Reflections from Life Conference part 2: The Beatitudes - Sincerity, Patience, Purity, Godliness
Wow these entries are quite long overdue, but I guess it's best to put them down so other entries can come in.
I attended a Beatitudes workshop in the afternoon of the 1st day of Life Conference. The speaker for this workshop did a good job of illustrating the overall essence and principles behind the Beatitudes before tackling them 1 by 1 and showing how they apply to us as Christians living in the world, even showing how a lack of some of these characteristics affect us as Christians (the part on Sincerity, Patience, Purity, Godliness wasn't said by him though). In fact, at the end of the workshop, someone asked the speaker whether the Beatitudes or the Ten Commandments were more important, and the speaker replied that the Beatitudes were actually harder to live up to. I realised that it was easier to follow the Ten Commandments by just following it like a set of rules (which is what the Jews were doing), but the Beatitudes are indeed way more difficult because they deal with the heart and mindset behind the actions we do. For me personally, there were some Beatitudes which spoke more to me.
The 1st of these is to be poor in spirit. It's often only when we're stripped down to nothing, that we truly come before God and seek Him wholeheartedly. But as Christians, we should learn to come before God, desperate for Him and relying on Him and not what we have. It's so easy to reply on ourselves and what we have, coming before God with our Plan A but having a Plan B in case God doesn't work. That's not the attitude that God wants us to have with Him.
The 2nd one is that of being meek. The speaker said that the original Greek word actually connotated someone who is sincere and not pretentious in terms of relating to others, someone who has a pure and true heart in the way they treat others. They are genuine and don't harbour unkind intentions like malice towards others. The speaker also talked about hypocrisy, which I feel is one thing that has severely affected relationships between people inside and outside church, involving both Christians and non-Christians.
The 3rd one is that of being righteous. The speaker said that righteousness is about restored relationships, that we have a restored relationship with God and restored relationship with the people around us.
The next one is that of being merciful. The speaker defined showing mercy as the act of pardoning a wrong, and he talked about how unforgiveness is one of the greatest enemies of the church, saying that often even Christians bear grudges towards others and hate them instead of loving them.
The next Beatitude is that of being pure in heart, which the speaker defined as having integrity in all areas of one's life, before both God and Man.
The last Beatitude that spoke more to me was that of being persecuted for righteousness and for Christ. We choose either to be godly people and follow the ways of God, or we choose to be worldly people and follow the ways of the world. Following the ways of the world would gain us much more acceptance, and following the ways of the God would lead us being rejected as weird or strange. I remember some of my well-meaning friends telling me that the best way to do well in life is to learn from what the world does instead of being "too holy".
For me, these several Beatitudes together served to remind me of the importance of living a truly godly life and they also re-affirmed what I've thought of for the past several years. Here's where the Sincerity, Patience, Purity, Godliness thing comes in. These 4 characteristics are the criteria that I decided on for getting a girlfriend (not trying to advertise here...). I came up with these 4 characteristics through my years before being a Christian and as a Christian, and what I learned from the Beatitudes workshop also pointed that this set of criteria is indeed something to keep.
The 1st characteristic (the order has no meaning) is sincerity. For me, I've experienced many times when people appeared to accept me as their friend, only to find out later on that they didn't really like me. I've also seen much of people saying things behind other's backs, and it's quite scary to see how people can be so different in the presence and absence of others (I was just the spectator in those cases). When the person is around, they can be so nice and friendly to them, but when the person isn't around, they start saying bad things about that person. Seeing the hypocrisy of people has often caused me to really think about who I trust, and when I'm unsure of whether to trust others, I choose not to. There are friends I know, however, that when you get to know then, you KNOW that they can be trusted and that they won't betray you behind your back. I also remember friends talking about who's attached and who's not, but I think those are ok since they aren't insulting the person, and those conversations arise more out of curiosity rather than an intention to put others down. Yup, so the 1st characteristic - sincerity.
The 2nd characteristic is patience. I know often I can be slow in doing things, and not knowing how to do some of them makes it worse. At home, I've experienced quite a bit of impatience and irritability, which has significantly affected how I behave at home. This has given rise to the 2nd characteristic - patience. Don't worry, I know when friends are joking about me being slow, I've experienced it lots of times. But I do know the difference between people teasing me about it and people being irritated.
The 3rd characteristic is purity (which I perceived differently from what the speaker said). I've been a Christian for close to 7 years now, and I've seen a lot of Christians doing things that are worldly, and often these are not young Christians but people who have been Christians for years. Yes people do make mistakes, but some things have become part of people's regular behaviour, such as swearing vulgarities. Sometimes, you can tell if people are making the effort to be holy and pure for God, or if they are willing to sacrifice holiness and purity to fit in and not stand out as someone so different. These are often discouraging, and I even remember a time when I did wonder if it was really worth it becoming a Christian and what the true worth of a godly life really is. I'm glad for a godly friend God gave me at that time - this friend did wonders to change my perception and worth of being a true Christian, not through what she said, but simply through the way she lived her life.
"The true worth of a godly life lies in a deep relationship with God that disregards what others think. Being conscious of what others think will only hinder the relationship and make us relate to others with our own strength and temperament. When the relationship with God is deep enough, the character that we exhibit will be the character that God wants us to exhibit. We will still have our personal touch to it because of the unique way God has made us to be, but it'll be a life that honours Him. Of course, there will be people who will still talk bad about us, but not even Jesus was accepted by everyone around Him. A godly life isn't one that everyone accepts (after all you can't please everyone), but it is a life that God accepts (and some others would too)."
Through these experiences, I found the 3rd characteristic - purity. To be holy and pure for God, and not becoming worldly.
The 4th characteristic pretty much sums up whatever else that's important. Although I knew I wanted a Christian girlfriend, I didn't know what other characteristics I wanted, so I decided that godliness would form the last characteristic that ties it up. Godliness means that the person is someone who earnestly seeks God, desiring to be Christ-like and to honour God in whatever she does.
I think for all of us, it's important to consider how much being a Christian means to us? Is it something we just do in church, and beyond church I do what I want? After all, church is church, beyond that is my own business right? (Here's where accountability comes in, but I'm not going to go into it here.) Or do we desire to be set apart for God, living lives that will honour and glorify Him? How much being a Christian means to us will reflect how we behave and how we respond to both God and other people. The set of criteria that I have, I know it's a set of criteria that I also have to live up to.
I attended a Beatitudes workshop in the afternoon of the 1st day of Life Conference. The speaker for this workshop did a good job of illustrating the overall essence and principles behind the Beatitudes before tackling them 1 by 1 and showing how they apply to us as Christians living in the world, even showing how a lack of some of these characteristics affect us as Christians (the part on Sincerity, Patience, Purity, Godliness wasn't said by him though). In fact, at the end of the workshop, someone asked the speaker whether the Beatitudes or the Ten Commandments were more important, and the speaker replied that the Beatitudes were actually harder to live up to. I realised that it was easier to follow the Ten Commandments by just following it like a set of rules (which is what the Jews were doing), but the Beatitudes are indeed way more difficult because they deal with the heart and mindset behind the actions we do. For me personally, there were some Beatitudes which spoke more to me.
The 1st of these is to be poor in spirit. It's often only when we're stripped down to nothing, that we truly come before God and seek Him wholeheartedly. But as Christians, we should learn to come before God, desperate for Him and relying on Him and not what we have. It's so easy to reply on ourselves and what we have, coming before God with our Plan A but having a Plan B in case God doesn't work. That's not the attitude that God wants us to have with Him.
The 2nd one is that of being meek. The speaker said that the original Greek word actually connotated someone who is sincere and not pretentious in terms of relating to others, someone who has a pure and true heart in the way they treat others. They are genuine and don't harbour unkind intentions like malice towards others. The speaker also talked about hypocrisy, which I feel is one thing that has severely affected relationships between people inside and outside church, involving both Christians and non-Christians.
The 3rd one is that of being righteous. The speaker said that righteousness is about restored relationships, that we have a restored relationship with God and restored relationship with the people around us.
The next one is that of being merciful. The speaker defined showing mercy as the act of pardoning a wrong, and he talked about how unforgiveness is one of the greatest enemies of the church, saying that often even Christians bear grudges towards others and hate them instead of loving them.
The next Beatitude is that of being pure in heart, which the speaker defined as having integrity in all areas of one's life, before both God and Man.
The last Beatitude that spoke more to me was that of being persecuted for righteousness and for Christ. We choose either to be godly people and follow the ways of God, or we choose to be worldly people and follow the ways of the world. Following the ways of the world would gain us much more acceptance, and following the ways of the God would lead us being rejected as weird or strange. I remember some of my well-meaning friends telling me that the best way to do well in life is to learn from what the world does instead of being "too holy".
For me, these several Beatitudes together served to remind me of the importance of living a truly godly life and they also re-affirmed what I've thought of for the past several years. Here's where the Sincerity, Patience, Purity, Godliness thing comes in. These 4 characteristics are the criteria that I decided on for getting a girlfriend (not trying to advertise here...). I came up with these 4 characteristics through my years before being a Christian and as a Christian, and what I learned from the Beatitudes workshop also pointed that this set of criteria is indeed something to keep.
The 1st characteristic (the order has no meaning) is sincerity. For me, I've experienced many times when people appeared to accept me as their friend, only to find out later on that they didn't really like me. I've also seen much of people saying things behind other's backs, and it's quite scary to see how people can be so different in the presence and absence of others (I was just the spectator in those cases). When the person is around, they can be so nice and friendly to them, but when the person isn't around, they start saying bad things about that person. Seeing the hypocrisy of people has often caused me to really think about who I trust, and when I'm unsure of whether to trust others, I choose not to. There are friends I know, however, that when you get to know then, you KNOW that they can be trusted and that they won't betray you behind your back. I also remember friends talking about who's attached and who's not, but I think those are ok since they aren't insulting the person, and those conversations arise more out of curiosity rather than an intention to put others down. Yup, so the 1st characteristic - sincerity.
The 2nd characteristic is patience. I know often I can be slow in doing things, and not knowing how to do some of them makes it worse. At home, I've experienced quite a bit of impatience and irritability, which has significantly affected how I behave at home. This has given rise to the 2nd characteristic - patience. Don't worry, I know when friends are joking about me being slow, I've experienced it lots of times. But I do know the difference between people teasing me about it and people being irritated.
The 3rd characteristic is purity (which I perceived differently from what the speaker said). I've been a Christian for close to 7 years now, and I've seen a lot of Christians doing things that are worldly, and often these are not young Christians but people who have been Christians for years. Yes people do make mistakes, but some things have become part of people's regular behaviour, such as swearing vulgarities. Sometimes, you can tell if people are making the effort to be holy and pure for God, or if they are willing to sacrifice holiness and purity to fit in and not stand out as someone so different. These are often discouraging, and I even remember a time when I did wonder if it was really worth it becoming a Christian and what the true worth of a godly life really is. I'm glad for a godly friend God gave me at that time - this friend did wonders to change my perception and worth of being a true Christian, not through what she said, but simply through the way she lived her life.
"The true worth of a godly life lies in a deep relationship with God that disregards what others think. Being conscious of what others think will only hinder the relationship and make us relate to others with our own strength and temperament. When the relationship with God is deep enough, the character that we exhibit will be the character that God wants us to exhibit. We will still have our personal touch to it because of the unique way God has made us to be, but it'll be a life that honours Him. Of course, there will be people who will still talk bad about us, but not even Jesus was accepted by everyone around Him. A godly life isn't one that everyone accepts (after all you can't please everyone), but it is a life that God accepts (and some others would too)."
Through these experiences, I found the 3rd characteristic - purity. To be holy and pure for God, and not becoming worldly.
The 4th characteristic pretty much sums up whatever else that's important. Although I knew I wanted a Christian girlfriend, I didn't know what other characteristics I wanted, so I decided that godliness would form the last characteristic that ties it up. Godliness means that the person is someone who earnestly seeks God, desiring to be Christ-like and to honour God in whatever she does.
I think for all of us, it's important to consider how much being a Christian means to us? Is it something we just do in church, and beyond church I do what I want? After all, church is church, beyond that is my own business right? (Here's where accountability comes in, but I'm not going to go into it here.) Or do we desire to be set apart for God, living lives that will honour and glorify Him? How much being a Christian means to us will reflect how we behave and how we respond to both God and other people. The set of criteria that I have, I know it's a set of criteria that I also have to live up to.
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