A Flourishing Life of Love
(Matthew 22:37–40) NIV
How often do we say, “What is at the bottom line of this issue?” Or we might muse, “What is the heart of the matter?” Sometimes in negotiations we say, “Let’s get down to brass tacks…” Each of these clichés reveals a legitimate desire to focus on the core of an issue and avoid unnecessary detours or distractions. The Bible tells us what the Lord considers most important for the people. In Deut. 6:4–5 Moses encapsulates the response of God’s people to the gracious love of God: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” The text in Lev. 19:18 adds the refrain, “love your neighbor as yourself.” In Micah 6:8 the prophet answers the cry of a righteous heart, “What does God expect?” Poetically, he summarizes the Torah: “He has showed 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.”
In these Old Testament texts we discover the ancient heart of discipleship for the people of God. We are called to love God wholeheartedly and love others, as we would wish to be loved.
Jesus’ Declaration
Our text is Jesus’ answer to this cry of Micah and others. The greatest commandment of all is to love God. Its companion is to love others as ourselves. Jesus says, “All the rest, rests on these two pillars.” In this love-command we have the foundations for a flourishing 24/7 life that honors God and brings good to the world.
Christianity is in crisis as we confront religious pluralism through globalization and post-Christian resistance to the church among younger generations that may consider Christianity part of the past or an impediment to the future. Added to these challenges is the sorry state of discipleship among those that declare Jesus is Lord and the Bible is inspired. The Willow Creek Reveal Study of 2009, multiple surveys by George Barna, Pew Research and Christian apologist Josh McDowell all unveil disconnects between confession and conduct, profession and practice. We have more books and videos, seminars and sermons than ever before, but we are miles wide and inches deep. The same folk that declare the Bible inspired are also rejecting many of its moral and theological claims! How do we move forward in biblical obedience within the church and in our global mission? Since Jesus said that everything hinged on the twin commands of loving God and neighbor, then there must be sufficient divine resources in the Word, empowered by the Spirit, to propel spiritual growth and the church’s mission.
Three Commands, Five Dimensions, and a New Vision of Discipleship1
Let’s unpack the biblical calls to love God, love others, and (without lapsing into selfishness) love ourselves. Loving God encompasses all facets of what most church traditions call spiritual formation or the spiritual life. The Trinity is worshipped, prayer and reading the Bible are a central part of life, and a personal sense of closeness to God is desired and experienced.
Loving our neighbor encapsulates healthy relationships, including family affections, forgiveness of adversaries, workplace ethics, and a host of other encounters. We aim for the good of others and offer service without regard to return.
Loving ourselves moves us toward personal wholeness as we see ourselves as created and redeemed for a purpose (Gen. 1, 2; Eph. 2:18–10; 3:10) and walk in liberated holiness, free from past habits, hang-ups, and hurts.
Spiritual formation, personal wholeness, and healthy relationships do not happen in a vacuum. Discipleship takes place 24/7 as we live out our calling in the everyday world of work. The reality of our Christian life unearths three more dimensions of discipleship: vocational clarity, economics, and work.
The Christian Life is comprehensive, embracing all aspects of our humanity. Whole-life discipleship is the process of Holy Spirit-empowered transformation in which the reign of the Lord Jesus Christ increases in and through all of life’s dimensions. 2 Pet 1:3 reminds us that, “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” God’s work in us (making us more like Jesus: Rom. 8:28–30 and Phil. 2:13–13) and through us (fulfilling the Great Commission: Matt. 28:18–20) takes place in the world of economics and work as we fulfill the particular calling God has bestowed.
The Five Dimensions of Discipleship:
• Loving God is our spiritual formation, including growth in the prayer and the Word, experiencing the gifts and vitality of the Spirit, and increasing our knowledge of God and his ways and works.
• Loving ourselves is our personal wholeness; a growing liberation for self and sin, deepening deliverance from negative emotions, thoughts, and habits and an increasing peace with who we are in Christ.
• Loving others embraces healthy relationships that develop as we walk in forgiveness, exercise self-control of passions and thoughts, look to help others grow and reach out to those who are left out.
• Loving our calling or personal purpose means that we have vocational clarity. We are developing our God-given gifts, refining our sense of calling and united with our family members and church community in how our calling benefits others.
• Work and Participate in the economy. Sometimes spiritual leaders and their followers forget that God’s work in the world takes place through people that spend most of their waking hours working.2 Whether we are employees or volunteers, at home or in an office, in the factory or field, as laborer or leader, it is meaningful in the purpose of God for our lives and the flourishing of the community and the world!
As we aim to love God and do God’s work in the world, we need a new vision of what it means to “make disciples.” This flourishing life described by Moses and Micah, Jesus and the Apostle Paul, is not merely a set of rules or series of programs. A flourishing life of love will grow, as we understand the outcomes of walking with the Lord. The abundant classes, personal disciplines, and church programs are all resources toward these God-ordained goals!
Flourishing!
As we commit to this vision of whole-life discipleship, Paul’s words in Rom 12:1–2 are helpful as we respond to God’s grace and obey the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Message translates this verse: “…Take your everyday, ordinary life–your sleeping, eating, going-to-work and walking-around life–and place it before God as an offering.” This is the end of religion as usual! Yes, our weekly worship is important and spiritual leaders are anointed and appointed to empower and equip God’s people. However, this passage ends the sacred/secular split and the artificial chasm between clergy and laity. All believers in every walk of life can flourish and fully fulfill God’s design for their lives. Everything we do becomes charged with the electricity of grace and truth.
The five dimensions of discipleship are not a checklist of duties, but a vision of Christ being fully formed in us. We can enjoy intimacy with the Trinity, integrity in our hearts and relationships, and impact for the Lord through our everyday application of truth and expression of gifts. Being “spiritual” is not confined to weekly worship or special moments of private or public religious activity. When spiritual leaders recapture their calling to equip and commission the entire community and each believer is empowered by the Spirit to flourish in her or his spheres of influence, God is glorified, the kingdom is advanced, and churches and communities flourish.
We have an inescapable past, but an incomparable future. By the power of the Spirit, we can live the future now, offering all our activities as signposts of the coming kingdom. N.T. Wright offers this vision of what happens when we live out all dimensions of the Great Commandment: “May this new holistic integration of the dimensions of discipleship captivate our imaginations, transform our affections and stimulate Spirit-empowered actions as we love in response to the One who first loved us and would rather die than live without us.”
Notes
1. For a full explanation of these elements, see Charlie Self, Flourishing Churches and Communities: A Pentecostal Primer on Faith, Work and Economics for Spirit-Empowered Discipleship. (Grand Rapids: Christian’s Library Press, 2013.)
2. Ibid. xxviii–xxxi.
