religion making them a blessing to those around them, as God intended, it made them a curse. Interestingly, the people were being caught up in what God had not particularly commanded---fasts---and were neglecting what he had specifically commanded---the Sabbath feast.”

Now it could very well be true that the religious leaders in this day had every intention of honoring God with their religious practices. However, somewhere in the process their intentions became flawed, infected, and diseased. I never will forget as a young growing follower of Christ, Will McFarland once told me that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” That has stuck with me for over 12 years now, and I use that quote often. It is a gut check for me sometimes -- what is my intention in this circumstance, that relationship, this conversation, that act of kindness, or word of encouragement? Am I doing it to build up myself, or to build up Christ? I am sure that over the course of my faith journey there have been times when I really failed at that, and my true intentions were not really set toward God’s Kingdom agenda. I hope that those moments are long gone and very few ahead in my future, if any. But the reality is there are lots of us who love God and try to love others as ourselves, but really struggle with the line between good intentions or God intentions. I think the only way to fix it and to keep yourself in check is the daily picking up the cross, indentifying yourself with Christ, and surrendering you motives, attitude, and your will to Him. It’s not as much about the daily practice, but more about the process of continual fellowship with God, made possible through Christ’s sanctifying work on the Cross.

My wife and I just watched a great film last night that illustrates some of this. It is a Swedish film called As It Is in Heaven by Kay Pollak. Before I give my spill on this film, let me clarify that I am not saying you will find Jesus in the film, or that we should develop our theology from it. But there are things in this film that as missionaries and followers of Christ we can really observe and listen to. It has some great examples of incarnational, contextual missional practices. I am not sure of the writer/producers’ intentions of the movie, but it’s good nonetheless. One quick warning though, it is adult themed with small scenes of nudity, so guys be careful. But in the story there is a world famous conductor that, due to health reasons, goes on sabbatical back to the small village he grew up in. He becomes the new Cantor at the local Lutheran Church. Through his own methods, practices, and leading of this small choir you see the process of people becoming alive, and living to their full choral potential. It doesn’t take long to see that for years the village had been under a very oppressive form of religion. The film climaxes at a point where the minister, in a drunken state, points a shotgun at the Cantor and threatens to shoot him. He goes on and on about how he used to be the leader, he used to be in charge, the one looked up to and listened to until the Cantor came to town. The Cantor himself (not perfect but shows integrity in the film) is a picture of a person who focuses his time on listening to others, getting to know their dreams, gifts abilities, encouraging them, advocating for them and really in his own way tries to minister to them. The church council, under the dictorial rule of the Minister, has the Cantor fired because there are more people in his choir than are showing up at church. At one point the Sunday mass is canceled because no one is there --the whole town was at the choir party drinking coffee, laughing, and sharing community. As the character of the Minister develops, you see a man (who we don’t know his intentions of going into the ministry) who is all about his ego, his need to be in a position of authority and high status in the community. He preaches the crucifixion but has deep hidden sins of his own. He shows no grace, perhaps he himself has never fully experienced the grace of God. In one scene we see his wife, who shows him grace and forgiveness for his own faults, but at the same time she is turned away from Christ based on the witness of her husband. It is sad but sometimes true in reality. Like I said, we don’t know the true intentions of this minister but over the years it turned into his own selfish desires and eventually his life, ministry, and impact all fell apart.

My own application is this: as a missionary, leader, and follower of Christ, my intentions always needs to be less of me and more of Him. It cannot be focused on the mere practices I do in my faith, but about the ongoing process of becoming more like Christ. The less of my actions and more of His working through me, I have to find that balance. My intentions may be good and honorable, but if they don’t reflect Him and move people away from myself and towards Christ, then I fear those I may leave behind for hell.