Wholeness: rationalizing

As I said in a previous post, we see Jesus using both the hand of discipline, as well as the hand of grace. Generally, Jesus was toughest on the religious leaders and easiest on the common folk. Church people tend to do the opposite, how do we manage to rationalize that? Even when we are tough on pastors, it's often for the sake of superficial preferences, not principle. How do we rationalize that? The Teachers of the law broke at least two commandments by conspiring against Jesus when he challenged their authority. How did they rationalize that? People often resort to impatient, unkind, rude, and ultimately unloving behavior when they rebuke. Despite that such behavior violates the very truth we profess. How do they rationalize that? Many tend to condemn, shame, and criticize the lost, even if Jesus had a very different attitude. How do we rationalize this? I'm sure the woman at the well from John chapter 4 came face to face with some of her rationalizations. While the rich young man from Matthew chapter 19 had to come up with some new rationalizations after speaking with Jesus.

The how is difficult to answer, the why is not. It all comes back to the sinful nature of the flesh, to serving self as we see fit. We really don't need religion to simply follow our human nature, yet we may use religion to rationalize it somehow. While some world religions may rationalize evil actions for the sake of a so-called greater good, Christianity does not. Anyone who says differently is twisting the truth to rationalize following their own comfort, and convenience instead of God's Holy Truth. My point being, we all rationalize something. Sometimes we will even go as far as to rationalize our rationalizations. As long as we do this, we impede our spiritual growth somehow and lead others astray. You can't find your true wholeness this way. Sooner or later you will come face to face with your rationalizations as well. You will have to do more than just say no or eliminate it, you must replace it with something good and constructive. Far too many oversimplify this part by denying the complex emotional wounds behind much of our bad behavior, this only sets you up for failure. You may want to go back to the beginning of the series for more on this. The question right now is will you respond as the woman at the well did, or the rich young man?

The Visual PARABLEist