Another means to transform social life is to lose the mask. We present ourselves as authentically as possible.

Attack and withdrawal result in our setting up huge walls against being vulnerable. We are likely to put on “masks” to hide who we are both because we don’t like who we are or we don’t want others to shine any light on our darker side. Or we wear masks in order to look better and achieve recognition and reward for being someone we are not. This is especially tempting in a church community. We have one mask for our Christian friends and one mask for day-to-day life.

Another mask we may choose to wear is to be following Jesus, but hiding our love for him so we don’t appear too sold out to our friends. This seems strange, but Christians may show signs of real vulnerability and growth in faith around their Christian community, but try to look like someone else at work or at school.

For a follower of Jesus all masks must go. This doesn’t mean that our lives become therapy sessions. It’s not about “brutal honesty” and such. Not about baring the effects of my childhood to the guy sitting next to me at McDonald’s. This does mean we need to be real with people around us. Our public and private lives begin to match. We give up using deceit, manipulation and defensiveness in our relationships. Our identity comes from God and he makes it possible for us to face the world unmasked as our best, true selves.

What mask is ready to come off of you now?

Being transformed in our own lives, our families are influenced. As our families are transform, we influence the community around us. We see times in Christian history when transformation becomes so powerful that whole communities change.

Consider the Welsh Revival. In 1904 there was an intentional spiritual reawakening that swept through Wales.  The country itself was changed. Taverns were emptied. There were days when the courtrooms were empty. Even animals were affected.

There is this great story about the small ponies the miners used to move their coal cars underground. These ponies started messing up on the job. It seems they were so used to the curses of their masters, that when the miners stop swearing, the ponies didn’t understand the commands and didn’t know how to follow!

The ideal in our circle of sufficiency is we join God in Trinitarian love and through our relationship with him, we in turn love others in our circle. They join God as well, and love us back. Lives are enriched as a result. Together, we share the love outside the circle and we impact the wider community.

We are not so naive as to expect everyone will give love after receiving it. This includes those in our circle of influence, as well as out. Yet, we are energized to love as Christ loves knowing that whether it is returned or not it expands us. To be in God’s will is a blessed place.

The first means I use to transform my social life is to “put on Christ.” My Heavenly Father gives me my identity through Jesus.
Perhaps you are familiar with identity theft. This is where someone steals your credit card numbers and/or social security number and begins to make purchases under your name. Sometimes making large transactions as if they were you! There are safeguards to prevent this crime; to protect my identity.

Yet, in the big picture, my true identity is that I am the beloved son or daughter of the loving Father. He’s my dad! I am secure. This makes it possible to live a life of self-denial, or self-forgetfulness if you will, and live a life of service toward others. This makes it possible to forgive others and bless rather than curse. This is a new life.
    Col. 3:10 (NLT)  

In its place you have clothed yourselves with a brand-new nature that is continually being renewed as you learn more and more about Christ, who created this new nature within you.

What would it be like for people to say of you, “You are like a new person!”

The central place for social transformation to have impact is in families. This is the fertile foundation for all other relationships both for good and evil. Family can be the most common place for attack and withdrawal, but it can also be a place where we learn mutual submission for the sake of the other. Where we can actually become Christlike in a way that is matchless. Renovation of the heart is a long view process that begins and continues with those closest to us.

Marriage is the place where we are designed to be at our most intimate and our most vulnerable. Husbands and wives are literally created to complement (making complete) each other, not just compliment each other. God has designed male and female to be complementary in in the essence of who we are. This is why I have followed the biblical model of marriage from day one with our children. I encouraged them to know that some day they will join someone in holy matrimony and their lives will be enhanced for all their days on earth. I know you may want to gag, but this is so right.
 Genesis 2:18 (NLT)
And the LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a companion who will help him.”

The word for “companion” is often translated “helper” in other versions of the Bible. Neither of these words does complete justice to the meaning of the original language. The Hebrew word can be translated, “one who sees things from a different perspective.” Husbands and wives are created to see things differently!  Marriage becomes a place where giving of ourselves for the sake of the other is best practiced by God’s design. And in marriage, husband and wife are constantly tested.

When they have children, parents then become the model for renovation, or attack and withdrawal. The very best and the very worst models of what it means to live in community start right here. You can’t be transformed in your relationships outside of your family without the foundation within.

Here is the challenge. A family is made up of individuals who are naturally moving toward self-worship. Society caters to this narcissistic focus of “what’s in it for me?” When relationships are fractured in the family, so much is at stake. Alienation and contempt may become common place. Divorce may seem the only way out for marriages. Parents and children may look upon each other as enemies. There is another way.

You can invite the community of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to join with you. You can begin to live in God’s ways and declare a “no attack and no withdraw” zone as it relates to you. No matter what your family relationships are, you can be the new generation who will birth a new community of love in years to come.

What is the relationship between marriage and discipleship?

The healing of our circle of relationships is connection to God. God is a healthy community in God’s self. We know God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Trinity is the model of healthy, loving, social relationships.

Within the Trinity, there is no attempt to control or seek one’s own way. Dallas says there is no subordination within the Trinitarian community because “Father, Son and Holy Spirit won’t stand for it.” The Trinity shows us we are created live in community. “Created in God’s image” (Genesis 1:26-27) we are at our best when we join God in this community of love.

We can be free from the positioning and intrigue of making a place for ourselves in our relationships. The legend of King Arthur and his Round Table is a good illustration of this. The story goes Arthur wanted his knights to consider themselves as no better than the other. He as King saw himself in this same light. In order to symbolize this community of deferring to the other, he had a round table built for them so there would never be anyone at the head of the table when they came together.

The key to living transformed lives in community with others is not a mystery. The difficulty is not in the understanding, but in the follow through. If we wish to have a life filled with richness in our relationships, rather than hurt and betrayal, there is only one way to live.

Philip. 2:3-5 (NLT)
“Don’t be selfish; don’t live to make a good impression on others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourself. Don’t think only about your own affairs, but be interested in others, too, and what they are doing. Your attitude should be the same that Christ Jesus had.”

As we are transformed by God to become the kind of people God can work through, we take on the mind of Christ. We begin to think as he thinks. Our actions, then, reflect his influence. We live in our circle of relationships as Jesus lives in the circle of the Trinity. We bring Jesus with us to our own Round Table because he is in us and we are in him.
1 John 4:15-16 (NLT)

“All who proclaim that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in him. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.”

How have you viewed the Trinity and how does seeing God living in relationship help?

There are two actions that wreck social relationships more than any other. Attack and withdrawal.

Attack

To verbally and/or physically be aggressive toward someone with the intent of using this as a means to get our own way or to at least punish them.

Withdrawal

To ignore someone; act as if we don’t care at all; moving all the way to holding them in contempt, as if they don’t even exist in our mind at all. Another means to try to control or punish.

We use attack and withdrawal so much we think they are are as normal as breathing and we couldn’t think of life without them. Actually, we will not have a transformed life with them.

If we are to live in our circle of life with actions for the good, we need to eliminate attack and withdrawal. If we desire to expand our circle we need to get rid of attack and withdrawal from our own lives. Let’s be clear on what is at stake.

Attack is when we act against the good of other people. We are doing what we can to make sure they don’t prosper for the moment, or longer. Attack may be launched for the right reasons, as in the case of trying to correct unhealthy behavior in someone else, but it is the wrong method. Screaming at your children because they aren’t doing their homework comes to mind.

Attack is certainly addressed by God in the Bible. The ten commandments, from “Honor your father and mother” on, are about our relationships and they all address attack in some way.

Withdrawal is working for the same reason, against the good of someone else, but with a different method. We ignore someone, regarding their good as unimportant, even to the point of despising them. We treat them as persona non grata.

Current examples:

Attack- Watch congress on CSPAN for 2 minutes.

Withdrawal- Watch the relationship between teenagers and their parents on just about any TV show or in any movie.

Do you tend to use attack or withdrawal in your relationships?

Unbutu- “A person is a person through other persons.”
-Bishop Desmond Tutu

Unbutu is a Swahili word that draws our attention to the fact that we are dependent on each other. In Renovation of the Heart (Student Edition), the concept of a circle is used to illustrate this.

Who is in your circle? Draw a big circle and place in it the names of the people in your life. This circle tells you something about your social relationships. Are there many people or few? If there are many, who are you in close relationship with? Many psychologists think you can really be in a close, intimate relationship with very few people, perhaps only one other. Do you have any of these “soul mates” in your circle? If there are only a few people in your circle to begin with, is this because you are kind of a private person, or do you withdraw from others? There are a lot of things to consider, aren’t there?

When we look at our circle, realize God desires good to come out of it. As we are connected in healthy ways, this will happen. The challenge is, of course, we are all sinners. So far in this book, we have seen how broken we really are. “Broken” is not even a strong enough word. Our circles are headed toward “ruin.” What is the process for healing?

In order for our circles to be life giving, we need to be connected to each other in healthy ways. This is no easy connection. If we follow our own human nature, we continue to repel each other in our circles. We are the only occupant who really counts. Self-worship within the circle of our lives brings about two actions that we use to destroy our relationships. Attack and withdrawal.

Start praying for people in your circle.

The transformation up to this point has been about you and me, personally. Heart, mind, and body.

Heart- our will; the choices we make
Mind- thoughts and feelings
Body- our physical presence through which we live out our lives

But…

“It is not good that the man should be alone…” (Genesis 2:18)

Like the T-Mobile commercial says, “Life’s for Sharing.”

We are created in community. It is how we are wired. God intends for us to be in relationship with him and other people. The idea that we are to “go it alone,” or “stick to ourselves” is not a biblical concept. The Bible is filled with descriptions of living in community.

We are created to live with other people. Here lies a huge challenge. I am a sinful person and it is absolutely necessary that I am in relationship with others, who are sinful people. It doesn’t take too long for us to realize this is going to be messy.

Adam and Eve start arguing right away. “What did God say?” Then, when they sin by doing what God forbids, Adam blames Eve. When the children are born it doesn’t get any easier. Eventually Cain kills his brother Abel.

And so it goes.

Living with others is absolutely essential for our spiritual, physical, and emotional well being.

Living with others can be absolutely harmful to our spiritual, physical, and emotional well being.

We can’t live in healthy community with each other unless Jesus is on the throne of our lives. Without Jesus,my self-worship and your self-worship are always going to result in disconnect at some point.

What’s the answer? There is another way. God’s way.

Dream of what your friendships would be like if you lived with Jesus on the throne.

Properly honor and care for your body

My body is from God, and since he sent Jesus to set me free from sin and death, my body is not mine. It is claimed by Jesus and he uses it here and now.

Practice the Sabbath

Disciples discover it is a good thing to stop and reflect on what God is doing. Celebrate how good God is. You can do this daily, weekly, and yearly.

Take silence and solitude time each day to break from whatever is going on around you. Once a week, spend a day in reflection of God and enjoy him through those around you. For many, Sunday is this time of connecting to God, family, and friends. Once a year spend several days away from the “rat race,” not to cram in as many activities as possible on a vacation, but to just do “nothing.” There is more to rest than sleep. God rested (Genesis 2:2). Jesus rested (Matthew 14:13). We can rest.

Dedicate the proper care of your body to Jesus

When you diet, exercise, and get enough sleep, your physical health improves. It is good for your emotional well being. It is good for your soul. When you do these things with Jesus in mind, he can choose to be part of the process. You are inviting him to be a partner. Use Vision/Intention/Means with your dieting, exercise and sleep. This can be very helpful without getting obsessive.

What is one thing you can add to your life for the good of your body?