http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15345601/invincible-joy-confirms-our-election
You Might also like
-
The Reactionary Savage: Lewis’s Warning to Intellectuals
C.S. Lewis’s Pilgrim’s Regress is an allegory about the life of the mind — Lewis’s mind — as it wrestles with the soul’s desire for God. Filled with allusions to Lewis’s own intellectual development, the book is equal parts fascinating and impenetrable. Its full original title gives you a taste of what you’re in for: The Pilgrim’s Regress, or Pseudo-Bunyan’s Periplus: An Allegorical Apology for Christianity, Reason, and Romanticism. No wonder Lewis would later apologize for its “needless obscurity” in an afterword to the third edition (207).
Still, Pilgrim’s Regress is worth the work — especially if you can find the recent annotated edition, which supplies explanatory notes, including some written by Lewis himself. What you find is that Lewis’s pilgrimage reflects not merely the familiar desire to lose the burden of guilt, but also the desire to satisfy his soul’s thirst, his soul’s longing. Pulled between the competing demands of intellectual consistency and bodily passions, the pilgrim is led by a glimpse of eternity. It pulls him in and through the false offers of the world, often in spite of his own weaknesses.
The Stern North
Since The Pilgrim’s Regress is about Lewis’s own “return,” it has all the features of the early-twentieth-century academic class. Lewis’s pilgrim struggles with classic temptations like lust and pride, but they frequently take the form of ideologies. His allegorical foils include “Puritania” and “Victoriana,” as well as personifications of Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche. Lewis even makes space for his contemporary pilgrim intellectuals on their own journeys, both divine and devilish.
In one of the more arresting scenes, Lewis shows us the northernmost extremity of the journey. Described as the “sterner regions of the mind” (94), the northern territory is where “the tough-minded” go. Their great opponent is what they view as a childish sentimentality, the tendency to still hold to emotions, hopes, and dreams — all of which they believe are illusions. The northern men are intellectual, but harsh and cynical. They believe they have seen through all the deceptions.
But they are not the final mountain peak. No, the top of the mountain is something more: a figure called Savage. Dressed in a Viking helmet and quoting Nietzsche and Wagner, Savage is terrifying, “almost a giant.” He’s joined by a Norse sorceress and sings the philosophy of heroic violence in epic verse. Here are a few of his convictions, the first about ordinary simple men and the second about self-important intellectuals:
These are the dregs of man. . . . They are always thinking of happiness. They are scraping together and storing up and trying to build. Can they not see that the law of the world is against them? Where will any of them be a hundred years hence? (105)
The rot in the world is too deep and the leak in the world is too wide. They may patch and tinker as they please, they will not save it. Better give in. Better cut the wood with the grain. If I am to live in a world of destruction let me be its agent and not its patient. (106)
This northern Savage has rejected attempts at morality and even rationality, at least as traditionally understood. To him, everything is ultimately meaningless because it will crumble. All men will die. The only eternal thing is “the excellent deed.” A more common expression today might be “the will to power.”
Servants of Savage
Savage is giant, but there are many varieties of dwarves that work for him. These dwarves can “reappear in human children” and take on many variations, though they are ultimately animated by the common spirit of Savage.
Among these dwarves are the Marxomanni, Mussolimini, Swastici, and Gangomanni (105). Here Lewis is illustrating the social and political breakdown of the 1920s and ’30s by showing us violent Marxists, Fascist revolutionaries, and American gangsters. Each movement, whether highbrow or lowbrow, had given up on the ordinary rules of society, had given up on law and order, and had instead decided to impose its will through brute force. They are dwarves, but they regularly show up among the children of men. They are, all of them, servants of Savage.
“It’s quite remarkable that Lewis was able to see fascism for what it was: the dwarf-servant to savage nihilism.”
The Pilgrim’s Regress was originally written in 1933, the same year Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany. While the savagery and mania of Nazism can be taken for granted by modern writers, this was not true in the 1930s. Indeed, one of Lewis’s own heroes, G.K. Chesterton, was more than partially taken in by fascism. And while never a proponent of Nazism, Chesterton did frequently explain its attraction as an understandable response to modern social decay (The Sins of G.K. Chesterton, 183–84, 213–22). When considered from that context, it’s quite remarkable that Lewis was able to see fascism for what it was: the dwarf-servant to savage nihilism.
Three Pale Men
There’s another layer to Lewis’s tale, though. One of the more obscure parts, he singles it out as a “preposterous allegorical filigree” (215). Yet, when decoded, it speaks to our moment in a powerful way. This is the scene of the “three pale men.” These are men of the north. They conceive of themselves as fully rational and realistic. They have no interest in romantic ideals. Indeed, they are a sort of intellectual reaction against Romanticism (which was itself a reaction against the first round of the Enlightenment). They consider themselves extremely deep thinkers who have worked through all the other failed theories and movements. They represent a sort of “return” to older ways.
One of these pale men is Mr. Humanist, representing an embrace of Renaissance and Enlightenment thought, though stripped of all idealist and romantic elements. Another is Mr. Neo-Classical, a character obsessed with antiquity, but also without its mystical or religious elements. The third pale man is Mr. Neo-Angular, and Lewis’s notes describe him as “the more venomous type of Anglo-Catholic.” Neo-Angular insists on dogma and what he takes as “Catholicism.” This seems to mean the universal and undiluted faith, but Mr. Neo-Angular’s true defining characteristic is his opposition to experiential religion. He has no time for “subjective” motivations (98). He rejects the pilgrim’s affective “soul longing” as a form of escapism and “romantic trash” (99).
The pale men do not expect to find good in this world, so they turn their attention to a distant past and an ever-stoic lifestyle. In the case of Mr. Neo-Angular, affection is also reserved for the future, the eternal life in heaven. Until then, a strict sort of spiritual segregation is expected. This world is not home. The men are “very thin and pale” (94), and their food is described as perfectly cubic in shape and “free from any lingering flavour of the old romantic sauces” (95). As an allegory, they are the various paths the reactionary mindset can take, varieties of elitist intellectual retreats to philosophy or religion without any of the affections or social graces.
Reactionism’s Dead End
When these pale men hear about Savage, two of them are put off, but Mr. Neo-Angular is attracted. “I should like to meet this Savage,” he says. “He seems to be a very clear-headed man” (107). From Savage’s own point of view, Mr. Neo-Angular has the most potential. “He said that Angular might turn out an enemy worth fighting when he grew up” (106). What is Lewis telling us about the relationship between a wholly institutionalized and stoic “Catholicism” and the savage spirit that animated Marxism, Fascism, Nazism, and Gangsterism?
Lewis’s point is not a simple slippery slope. He is not saying that a harsh and rigid “high church” Christianity leads to fascism. Instead, he is saying that those represented by Mr. Neo-Angular are caught in the same reaction to modernity as is fascism. What they believe to be a sophisticated and mentally strong rejection of “romance” is simply another version of the nihilism hollowing out the broader society.
Mr. Neo-Angular “relegates” and “transfers” the mystical and affective elements wholly to the life to come (and perhaps within the particular bounds of a worship service), but this leaves the rest of life to follow the same harsh rules as the non-Christian follows. That Mr. Neo-Angular likes what he sees in Savage shows us that he also has a certain quest for the “heroic” that could lead to prioritizing the will, power, and even violence. Professing to reject all romance, or to limit it wholly to the spiritual realm, the deepest hunger of the soul nevertheless expresses itself, but through political domination and anti-social violence.
Led and Kept by Longing
Lewis’s core apologetic in The Pilgrim’s Regress is that a sort of romance is natural, good, and inescapable. In fact, it is the way that God draws all of us to himself. He wants his creatures to find satisfaction, fulfillment, and joy. These desires are not to be cast off and rejected but rather embraced as means by which we might find our eternal satisfaction: life with God himself.
Mr. Neo-Angular represents a sort of Christianity that claims to reject affections. It has no interest in emotions. It will “taste and see” when it gets to the life to come. But this is self-deception. Such forms of religion can never eliminate the human urge and its spiritual longing. To the extent that they refuse to be satisfied by God in this life, they will invariably be satisfied by something else in this life — and probably by dark and sinister things.
“The promise of the ‘heroic’ is an echo of the divine. But imitation gods are demons.”
Put in a positive conception, Lewis also explains why intellectual and “tough-minded” Christians can go in for extreme reactionary movements. The fascist movements in Portugal and Spain both clothed themselves in the garb of Catholicism. In our own day, Vladimir Putin makes overtures to the “trad” Christian base, with more than a little fanfare. This works because such people are longing for a natural satisfaction that has been obscured by secularizing ideas and movements, but they respond in a newly disordered way. The promise of the “heroic” is an echo of the divine. But imitation gods are demons.
This isn’t a warning only for Lewis’s opponents. Throughout his literary corpus, “the north” is typically a good place for Lewis. He favors Norse tales. His own brand of Anglicanism, while not quite fully Anglo-Catholic, was certainly more “high church” than anything else. In The Pilgrim’s Regress, these symbols that might otherwise symbolize Lewis himself are shown to have their own dangers and temptations — dangers that could lead to destruction.
And so too for readers of Lewis, for intellectual Christians who appreciate the classics, for traditional and “tough-minded” pilgrims — we also need to see the dangers that most threaten us. Our “return” must be along a path of truth. Our enlightenment must expose ourselves. And we must bare our hearts so that their true desires might be fulfilled by God forever.
-
The Sermons of the Golden Mouth: Preaching Lessons from John Chrysostom
Spirit-filled preachers revel in the wonder of a mere mortal speaking for God. Of course, neither the privilege nor the sufficiency to do so rests with the preacher. And yet, the wonder and the terror of proclaiming God’s life-giving word, in the power of the Spirit, to souls redeemed by Christ fuels the preacher’s desire to hone his craft.
Today’s preachers have two thousand years of theoretical know-how and fine-tuned practical wisdom concerning the art of preaching. How well we steward this vast wealth is debatable, but preaching theory has certainly advanced to levels of sophistication unknown in earlier centuries. Further, technological innovations enable us not merely to read a renowned preacher’s sermons but to hear his recorded voice deliver them.
So, with all these resources at our fingertips, why bother with the preaching ministries of ancient pastors like John Chrysostom (347–407)? After all, John’s homilies exist only in written form. They lack many of the structural features today’s homileticians deem important. They were addressed to an audience with whom we share little in common. They were framed for a cultural milieu unlike our own. So, why consider John’s preaching?
First, for these very reasons. Despite the historical and cultural chasm that separates our day from his, patristic scholars still specialize in studying John’s ministry. Sixteen hundred years removed, his 640 extant sermons still yield gold to those who mine them.
Second, God used John’s preaching to awaken love for the Scriptures and to change lives. John preached the same word we preach. He was filled and used by the same Holy Spirit that empowers biblical preachers today. This word-centered, Spirit-enabled dynamic ties us to John as much as to any scheme or school of wisdom on sermon-craft we encounter today.
Monk Turned Preacher
John ministered in the eastern theater of imperial Rome during the post-Nicene era of church history. Christianity was legalized in 313, and the first ecumenical council set forth an orthodox Christology at Nicaea in 325. This means John ministered in the heady days of the church’s fresh liberation from persecution and exponential growth. Across the empire, pagan temples were converted to church buildings that teemed with professing Christians — many of them, however, still tethered to their pagan proclivities.
John was born into a moderately wealthy home in the cosmopolitan city of Antioch. Here he received a superb education, but he abandoned a promising legal career to become a monk, much to the dismay of his renowned tutor, Libanius (313–393).
For six years, John lived in the hills above Antioch, mostly among other hermits, but also with several lengthy stints of total isolation. This period of intense spiritual formation aided John’s quest against sexual temptation. It also ruined his health.
John returned to Antioch, where he ministered under the tutelage of Archbishop Flavian and Bishop Diodore. These men equipped John to defend Nicene orthodoxy against Arianism, and to embrace the Antiochean school of biblical interpretation vis-à-vis the Alexandrian school’s more allegorical methodology.1
John ministered faithfully in Antioch for two decades. By age fifty, he was a wildly popular preacher and author, seemingly positioned to complete a long, distinguished career in the city of his birth.
Unlikely Reformer
When the bishop of Constantinople died, however, eastern emperor Arcadius devised a ruse to all but kidnap John and make him the next bishop of that second-most important see in Christendom. Arcadius and his influential wife, Eudoxia, valued John’s orthodox Christology and gifted preaching, warmly receiving John as their spiritual advisor. It appeared a match made in heaven.
As bishop of Constantinople, John oversaw one hundred thousand parishioners and hundreds of church officials. He was tasked with adjudicating church matters locally, as well as cases brought to him from realms beyond his see.
Primarily by means of his sermons, John endeared himself to his parishioners. Such loyalty, however, was not forthcoming from the ecclesiastical or imperial power brokers in Constantinople. Palladius, a sympathetic historian, summarizes John’s agenda as “sweeping the stairs from the top.”2 In other words, the erstwhile hermit, the man committed to sexual purity, the austere, Bible-loving, zealous champion for Christ had landed in decadent Constantinople intent on cleaning house. The city teemed with church officials who did not share John’s passion for holiness. He arrived like an Amish farmer entering a nightclub.
Perhaps no believer has ever occupied a more powerful position in both church and government. But John’s efforts to overturn the status quo alienated him from the luminaries of man’s kingdom. Through a series of dramatic plot twists, enemies prevailed over John’s reformational efforts and political obtuseness. He died in 407 during a second torturous exile, orchestrated by the same emperor and empress who had brought him to the city. His last words were “Glory be to God in everything.”3
Lessons from the Golden Mouth
The moniker “Chrysostom” (Greek for “Golden-Mouthed”) was ascribed to John two centuries after his death. Despite his reform efforts and capacities as an overseer, theologian, and imperial delegate, he is remembered most for his preaching.
By today’s standards, John’s homilies evidence little structure — no obvious central theme, proposition, or outlining, for example. They are largely running commentaries of passages with fewer than fifteen verses. Yet they remain a source of timeless instruction for today’s preachers. Among the wealth of worthy lessons, consider the following five.
1. Know why you preach.
John’s preaching targeted the glory of God and the edification of the saints.4 He saw preaching as a labor to fuel holiness by transforming heart affections through biblical doxology. He preached to shepherd his hearers one step closer to truth, to godliness, to Christ. John confessed that he struggled with pride in the pulpit. Yet his congregation knew that his preaching was all about God and the good of God’s people, not about himself.
2. Capture the author’s meaning.
John Calvin considered John “the greatest exegete of either the Greek or the Latin Church” and consciously emulated his practice of lectio continua. On occasion, John delivered a topical sermon, such as on a saint’s feast day or during a political crisis. But his mainstay was “continuous exposition of complete books of the Bible.”5
A medieval tradition posited that while preaching through Paul’s epistles, John received a vision in which the apostle explicated his writings to the bishop.6 We may infer from the myth that John never used Paul’s words as a springboard to say what he wished, nor did he pretend to supply some advance on Paul’s meaning. John so channeled Paul that it seemed the apostle whispered in his ear as he preached.
John’s fidelity to the biblical text is evidenced in his practice of pointing the church’s attention to a single word or phrase in order to emphasize or preserve its meaning. This habit can become tedious if overused. But strategically applied, it teaches a church how to read the Bible and to respect the divine origin of every word.
3. Explain complexities as succinctly as possible.
John’s sermons provide repeated examples of stating a debated point and then succinctly explaining his position. Quite willing to acknowledge and interact with conflicting interpretations, John was averse to losing his audience in detailed minutiae.7 He knew that lengthy, detailed theological argumentation in sermons typically creates as much confusion as clarity.
4. Use vivid illustrations and analogies.
These sermons pulsate with riveting imagery and illustrative material. These elements never overwhelm the biblical content; they only color and enliven it. For instance, during a season of political pressure on his church at Constantinople, John rallied the assembly with vivid metaphors:
On every side wolves surround you, but your flock is not destroyed. A surging sea, storms, and waves have constantly encircled this sacred ship, but those who sail on it are not engulfed by the waters. The fires of heresy threaten with their encircling flames on every side, but those who are in the midst of the furnace enjoy the blessing of a heavenly dew.8
He habitually employed such riveting language to help his congregation see and feel the point at hand.
5. Develop provocative, concrete applications.
John did not dabble in generalities or broker in indirect speech. He spoke directly to his hearers in a conversational tone, always willing to improvise as he persuaded them to honor God.9 Even in written form, one easily imagines the striking effect of his exhortations. In one moment of pointed application, for example, John contends against sexual impurity with bold specificity:
If you see a shameless woman in the theater . . . flaunting her soft sensuality, singing immoral songs, throwing her limbs about in the dance, and making shameless speeches . . . do you still dare to say that nothing human happens to you then? Long after the theater is closed . . . those images still float before your soul, their words, their conduct, their glances, their walk, their positions, their excitation, their unchaste limbs — and as for you, you go home . . . but not alone — the whore goes with you . . . in your heart, and in your conscience, and there within you she kindles the Babylonian furnace . . . in which the peace of your home, the purity of your heart, the happiness of your marriage will be burnt up.10
No theatergoing man left church that day wondering what the sermon had to do with him!
Treasure Trove for Preachers
While few preachers today will find opportunity to read all of John’s sermons, they stand as a treasure trove of instruction for anyone willing to wade into them. Taken together, they display painstaking efforts to achieve a deep understanding of the texts he preached, a loving zeal for the holiness of his flock, and a singular devotion to Christ that fueled great courage.
We aspire not to be remembered as the “Golden-Mouthed.” Yet as we consider one who was so recognized, may we also rejoice to hone the craft of proclaiming God’s word in the power of the Spirit, for the joy of his people.
-
Is Sanctification the Pursuit of Perfection?
Audio Transcript
Happy New Year’s Eve, everyone! On this final day of 2021, we end our ninth year of podcasting, and we end it talking about holiness and the pursuit of perfection. Here is the email: “Hello, Pastor John. My name is Christopher, and I live in Louisville, Kentucky. I’ve been listening to this podcast for a little over a year now. First, thank you so much for the incredible wealth of knowledge you’ve given to me and all your listeners through this podcast.
“I’ve heard you on many occasions mention the danger of perfectionism as a Christian. I am guilty of this. After thinking a great deal about sanctification and listening to episode 1663 about pursuing holiness, it only gets worse. I recognize that we are not justified by works, but also that the pursuit to live holy lives is the evidence that we are saved. I feel like this makes it very hard for me to come to terms with my own failure.
“Instead of running back to Christ when I sin, I spiral down into thoughts like, ‘Maybe I was never truly saved.’ It’s almost as though I condemn myself into depression, even though Christ brings no condemnation, and it often takes days to work through it. How do I find the balance between pursuing holiness and moving past my failure to be holy? Is pursuing holiness the same as pursuing perfection?”
Those last couple of sentences really are two questions. He says, “How do I find the balance between pursuing holiness and moving past my failure to be holy?” That’s one question. Then the second one is, “Is pursuing holiness the same as pursuing perfection?” Let me answer both of those as best I can, starting with the second one first.
So is pursuing holiness the same as pursuing perfection? It’s an ambiguous question because it switches categories on me, moving from a quality of holiness to a quantity of holiness — perfect holiness.
You can see the ambiguity if you rephrase the question like this: is pursuing partial holiness the same as pursuing complete holiness? And the answer is that there is a difference between partial and complete. So when it comes to holiness, the question becomes, Which are you pursuing — partial holiness or complete holiness?
Perfection Commanded
What makes that question psychologically complicated is that the New Testament teaches that in this life Christians will not attain sinless perfection, and yet we are commanded to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect (Matthew 5:48). Not perfect just by human standards, but perfect by divine standards, which are God’s standards.
So when Jesus says in Matthew 5:48, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect,” I think it’s just another way of saying, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37), which is the great commandment.
Matthew 5:48 is also another way of saying what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 7:1 — “Let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God” — or what James says in James 1:4 — “Let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
Perfection Awaited
And yet, in spite of these repeated commands to pursue perfection, we are taught in the Bible that our victory over the power of sin will be incomplete until we’re in the presence of Christ. For example, James 3:2 says, “We all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body” — including the tongue. But then James goes on to say, “No human being can tame the tongue” (James 3:8).
“Our victory over the power of sin will be incomplete until we’re in the presence of Christ.”
There’s also Philippians 3:12: “Not that I have already obtained [the resurrection] or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.” Paul never claimed to be perfect. He explicitly said, “I haven’t attained perfection yet.”
Or consider the Lord’s Prayer. Right after we’re told to pray every day for our daily bread, we’re to pray, “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:11–12). Now that’s not something we should pray once at the beginning of our Christian life. “Forgive us our debts” is the same kind of prayer as “Give us this day our daily bread.” Jesus is talking to disciples. This is a command to avail ourselves of regular, repeated forgiveness.
Holy as Can Be
So on the one hand, we have the command to be perfect repeated, and on the other hand, we have the teaching that we will not in this life be perfect. Now back to our question. What should we pursue? Is it even meaningful to say that we are pursuing perfection? It would be like an athlete saying, “I am pursuing a high-jump record of twenty feet, or a long-jump record of one hundred feet, or a one-mile running time of one minute. That’s my goal.” None of those is ever going to happen while human beings are the kind of human beings they are now.
But as long as God is God, his standard cannot be less than perfection, and when he calls us to perfection, he is not naïve. He knows that in this life we will fall short, but he also knows that he intends to give us success in the pursuit of perfection when we see him face to face. The quest is not in vain. We will attain perfection.
And the pursuit of holiness now is essential to attain the final perfecting work of God, so it’s never wrong to say we are pursuing perfection in that sense. As we pursue holiness here, we are pursuing the perfection that God will grant us through the pursuit of holiness someday.
But in the pursuit of perfection — which we will only attain in the presence of God — there is this brief period of time on earth when our pursuit is so embattled, indwelling sin is so strong, satanic opposition is so great, that even though we are counted righteous in Christ by faith, we are not yet completely righteous in our conduct and will not be completely righteous in our conduct until we see Christ face to face.
So perhaps we should say it like this: in our pursuit of perfect holiness that we will one day have in the presence of Christ, let us seek now to be as holy as a justified sinner can be. We don’t know what the limits are on this imperfect holiness, and there are always more victories to be attained.
Patterns of Light
Now back to Christopher’s other question: “How do I find the balance between pursuing holiness and moving past my failure to be holy?” We all fall short not only of what we ought to be, but also of what we could be. So to ask his question another way, how do we not let our failures to be as holy as we ought to and could be depress and so discourage us that we are paralyzed with hopelessness in the pursuit of holiness?
This is difficult, especially when we realize that our lives must bear witness that we truly are born again, have saving faith, and are justified. We know that we’re not justified by works, but we also know that our works confirm our justification. So how do we enjoy the assurance of our salvation when our holiness remains imperfect?
Let me just point to one passage of Scripture that is so important, and I pray that we will all linger over it long enough to let it have its assurance-giving effect. Here’s 1 John 1:6: “If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.” In other words, how we walk testifies to whether we really have a relationship with God.
“The imperfect Christian does not claim perfection, but he does claim to walk in the light.”
He goes on to say, “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). So he is saying that walking in the light is essential to show that we are being cleansed from our sins by the blood of Jesus.
Now 1 John 1:8: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” So he says, “Walking in the light cannot mean sinlessness” — let that sink in. Walking in the light cannot mean sinlessness because he just said, “You have to walk in the light,” and he just said, “If you say you’re sinless, you’re dead wrong.” Well, what then does walking in the light mean?
So he goes on in one more verse, 1 John 1:9: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” So here is John’s description of the imperfect Christian. The imperfect Christian does not claim perfection, but he does claim to walk in the light — because if you don’t walk in the light, you don’t have fellowship with God, and the blood of Jesus doesn’t cleanse or cover you from sin.
What then does “walk in the light” mean if it doesn’t mean sinlessness (1 John 1:7)? His answer is that it means a pattern of obedience that involves regular, sincere confession of sin. The person who walks in the light has enough light to see sin for what it is, to hate it, to confess it, to receive forgiveness for it with thankfulness and humility, and to press on with fresh resolve to love God and people better. I think that’s the apostle’s answer to Christopher’s question, and now we need to pray that God would work the miracle of this biblical pattern into our lives.