Lady Gaga

Last week Lady Gaga released a new single. Now, I'm not typically a Lady Gaga listener, but for whatever reason I heard it on the radio and surprisingly the lyrics peaked my curiosity. To be sure I was hearing correctly, I looked them up. The chorus is incredibly revealing:

I live for the applause, applause, applause
I live for the applause-plause
Live for the applause-plause
Live for the way that you cheer and scream for me
The applause, applause, applause
[Lady Gaga]

Well, at least she's honest.

But as I listened, I could not keep the words of Paul from resounding in my head.

"For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ."

 John also contributes to the subject:

"Isaiah said these things because he saw his [Jesus'] glory and spoke of him. Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God."

A difficult question comes to mind: am I as transparent as her? Aside from the accolades of a job well done at work or awards for good performance, social media has contributed just as much to our desire for approval. With friends and followers and likes and shares and view counts and on and on and on, aren't we all prone to "love the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God?" If we're honest, aren't we all tempted "live for the applause" just as much as Lady Gaga?

If you claim to follow Christ, then your first priority from the moment you wake up each morning will be to make Him known to as many people as possible. That's the very essence of His final marching orders. None of us has an excuse. There are no exceptions. There is no Plan B. Whether your job is full-time ministry or teaching or working in a coffee shop or anything in between, your primary task is to make disciples of Jesus. His command to all of us is to reject the applause of man and to radically seek out the applause of God, and we do so by our faithfulness to confess Him as Lord and to proclaim His Gospel in all the contexts in which we have influence. The goal is to win the nations, not sit back and hope they figure it out themselves. The goal is to be a faithful witness for Christ and receive the applause of heaven, not spend our lives seeking the things of this world and gaining the approval of men.

It's one or the other. You can't have both. Which will you choose?

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That you might know Christ,

Labor

[For context, read Ecclesiastes 5 and 6.]

We work so hard, don't we? We spend decades earning and saving money and stuff, preparing for all our 'golden years' of retirement, the time when we can finally do what we really want to do.

At the end of the day, though, that mindset is exactly the problem. The author of Ecclesiastes makes it very clear that if all our efforts are merely for "the mouth," then they will not last. That is, if all the hard work we put in is for temporary, vain pleasures, then we are wasting our time pursuing things that don't last for eternity and don't satisfy the soul.

It occurs to me that in seeking the so-called 'American dream,' we have unthinkingly perpetuated this kind of living. We have settled for finding satisfaction in a life well-lived...for ourselves. We have gotten comfortable with and encouraged the blatant, satanic lie that if we can have just a little more, we'll be satisfied. The basis of this problem, though, is that nothing satisfies the soul except God. Nothing brings the peace that passes all understanding except God. Nothing makes our lives worthwhile except for God. And nothing will last except that which is found in God.

I don't mean to say that having possessions or working hard and working well is bad, or even that planning for the future is bad.

But, then again, maybe I am. A little.

Possessions and work and planning for the future are not inherently bad things. After all, the Bible clearly teaches that God graciously gives to His children and that we are to be wise stewards of those things (Gen. 1, Prov. 31, and so many others). But how often do we treat them as we should? If you are honest, which is more likely: that you use those things for your own glory and your own purposes? Or that you use them to honor and glorify God?

Are you more likely to idolize the gift or worship the Giver?

I fear (at least in the Western Church) that we have allowed this idea to grow, and perhaps even encouraged it to flourish, in order that we might "help" the church grow and "help" the kingdom of God grow.

God doesn't need our help. He allows it.

Instead of "helping," though, it seems much more often we become satisfied with these vain pursuits themselves. As if anything but God could truly satisfy.

So, take an inventory. Check your heart and your motivation for all the things you do and seek after, for all the things you're storing up here on earth. Is it for God? Or is it really just for yourself?

If it is for God, good! The man who recognizes that all his possessions are a gracious gift from the Father is given the ability to enjoy them - because his satisfaction is in the Giver, not the gift. (Ecc. 5:18-20)

If it is for yourself, then God has something else to say. Using some rather graphic imagery, the author of Ecclesiastes says that seeking satisfaction in the gift, rather that the Giver, is so inevitably dissatisfying and pointless that it is better to have been miscarried in the womb. That seems wildly inappropriate, and yet it drives home the painful point:

Life has no purpose apart from God.

"All the labor of man is for his mouth, and yet his desire is not satisfied." (Ecc. 6:7) Why? Because he labors to pursue the gift, rather than to please the Giver.

Would you live as though you had never been born?
Or would you live a life of purpose and meaning?

Then begin to view all things as graciously from God and use them generously for God.

In this alone will your soul find rest from your labor.

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That you might know Christ,

Babel

Photo Courtesy: Kat Masback

Time passes. People come and go. It's all vanity.

This is the central message of Ecclesiastes 1:1-11. The author has come to the end of his life and realized the wastefulness with which he lived his life, and probably even recognized it in the lives of so many others.

Verse 8 captures it well:

"All things are wearisome;

Man is not able to tell it.

The eye is not satisfied with seeing,

Nor is the ear filled with hearing."

We were made for more, weren't we? The stuff we spend so much time collecting and pursuing is just vanity, an idol built to ourselves and our ingenuity. We're steadily continuing to build the Tower of Babel, a monument to how little we think we need God.

And yet, not a blink or a breath goes by without His sovereign hand guiding it to completion. All things in life, even the assumed, subconscious processes of our temporary, earthly bodies, are the gracious gift of God, at His good pleasure and for His great glory.

So, I close with a question. Will you work to build for God today?

Or will you vainly continue trying to build Babel?

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That you might know Christ,