When you decide to love others with the love that is from the spirit, you can look weak, look foolish, look all sorts of things. When you are walking in that kind of spiritual love, there’s no fear in it, so carnal people might confuse that kind of love with arrogance or over-confidence because they cannot understand a love without fear.
Sometimes to follow the Spirit, we have to look foolish. To stand up and deliver a message in tongues can look foolish. To forgive someone who has said something very rude about you can look foolish. To turn the other cheek after a hard slap can look foolish. To obey the Holy Spirit when it comes to love will at times make you look silly.
We have to decide that we are not concerned with losing our dignity. One of the dictionary definitions of dignity is “self-obsessed”. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be self-obsessed, I want to be Jesus-obsessed. I want to know Jesus and walk with Jesus and love like Jesus.
You look at the people operating in faith and love in the Bible, like Joshua walking around the walls of Jericho for a week not uttering a word. That would have looked ridiculous. But it worked! Imagine if Joshua was more concerned about his dignity – if he wanted a more sensible battle plan. He would have missed out on God knocking down the walls.
Psalm 138.6 is very clear: the Lord is up high, but He respects those who are low, but the proud He knows from a distance. I don’t want to know God from a distance, there are city walls I need to see falling own, there are giants I need to slay, there are churches I need to plant and build. So I need to get as close to God as possible – so I need to be lowly, not proud. That manifests by doing what God says no matter what others think.
Ultimately, the more I spend time with God, the more I realize I have no reason to be proud, because I am utterly nothing without Him. Turning the other cheek might make me look silly, but I’d rather be in His will looking silly to the world, than trying to slap someone back and the kingdom of Heaven think I am being silly.
It’s a strange one. As we grow up in the natural realm, we become more and more independent of our father and mother, but in the spiritual realm, growing up is being more and more dependent on our heavenly Father! It was how Jesus did it – He outgrew Joseph and Mary, but He grew in favour with the Father and never did anything the Father did not do, or say anything the Father did not say.
If we are disciples of Jesus, we should embody Jesus’ attitude – when you win, praise and thank God, when you lose, look to Him and get more wisdom. Either way, turn to Him, and never turn to pride and dignity, and just do what He asks.
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