The State of In-Dependence

You know I don't think people fully appreciate the cost of following Christ in Western, and specifically American, society. I think people like to talk about how radical Jesus was and how he came to completely change the societal and cultural structures, and then they go right back to living just like secular and worldly society and culture.

Let's just take the act of completely depending on God like the Bible talks about for example. How many sermons and devotionals laud fully depending on God?

Matthew 6:33 says: "Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well." This is in the context of not worrying about provision for basic necessities like food and clothing. And there's Philippians 4:19: "And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus."

So many times people say they are trusting God, but they still have to do their part. We can't just wait around for God to do everything for us. God gave us a brain for us to use. God helps those who help themselves (which is not in the Bible by the way.) People who love to say how lazy welfare recipients are are especially fond of Paul's statement that those who don't work don't eat. And also that Paul was a tentmaker to earn money to support himself. Of course they don't remember all the numerous other passages where Paul talked about the support and gifts he received from people that enabled him to continue the work. Do you really think Paul earned enough making tents to travel all the places he did? Come on.

Let's look at how Jesus himself did the work of the kingdom. Did he continue his carpenter job and tell Peter to keep the fishing business? No. He told them to leave every means of earning an income to follow. They didn't bring any money and stayed with a worthy person/man of peace (Matthew 10/Luke 10) while they were in that town. They could've been called freeloaders.

What about the early church? Look at Acts 2:

⁴² They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. ⁴³Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. ⁴⁴ All the believers were together and had everything in common. ⁴⁵ They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. ⁴⁶Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, ⁴⁷ praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

The believers held everything in common. Here's where they could've been called communists... Did they all have their individual bank accounts? Was it up to everyone to pay their own way? Did they each consider their home their own, for just their family? No- they went so far as to SELL PROPERTY to provide for the people in need in their community.

I am struggling with this right now as my phone bill is overdue. It is the holidays and there is no contract work. I had to admit that I need help. That was hard. And then I realized how ridiculous it was for me to have such a hard time asking for help. And I realized that everyone likes to feel generous by being the one to help someone in need, but nobody actually wants to BE the one in need.

That is just not Biblical. How does God feel about the poor? I got rather concerned about my student loan debt and realized that the only places where it talks about debt in the Bible is where God had to miraculously bail someone out of debt, or Christ paid our debts, and how the guy didn't want to forgive after his debts were paid. There's one verse in Romans about not letting a debt remain outstanding except to love people, but the majority of times there is no negative context for someone needing help getting out of debt. It doesn't even mention asking the people how they got in debt in the first place to see if they were worthy to be helped out or not.

So to bring it back around and to conclude, I go back to our culture. I believe this "Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" and value on self-sufficiency and independence is not Biblical. Unfortunately this is a prevalent attitude even in the church. But whether we are just succumbing to American cultural values or our own desire to be independent, I think what it boils down to is, we don't want to have to depend on anyone but ourselves. We feel uncomfortable and vulnerable having to trust others to take care of us and we do everything in our power to avoid it. Rather than seek first the kingdom we seek first our own ways of staying in control of our lives. My parents didn't even like me selling Girl Scout cookies or raising money for band trip fundraisers. They said, "We don't want you to have to go around begging for money. We'll just pay for the trip ourselves."

Now I am not saying people shouldn't work. Of course God gives us careers and wants us to be able to take care of our families. But He wants us to do it out of dependence on HIM. Unfortunately it is too easy to just seek first our own financial and personal security and ask God to bless our efforts, rather than truly asking Him what we should be doing.

I hope this is something to think about in this season of "giving" and especially "giving to the less fortunate." As you enjoy going to the toy store to purchase Angel Tree gifts for that poor family and think about how good it feels to give, why not try thinking about how it feels to BE in need. If you don't feel like you are in need of anything, than you're probably not actually dependent upon God. And I think that's scarier than being the needy one.