New songs by Spirit-led artists can speak to my soul.  Kristene DiMarco’s latest song “Gravity” is such a song.  It is a searching song that subtly probes the hidden life of the soul.  It will make men (if they’re open to it) ask questions regarding their hidden, inner life.  The chorus speaks to the gravity of our condition: “Positivity can’t split these seas/And all my optimism won’t set this captive free/I need a King who hung on Calvary/I’ll always need a God who feels deeply/I need a God who knows the gravity.“

Paul describes the gravity of our struggle in Gal. 5:16-18 (NLT): “So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives.  Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves.  The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants.  And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires.  These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions.  But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses.” 

Earlier in Romans, Paul laments, “I want to do what is good, but I don’t.  I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.  But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong, it is the sin living in me that does it” (Romans 7:19-20 – NLT).  Men, that is a pull of gravity in each of us, the pull of our flesh in conflict with the Spirit.  

Each man reading this blog knows of the gravitational pull of the “sinful nature.”  All our positivity and optimism will not release us from this pull.  The singer refers to “This innocent idolatry/Not letting You in too deep/Because who knows if You can handle me.”  In our pride (innocent idolatry), we think we can handle what goes on inside.  We prefer to manage our spiritual life, not realizing we can’t do it without the Lord (John 15:5; Psalm 16:1-2).  

“This innocent idolatry” creates an image of God being “proud of me [when I] keep my tears back behind my eyes.”  Men, we can too easily project the image of a “strong, spiritual man” to hide our real pain.  It’s okay to cry.  The song asks, “When did I decide/I’m not allowed to cry?”  My advice: spend time before God allowing yourself to feel and express your deep, hidden pains. 

The singer laments that her “innocent idolatry” causes her to “make You somehow just like me/Unable to sit in the suffering.”  Then “movin’ too fast past my grief/When you are acquainted with what I’m carrying.”  At the end the singer asks, “Don’t let this truth be lost on me/My God, He feels the gravity of everything.”  

Men, it an absolute, wonderful truth to know that Jesus suffered for you.  Allow yourself to feel your emptiness, nothingness, and hidden shame.  Then look up and out of your pit, into the eyes of love.  See the suffering, wounded heart of God bleeding on the cross for you.  Trust Him to take your pain.   Confess: “This innocent idolatry/I make you somehow just like me/Unable to sit in the suffering.”  

Men, you can break the pull of gravity?  Humble yourself as a child before the Father and let him carry you as you find your way home together.  Claim this promise for yourself: “At that time I will gather you; at that time I will bring you home” (Zeph. 3: 20).

 In the weekly Bible study at our apartment building, we recently studied John 15.  Some speculation on a contemporary application of John 15: 22-25 led to some thoughts that I’d like to share for your consideration:

“If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin.  Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin.  He who hates me hates my Father as well.  If I had not done among them what no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin.  But now they have seen these miracles, and yet they have hated both me and my Father.  But this is to fulfil what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason'” (John 15:22-25).

Earlier in this chapter, Jesus warned his disciples that they would be “hated” by others because those others hated Jesus first.  He told them, “If you lived on the world’s terms, the world would love you as one of its own.  But since I picked you to live on God’s terms and no longer on the world’s terms, the world is going to hate you” (v. 18-19 – Message).  As believers, we live in the world but are not part of the world. Jesus wants us to know that “if they beat on me, they will certainly beat on you” (v. 20 – Message).   

Jesus’ words (v. 22) caused his hearers to be guilty of sin.  My question for our culture is this: How guilty are we of having rejected the words of Jesus?  Has our culture actually rejected the gospel or simply reacted negatively to a distorted version of the gospel?  

Jesus says this regarding those who have heard:  “Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin” (v. 22).  My question for believers, however, is this:  Are we without excuse when others reject the gospel?  How much light (the good news) has our culture really encountered in us?  How much of our behavior is without excuse?

Jesus is very clear: “Whoever hates me hates my Father as well” (v. 23).  This is how I would interpret that statement for our day:  Jesus is the way to the Father (John 14:6).  John declares Jesus as coming from the Father.  “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known” (John 1:18).  When we spurn Jesus’ speaking into our lives, we lose the sense of transcendent reality.  We live in a “closed” world with little spiritual connection to the Lord.  

Jesus’ listeners had seen the “works no one else did,” yet they were guilty of sin.  They had witnessed Jesus’ miracles, only to dismiss both Jesus’ words and his Father working in and through them.  My question:  As we try to live out the gospel in our culture, have we discounted the voice of God in our midst? 

Jesus interprets the rejection of his message as a fulfillment of scripture, referring to Ps. 69:4, “They hated me without reason.” Could it be that some of the opposition to Jesus and his kingdom is the result of thinking within the Body of Christ that discounts the Lordship of Jesus – thinking that has become a stumbling block for us and for unbelievers around us?   Revelation 12:12 reminds us that the devil “knows his time is short.” Yes, we see an almost demonic spirit at work in our nation.  But is it not also possible that we have accepted a watered-down version of the gospel to the point of no return?