When you read about the Jesus in the Bible, he’s profoundly counter-cultural. Jesus builds life, not institutions. He defied the religious assumptions. That’s why they killed him.

Were Back!

We took a short break this summer to Re-Structure everything!

The summer is coming to a close, and let make it could with the second to last CBS meeting of the summer.

Not Evolution.

It’s a Revolution in every sense of the word:

“A forcible overthrow of a government or social order, in favor of a new system; a dramatic and wide-reaching change in the way something works or is organized or in people’s ideas about it.” Oxford English Dictionary

How else to describe the upheaval? Clearly its followers move from one kingdom into another, from one world to another:

Open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God…’

Jesus, in Acts 26:18 (NASB)

For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, Colossians 1:13 (NASB)

Proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;

1 Peter 2:9 (NASB)

Overthrow

If Revolution is “a forcible overthrow of a government,” then Christianity is a revolution, because overthrow is the goal, the target, and the outcome of The Way:^[1]

“Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.”

John 12:31-32 (NASB)

At the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:10-11 (NASB)

For it is written, “As I live , says the Lord , every knee shall bow to Me, And every tongue shall give praise to God.” So then each one of us will give an account of himself to God.

Romans 14:11-12 (NASB)

If Revolution is an “overthrow of a social order,” then Jesus spawned Revolution, because he turned the “social order” upside-down:

And Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.”

John 9:39 (NASB)

“These men who have upset the world have come here also…and they all act contrary to the decrees of Caesar…”

Acts 17:6-7 (NASB)

“So the last shall be first, and the first last.”

Matthew 20:16

(Notice his amazing proclamation in Matthew 20:16 is immediately followed by the shocking revelation of his death and resurrection in 20:17-19. Death is the expected fate for a radical revolutionary, but could anyone make sense of his promise of resurrection?)

If Revolution is “a dramatic and wide-reaching change in the way something works” as the OED says, then Jesus and his followers certainly launched Revolution:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Galatians 3:28 (NASB)

Those were radical, seditious words attacking the fabric of Roman (and local) society. Such notions of social, racial and gender equality were unmatched for almost 2,000 years, until the modern era which tried (unsuccessfully) to imitate the Jesus Revolution.

The Revolution Jesus started brought radical equality from the beginning. Galatians, the letter containing the quote above, is universally-acknowledged as an early snapshot of the most primitive Christianity, written before 50 AD. Christianity was an infant movement, yet embraced dangerous slogans like “neither slave nor free man.” How scandalous and subversive Christianity was to Roman civilization! Slavery was, after all, the economic muscle of the Empire, and slaves out-numbered freemen 2 to 1. If these “Called-Out Ones” (as they were known) championed equality, they were infiltrating the Empire with very dangerous ideas.

Far more scandalous was the worship and reverence these radicals held for their crucified leader: it meant they honored a criminal and dishonored Roman law, even if only in their hearts. And Paul rightly identifies the biggest hurdle to stumble potentially-interested outsiders was the revolutionary, disturbing nature of The Way:

But we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a scandal and to Gentiles moronic, but to those who are “the called,” both Jews and Greeks, The Messiah is the power of God and the wisdom of God.

1 Corinthians 1:23-24

It meant those becoming Christians could also expect death, even crucifixion! Of course, this is precisely why Jesus warned potential followers:

Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.  Luke 14:27

He wasn’t trying to be mean. He was preparing them to be revolutionaries.^[2]

Radical

Yet even the OED gives a tame definition of the Radical Revolution Jesus brought: it was not “an overthrow…in favor of a new system” at all. His Radical Revolution is “anti-system”, not a “new system”. He introduced a radical redefinition of all the assumptions, activities and outcomes found in the world around. What human institution or government can still function by the principles of such a radical Revolution?

For example, here’s radical:

And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Ephesians 5:21 (NLT)

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves;

Philippians 2:3 (NASB)

Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor;

Romans 12:10 (NASB)

Such words describe a flattening of the hierarchy, which shakes the pillars of all human systems. “The Called-Out Ones” were precisely that: a movement against institutional hierarchy.

There is a hierarchy, but it breaks the rules of good business practices.

Yet The Called-Out Ones are not anarchists; they operate by authority, but it is a simple, one-tiered level of authority:

Christ is also the head of the The Called-Out-Ones, which is his body. He is the beginning, supreme over all who rise from the dead. So he is first in everything. Colossians 1:18 (NLT)

Holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God. Colossians 2:19 (NASB)

Today the Federal Reserve is playing a critical role in rectifying our economic turmoil. I was employed at the Federal Reserve in Cleveland, and I know how complex the bureaucracy is that moves trillions of dollars around the world every day. Consider what might happen if the Chairman of the Federal Reserve issued an internal memo one day like this:

“Henceforth, all employees of the Federal Reserve are equally responsible to oversee the daily operations and monetary management of the Federal Reserve.”

Banks across the globe would collapse overnight!

Yet such a memo is written to The Called-Out Ones, which makes the Jesus Revolution so dangerous and anti-institutional:

“Do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ.” Matthew 23:10 (NASB)

“Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven.” Matthew 23:9 (NASB)

With such a radical mandate, is it any wonder the Institutions of the Church have historically tortured, burned and killed The Called-Out Ones wherever they could be found? What a threat The Revolution poses to the powerful bureaucracies of “The Church”.

The Real Question

It is not “how do we do church?” Such a question assumes it’s only a matter of theopraxy in need of tuning — and perhaps there are times to fine-tune our practices. But not so today. Not with Christianity in steep decline. Not when we’re facing “The Last Christian Generation” as Josh McDowell predicts.

The real question is this: what happened to The Revolution? Is it so distant from our collective Christian memory that we can’t grasp it anymore? Or, perhaps more relevant, what are we doing as Christians in this country to kill The Revolution?

Is it possible American Christians are afraid of Radical Revolution? It is, after all, a stigma and a label often applied to hateful movements, like Communism. But it is fair to ask: why is it left to the hate-filled movements to call for revolution? Are not Christians already at odds with the World System? More important, would Karl Marx have made such progress if the name of “Christianity” was not so deeply-embedded in the oppressive regimes of the World System?

Issues Raised

For discussion and consideration:

1. How is it possible to reconcile “radical, seditious words attacking the fabric of Roman (and local) society” with “honor the king” in 1 Peter 2:17?
2. Do you see the close association between “willing to die” and “resurrection” in this revolution? (Read Matthew 20:17-19) What is that association, and how do we communicate this?
3. How do you reconcile Matthew 23:10 with Paul’s later writings which describe qualified leaders? (See 1 Tim. 3)
4. Does it make any practical difference at all wether Christianity is a “Revolution” or not? In other words, does it change the way you tell others about the Gospel?
5. Is there any difference between Christianity as a “Revolution” and Christianity as a “Spiritual War”? More to-the-point, how important is it to distinguish between “Revolution” and “War” in Christian ministry?

• Teaching: Mark 4 Part Two
• Teaching by Thomas Smith and Kyle McCallum.
• Location: In the Basement of the Student Center
• Time: 8:30pm

• Teaching: Mark 4 Part One
• Teaching by Thomas Smith and Greg  Morscher PhD.
• Location: In the Basement of the Student Center
• Time: 8:30pm

February 19th

• Teaching: Mark 3
• Teaching by Dar McCallum and Kyle McCallum
• Location: In the Basement of the Student Center
• Time: 8:30pm

• Teaching: Mark 2
• Teaching by Mike Hudok and Keith McCallum
• Location: The Apartment
• Time: 8:30pm

• Teaching: A Man With Leprosy Mark 1:40-45
• Teaching by Dr. Morscher
• Location: The Apartment
• Time: 8:30pm

But then the AI boy is abandoned when the real human child suddenly awakens from the coma. The AI wanders aimlessly through the ages, never growing older, and always searching for love like he once knew with his adopted mother. He lost all sense of purpose, but not his emotions.

Hundreds and perhaps thousands of years pass while an ice age envelopes New York and recedes slowly. An advanced civilization of humanoids discovers the abandoned boy, and they re-create his beloved mother from the DNA in a strand of hair the little boy carried. At last, he can be loved! His mother will live again! But the AI is told he will not survive 24 hours with her because the emotional overload will destroy his circuits.

The movie ends with the boy wrapped in his former mother’s arms, knowing he would die in a few hours, but utterly blissful because he is loved. This love will destroy him soon, but it is worthwhile.

Thirst for Tragedy

The movie “AI” was a pet project for director Stephen Spielberg. He captured the beauty and tragedy of love. People wander aimlessly like the AI boy looking for someone—anyone—to give them the love they need in order to survive. But once found how it destroys!

How is it possible for something so beautiful to destroy a life? Spielberg is one of so many through the millennia to notice the poisonous yet irresistible nature of love. It was told in Romeo and Juliet, but millennia earlier in Sampson and Delilah. Nothing matters without love, yet nothing wounds so painfully deep.

“It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved,” Shakespeare wrote. Those who get shattered by divorce believe this is true as they seek yet again to get married.

The Bible provides clear insight into the tragedy and beauty of love, but it’s not easy to swallow: love is a poison in human hands. It poisons the one who craves it.

Love-On-Demand

When love becomes a demand it becomes perverted and no longer the love God knows. It becomes Love-On-Demand.

The problem with Love-On-Demand is obvious: it never satisfies because it no longer feels like love. The brat says, “I hate you mommy!” and when she placates him he remembers one thing: how easy it is to dominate her! His heart grows disdainful towards her. But most important, his mother is groveling, not loving, and it does not feel like love. Although the brat may have immediate positive feelings, he will feel unsatisfied soon enough. Counterfeit love always feels good in the present, but it has no substance and evaporates quickly. It leaves only a thirst for more feelings.

The near-infinite permutations of creative demands explain the near-infinite definitions of love people pursue. But all our various definitions of love share a common foundational definition: love is something that makes me feel good here-and-now. It is Love-On-Demand. It is counterfeit.

Counterfeit love is called lust in the Bible. It is a core defect in our relationships. Lust is actually a perverted sense of love which is rooted in cravings for satisfaction right-here-right-now. Lust promises to deliver all the feelings associated with love, but like salt water it only increases thirst. It increases demand.

Compare this against authentic love:

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud
or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 1 Corinthians 13:4-5 (NLT)

But people are not patient and kind. They get jealous and especially rude. People do demand their own way, and they are irritable and they keep lengthy records titled, “I was wronged!” This is because every person we meet has a distinct set of Love-Demands.

Hide-And-Seek Demands

But how many people itemize their expectations in clear terms? It would hardly qualify as a recipe for a successful dating life if we elucidated our terms up-front. We also dare not reveal to others what those demands look like, because it gives them an opportunity to defend themselves against those demands, or perhaps use that knowledge inappropriately.

It is also possible to be completely unaware of our personal Love-Demands…until we feel hurt and angry, and then we know it! (And everyone else knows too!) But even then it may be extremely difficult to vocalize precisely why we feel so hurt and angry. Rarely do we stop to carefully consider what good reason we have to feel this way? Why? It’s simple: the reason doesn’t matter, only the hurt matters. Frankly, the reason for our great indignation may sound absurd or trite or immature, so it is often far more strategic to avoid thinking about the Love-Demand behind the hurt. Another way to explain it: we tend to lie, even to ourselves.

But God always sees what poisons lurk in our hearts. He knows the thoughts and intentions of the heart, and He is repulsed by it:

“Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips.” Romans 3:13 (NIV)

Our hidden demands smell like “open graves” to outsiders, and our “tongues practice deceit” because we hide those demands so well. When we finally show others, these selfish demands come out like “the poison of vipers.” Our view of ourselves distorts the potency and effect of our Love-Demands simply because we are not the recipients. The real gauge of our Love-Demands is the effect on others.

Hurt is how we identify Love-Demands. When we feel hurt by someone, it means we expected otherwise. Perhaps we expected appreciation or affirmation, and instead we received criticism—which feels like condemnation because of our high expectations. This often occurs with women, who are well-known whiners, men say. But the woman only wanted a little heart-felt, genuine appreciation and attention. After all, she thinks, “We are people, not sex objects, so why can’t I be wanted as a person?”

Anger is a clear indication of violated Love-Demands. Why get angry if someone does what you expect? But with failure, oh what anger! The Work Substitute male is especially emotionally-disturbed in this fashion: his Love-Demands are grotesque expectations of subservience and gratitude, which if others fail to deliver makes him feel—very unhappy.

Figure 1 – Silos dominate the interior of a Trident submarine.

I was invited into a highly-restricted submarine base where the sailors led me into the belly of a Trident nuclear submarine. It was an Ohio-class, a massive vessel. Sailors seemed like specs standing on its deck when the behemoth heads out to sea. But I never realized until I went inside why a Trident was so gargantuan: it holds 12 nuclear missile silos! I always imagined a spacious, comfortable interior, but not so. The silos made it crowded. Everywhere inside the sub, across three levels and even on-deck those 24 silos loomed ever-present. They were massive and hideous steel tubes coiled in wires, electronics, switches, lights and refrigeration systems. They towered through the decks like cold monsters in Frankenstein’s lab waiting to be released. Sailors who live with these monsters every day, submerged for months and walking carefully around them, have all their instincts trained to service, protect and “deploy” the hydrogen bombs—12 missiles with multiple (classified) warheads. The wealth of destruction inside that boat numbs the mind. I knew Tridents carried nuclear missiles, but only up-close and inside the submarine is the overwhelming destructive power evident.

Love-Demands likewise lurk hidden beneath a vast, calm surface, waiting. When suddenly the surface erupts, what horror it is to see a nuclear monster flaming towards its target! Those poor souls on the receiving end! They never saw …

God’s Answer to Demands

Love-Demands erupt with words, not missiles, but when they do erupt the violence can destroy lives. We cannot appreciate how painful our Love-Demands can be for someone else to endure. We do not understand how hard these demands are for others to bear. While hidden deep in our hearts they seem so natural, so obvious and righteous! But those on the receiving end our demands see something else, as James tells that young church:

The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.
James 3:6 (NIV)

“Love is something that makes me feel good here-and-now!” What a lethal force this unleashes in our emotional lives and those around us! It explodes like napalm. Few appreciate the lethal power of their hidden Love-Demands, but aren’t these demands hidden for good reason? James nails it:

For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. James 3:16 (NIV)

God wants us to understand our Love Demands. It is the only way to expose these hidden poisons. This means lifting our heads above the swirling fog of personal concern, looking at the world full of people around, and placing our demands in perspective: “I am not alone,” is the clear conclusion. This planet is swarming with individuals laden with their own personal Love-Demands.

If we do not understand our own, personal Love-Demands, we will remain perpetually a victim of other people’s immaturities.

Jesus Christ provided an ingenious remedy for Love-Demands:

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12 (NIV)

We have already demonstrated that authentic love is ethical, by nature. As Christ says, “this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” And the ethic is ingeniously simple: use your Love-Demands as a guide to “do to others what you would have them do to you.” This is a healthy lifestyle, for two reasons:

1. It objectifies Love-Demands. To consider “what you would have them do to you” puts Love-Demands in an objective light. Those dark, hidden demands seem so viable while hidden in the recesses of the heart. But they hit the real world when you try to “do to others,” and suddenly the expectations seem so vague or impossible! It separates the realistic from fantasy among our expectations.
2. It is something you control. This Do-To-Others lifestyle is infinitely practical compared to the Love-On-Demand lifestyle. You have control over what you “do to others,” but you have no control over what “you would have them do to you.” This holds promise. It is the first big, realistic step towards true Victorious Love Output.

This is, in fact, the direction God leads everyone in sanctification and growth:

“Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves.” Philippians 2:3 (NASB95)

Try It

Here are a few simple ways to start healing the scars inflicted by a lifetime of Love-On-Demand. Try these exercises in the context of a discipleship or counseling relationship where someone who knows you can also help objectify your reasoning through this process.

1) Identify Love Demands

Some people are genuinely unable to get a healthy grip on their Love Demands. Start by answering this simple question: “Where have I felt hurt or angry by the treatment I received from someone important in my life?”

2) Translating Demands into Forgiveness

The biggest barrier to living the Do-Unto-Others lifestyle is a feeling that “I have been wronged!” Before the Do-Unto-Others is possible, we must get a perspective on our anger or sense of hurt. This exercise helps towards that end.

a) Write a list of the ways you have been hurt by others. There should be no reluctance to tell the truth here whatsoever—let us not repress the pain we feel.

b) Write down the rule for each offense which clearly stipulates why the hurt is valid. Can you articulate your Love-Demands clearly in the real world, or do they only make sense hidden deep inside your heart? This can become quite a difficult task to make the rule we write clearly explain the reason for feeling hurt.

c) Lastly, write down where you have violated this rule at least once in your own dealings with others. Humans are not perfect, and believe it or not we have failed to love others by our own standards. This is the ingenious nature of Christ’s “Do-To-Others” principle: discovering how impossible our demands are to meet in perfect detail.

Point “c” is most enlightening, and triggers the beginning of real healing in our lives—it triggers forgiveness.

We will soon discover that the Do-To-Others lifestyle is the quickest, most promising way to fulfill our deep longings for authentic love. Next we will discover how that works.

John & Yoko Lenin - Rolling Stone magazine cover

Loneliness is emptiness. It is isolation. It is utterly dehumanizing. Solitary confinement is the torture that breaks the human spirit and melts the will of hardened criminals in prison. Loneliness screams to be healed, and it must be healed. Love Demands feel more like Love Necessities inside: human nature demands the loneliness must end.

Empirical research provides abundant correlation between loneliness and a wide range of debilitating and fatal maladies. Its effects range from simple anxiety, addictions, chronic depression and suicide to alcoholism, sociopathic hostility and even physical sickness like heart disease and increased risk for cancer.

But expensive research is hardly needed for most of us to know that loneliness is devastating. The following account is far too common:

Holy crap. I miss my family really badly. I am the oldest of 11 going on 12 kids, and they all live very far away. I am all by myself in NYC… if I really wanted to go home I could, though I know it sucks there. My boyfriend dumped me and I almost got fired at work today… I don’t know why I feel so bad when there really are people who care about me. But I do feel horribly lonely. I know I could get into another relationship, but I’m not even sure what I want anymore. I got married at 20, and am already alone again. – Wanda

How can she be so lonely in a crowded place like New York City? With 11 siblings, an intact family, many “people who care about me,” once married and still apparently attractive enough to easily “get into another relationship,” she still says, “But I do feel horribly lonely.” It’s a dark and malignant emptiness growing inside her. Whatever else could be said about her situation, one point is clear: loneliness is inside, not out there.

The Confusion Inside

The depressing sense of isolation – not a temporary thing from a business trip or death of a spouse – but this chronic, sometimes debilitating alienation is what Wanda describes. It’s an emptiness that settles bone-deep, a heavy weight carried from one relationship to another. This is Wanda’s life. Surely from among all the many diverse people she knows, someone could fill that emptiness, but not so! Each new relationship is so promising, but in fact it’s tainted by the terrible weight of loneliness she brings from her growing collection of unhappy relationships.

Loneliness becomes a confusing collection of feelings and experiences so difficult to grasp! Loneliness always intensifies when a relationship fails, so it seems to be connected to other people. In fact the truly defining moments in our lives are tied to other people. The sudden death of a parent, or marriage, or the birth of a child, or divorce, or the loss of a child become the milestones of our lives as we look back.

Our greatest changes come from the way someone else reached deep inside and touched us. It could be a high school teacher who believed in us, or an elementary teacher who embarrassed us in front of the class. It is a distinctive characteristic of the human psyche to be impervious to changes in the environment and the world of nature and surrounding circumstances, but still remain vulnerable and exposed to the personal touch of another human heart.

Unlucky Loneliness

Does this mean Wanda is one seriously unlucky person? Why can’t she find someone to counter that growing repository of loneliness?

She carries it with her because loneliness is undeniably our personal property and beyond the control of anyone else. The next man she marries—if there is one—will live with her deep sense of despair and he’ll be powerless to touch it unless Wanda grants permission. Our heart becomes the county trash dump for all the people we allow inside. After they leave, our hearts still hold their filthy garbage. No wonder Wanda is reluctant to let still more people come tromping inside!

The Bible frames this same quandary in more concise terms:

The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it? Jeremiah 17:9 (NASB95)

Yes, the heart grows very deceitful in time as become more cagey and crafty dealing with people. But no matter how skilled we become, the craftiness won’t keep our hearts from getting polluted with the deceit and sickness other people dumped there.

Time is growing short for Wanda, since each new relationship burns her emotional energy and each failure grinds her hope away. Her quest is so useless! She roams and seeks for The One with enough love to fill this dark loneliness and clean up the mess, but no human can reach that deep inside her.

Her “desperately sick” heart it is not beyond the reach of God, however. Answering the earlier question in verse 9, God says:

“I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind!” Jeremiah 17:10a (NASB95)

God offers relief for everyone like Wanda struggling with loneliness, and those who turn to Him can find the relief King David describes:

Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way. Psalms 139:23-24

Lonely With Company

Wanda is lonely, but not alone. “Loneliness is a condition of human life, an experience of being human,” writes a modern philosopher, which “is within life itself.” Thomas Wolfe framed it well:

The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence. When we examine the moments, acts, and statements of all kinds of people-not only the grief and ecstasy of the greatest poets, but also the huge unhappiness of the average soul…we find, I think, that they are all suffering from the same thing. The final cause of their complaint is loneliness. - Thomas Wolfe.

Today “the huge unhappiness of the average soul” is drawing considerable attention from philosophers, anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists as well as the medical community. Their research has proven invaluable, yet secular thinkers are still baffled by it: “the meaning of loneliness remains ‘an enigma,’” writes one researcher. Despite our vast scientific and medical resources, our technology and even the billions spent on entertainment, the problem of loneliness is growing in modern culture.

Redefined Loneliness

People are baffled by their loneliness, and so are academics and scholars. Solutions are few and insufficient. One popular approach attempts to control loneliness by labeling it Existential Loneliness and framing it as something “which enables the individual to sustain, extend, and deepen his humanity.”

How strange to view loneliness as a strength! The hope is that enlightened reasoning will enable us to rise above such primitive fears and limitations, and “deal with questions about how to live authentically, how to confront one’s inner life, and how to approach the problem of death.” A popular school of psychology now uses this approach with “Terror Management Therapy” (TMT). Loneliness is our need “to become” or “to be” significant, they say:

The lonely individual seeks to grasp some meaning in the face of life’s impermanence…and the inevitability of death… Loneliness is not merely a normal part of human life, it is essential for human growth and authentic existence. By truly experiencing loneliness, the individual affirms his being and authenticity. When positively embraced and confronted, loneliness has a salutary role: the integration and deepening of self. Through loneliness, the individual “discovers life, who he is, what he really wants, the meaning of his existence, [and] the true nature of his relation with others.

Can the “deepening of self” resolve my loneliness as TMT claims? This is the epitome of a Work Substitute solution for loneliness! (Not surprisingly, high-achieving, high-functioning males invented it.) Normal people would never say loneliness is “a subjective and multidimensional state involving emotional distress, social inadequacy, interpersonal isolation, and self-alienation” the way these academics define it. Rather, “loneliness is when dad is home” describes the family’s reaction to their cold-hearted Work Substitute father.

Social scientists claim loneliness originates from poor social structures outside the individual:

“Sociological perspectives are concerned with social and environmental forces that increase or intensify the prevalence of painful feelings associated with being isolated or feeling alienated from others.”

These social engineers believe in building new social systems to pull isolated people into society, so government action is required. Is this not another Work Substitute approach to emotions? (Only the Work Substitute feels loved by building systems.) Nobody else would feel loved by the new “environmental forces” erected by the social engineers.

Inadequate solutions are not limited to the secular realm; manmade religions use Spiritual Disciplines to eliminate loneliness. As with the other approaches, loneliness is redefined so it can be managed through rigorous, personal effort:

The man who fears to be alone will never be anything but lonely, no matter how much he may surround himself with people. But the man who learns in solitude and recollection, to be at peace with his own loneliness, and to prefer its reality to the illusion of merely natural companionship, comes to know the invisible companionship of God.” Theresa of Avila.

Why did God create us with an irrepressible need for “merely natural companionship” as Theresa calls it? If human love is an “illusion” as Theresa claims, it means God is sadistic for planting that longing in our hearts! If God intended us to know only His “invisible companionship,” why can’t He get to the point and get rid of the need for “natural companionship” distracting us?

These solutions are trite because they avoid the obvious problem: loneliness means we are alone! It isn’t perceived, and it’s not an illusion. It’s not rectified by complex social structures. Loneliness is a personal problem, it’s deep, and it pierces the core of our being. It is, in fact, a built-in alarm that we need intimacy. Loneliness is a signal that our hearts are broken.

Real Solutions

From the beginning God defined real loneliness:

And the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be by himself: I will make one like himself as a help to him.” Genesis 2:18 (BBE)

Real loneliness is simply the man “by himself,” God said, and it’s not His will for anyone. Nobody should have to feel lonely, according to God: “it is not good!”

His solution is not the complex social structures or deep, inner “solitude and recollection” of Spiritual Disciplines. He defines loneliness as it really is, and He also offers real solutions as simple as finding a spouse and building together a powerful love relationship called intimacy:

“At last!” the man exclaimed. “This one is bone from my bone, and flesh from my flesh! She will be called ‘woman,’ because she was taken from ‘man.’” This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame.” Genesis 2:23-25 (NLT)

God’s solution stands apart from the crowd. It’s not complex or abstract, and it goes to the core of our deepest desire: to be intimate with another living, breathing human soul, from whom nothing is hidden or needs to be hidden. Clearly someone is wrong here: either the God of the Bible who says loneliness is an abnormal and unwelcome state, or these modern thinkers who view loneliness as a necessary pain.

Owner of a Lonely Heart

One singer called himself the “Owner of a Lonely Heart,” and he nailed it. He knew loneliness followed him wherever he went, whoever he was with, and it wasn’t a pretty picture. He just couldn’t understand where it came from or how to resolve it.

By necessity an ungrateful heart is a lonely heart. We feel lonely because, as Paul made the point earlier, ingratitude rules the heart and builds a calloused, unfeeling, indifferent way of relating to the world around. Ingratitude begins with God, but it spreads to relationships everywhere.

Normal people know loneliness hurts, and they know it’s not reduced by mere redefinition. There are more common ways to carry a lonely heart and still make life work, and these strategies grow into habits which get hardened and become lifestyles, as Paul says: “they would not give thanks!” No sir, no way! That is spoken with determination, and determination is willpower hard to bend.

It is an ironic, almost insane fact that people consistently solve loneliness by turning inward rather than outward. As the brief survey above demonstrates, the solutions people use to fight loneliness are always self-based, not others-based. This hardly makes sense by the most obvious standard of loneliness as “being alone.” And once deeply entrenched inside our lonely hearts, we then ask, “Why can’t I reach out to other people, even though I know how lonely I am?”

The Birth of Loneliness

We do not feel indebted to anyone, anywhere, and this foundation was established long ago. It formed in the earliest stages in life, when love was first poured out freely by the parents. It was at that time we learned to interpret love as something owed, not freely given. It’s a fascinating paradox that parents feel such deep love for their children, while at the same time children don’t feel the love–they feel honored instead!

Our attitude is, “God cares for me and I deserve it!” This is the source of the thin love of man: failure to be thankful…We react in the very same way in relation to our parents: “Daddy and mommy love me, and I sure do deserve it!” If we don’t grow from this infantile , sinful, love-taking reaction, we still feel this way: “I deserve something!” Ankenman-Identity

Legalism

People make Herculean efforts to avoid falling into debt to God, and they do it through harsh, manmade religions. By offering God a religious performance rather than authentic, heart-felt gratitude, it’s possible to maintain a respectful distance. It’s an historical anomaly that the more rigorous and harsh religions attract more followers than the simple message of God’s love made freely available by grace. The reason is simple: legalistic traditions keep people from owing God anything.

God is unimpressed by our self-justification and good works. Instead, he longs for a thankful heart that comes from a deep love relationship with Him:

I will praise the name of God with song and magnify Him with thanksgiving. And it will please the LORD better than an ox or a young bull with horns and hoofs. Psalms 69:30-31

Isn’t it intuitively clear that thankfulness will “magnify Him,” but self-justification only magnifies ourselves? If so, why pursue it? Quite simply, to practice thanksgiving instead would feel unnatural at best, and probably repulsive.

Legalism is a way of life that spreads into human relationships as well, and for the same unthankful reasons. In our heart of hearts, we firmly believe we deserve to be loved.

Infinite rights

Ingratitude is a highly rights-oriented viewpoint. “I deserve better!” the ungrateful heart says.

But where are these rights defined? Ask the ungrateful person this question, and you’ll get a list of arbitrary answers, all imaginary and many conceived spontaneously on-the-spot, yet held with great conviction as if they were known before the dawn of time.

The right to feel hurt or angry is so arbitrary and spontaneous because the ungrateful heart is satisfied with nothing less than a blank check for payment. As much as we try to provide rationale, these rights are truly irrational because they are so emotionally valuable. They don’t make cognitive sense, and nobody could dispel them through sheer reason, but rights-oriented thinking has played a significant and long emotional history in our inner world of loneliness. We dare not release those comforting rights!

It isn’t any specific rights which buttress the loneliness deep inside. It is an orientation towards the outside world, a way of thinking dominated by personal rights. This is evident in the way personal rights get arbitrarily attached to floating issues, which makes it forever impossible to find personal satisfaction and terminate the loneliness. “You’re so hard to please!” is another way people tell you the same thing.

Consider silly Jonah, the Old Testament prophet. Here was a guy so consumed with his arbitrary, personal rights, he ends up loving a gourd! A gourd is a fairly useless vegetable. It sounds crazy, but this is what happens when a rights-oriented view has nowhere else to anchor itself. Throughout the book of Jonah, God persistently corners Jonah and repeatedly knocks down Jonah’s formidable pillars of rights. In the end, we read this absurd conversation between God and Jonah:

But God said to Jonah, “Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?” “I do,” he said. “I am angry enough to die!” Jonah 4:9 (NIV)

The absurdity of that conversation is evident reading it in an isolated context, but Jonah of course could never see the absurdity from within his rights-oriented world. Deep inside was a twisted, knotty logic that justified dying for the “vine” (literally, a “gourd”). Those rights are often so irrational and foolish, it’s no wonder we feel so lonely! We dare not tell anyone else–they would laugh!

Biblical Rights

Not surprisingly, the scriptures don’t embrace rights:

As currently discussed, rights are a product of the Enlightenment. The Scriptures speak so little about rights that it would scarcely be an exaggeration to say that “rights” are not a scriptural concept. What the Scriptures speak of are duties and justice: “He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).

The only rights we have standing before God is the right to go to hell. This is justice, pure and simple, if we wish to invoke justice.

“But that’s unfair!” people scream. They mean this: “If you don’t love me God, you’re not a good God! You must love me! I deserve it!”

God has an answer to these charges:

But to the wicked God says, “What right have you to tell of My statutes and to take My covenant in your mouth? Psalms 50:16

Would we instruct the lawmaker about the law?

A Simple Evaluation

There is an easy way to prove how arbitrary our rights-oriented logic can be. Try this in a cell group or perhaps with your spouse:

1. Identify the last time you felt really hurt or angry. Remember how it felt?
2. On a piece of paper write down precisely which rights were violated that triggered or justified such strong feelings.
3. Ask someone to play the role of a sharp lawyer in court testing the precise, unambiguous meaning of your rules, looking for any possible loopholes.
4. Re-write the rules to close the loopholes and give your lawyer another chance. Precision is important with rules, of course.
5. Re-write the rules one last time and now look at them: ask yourself where on earth these rules can possibly be found clearly codified and endorsed like you felt they were when you were so hurt and angry?

If your lawyer was any good, your once-clean list of violations now look like a spaghetti bowl of confused, impossible-to-satisfy and very immature demands. You would never submit to a list like this from someone else!

Is it beginning to make sense why these personal rights we cherish so dearly are actually imprisoning us inside a lonely world nobody else can share?