Mr. Nice Christian Guy

Recently something has been getting on my nerves, and I hastily just expressed it out in anger, not vulgarities, but just in a sense, “ranted” to my friends from church.

However sometimes, I get this vibe that, hey, “You know, you should just forgive and forget the whole incident.” I get this thing that you know, it’s unspiritual to actually talk about how pissed you, and be pissed. You should just be nice, and then say something really ‘religiously’ and ‘scripturally’ correct.

It reminded me of what I read in Wild At Heart some time back. You know, God wasn’t a very ‘religiously’ correct person. Our God is a passionate God, and He doesn’t have a problem displaying His anger, His love, His hatred, His sorrow. And He’s even got it down on paper! He even got someone to write it down.

Jesus, when He went to the temple, with pre-mediated aggression, ( He made the whip with the intention of going to the temple to use it), and turned the place upside down.

Would you call him a nice guy? The same way you call a nice guy today. Oh yah , “ XYZ, yeah, he’s a nice guy.”

Jesus wasn’t nice. But He was good. He was passionate. And he had no problems showing His anger.

Look at the apostles who turned the whole world upside down.

Nice guys? You couldn’t count the number of people they offended.

Yet when you look to the church today, what do you see? A whole bunch of ‘nice guys’. How many guys in the church today can you count on to hold that whip, walk into that church and start turning the place upside down?

How many guys today can you count on stand up strong against religiosity?

Nope. They’re more like ‘nice’ guys.

“XYZ, yeah he’s a nice guy.” That’s probably what you hear nowadays. But what happened to, “XYZ, wow he’s a wild and passionate guy!”

I remember having lunch with my friend one day, I asked her, “ What kind of guy do you prefer, the nice kind of guy you see nowadays in church, or the type who will stand up for you and beat up whoever who’s trying to bully you?”

“Really.”

“The second one.” She turns and look at her food.

Another one:
“ I can’t stand church guys. I want to find a guy outside church. Church guys are so.. eeee ”. “Spineless?”, I suggested. I laughed out loud. I know what she’s talking about. But she didn’t. She thought she was being unspiritual for thinking that. What a sad thing.

Jesus was alive. He was very in tune with His heart. He knew how he felt and He was not afraid of expressing it out.

Yet when you tell someone or give someone the impression that being angry and talking about it when he’s hurt, even if it’s a small thing, is unspiritual or you dismiss him with something like,"Hmm, just forgive alright?"; you really are telling him, “You know, your heart don’t matter.” Hey, when you put something else above God, you hurt him, and He gets mad, and He’s not afraid to tell you.

You should really read some of the things He says when He’s mad. If another Christian were to say it, you would think him: how unspiritual. Seriously. Go read your Bible. Sometimes I’m shocked at the things God would say to His people. My goodness, what explicit terms!

And Jesus would say, “ Hypocrite! White-washed tomb! Brood of vipers!” Wow. How ‘unspiritual’. And He didn’t sin? My goodness. Hur hur.

Or some of us would imagine Jesus in His most gentlemanly voice, “My, my, you guys really shouldn’t do that. It is not good, you know.” And really, isn’t that what we expect our guys to respond? Seriously. Check your heart.

Honestly, It sounds more like “Screw you!” or “Bastard!” in modern day language.

“Oh nono… Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Tsk tsk, Jesus, how could you!?”

What bullshit.

There’s this total misconception of ideas of servanthood, humility, about turning the other cheek.

The truth is, Jesus had the strength to rule, but He humbled himself, and served. That is His true strength, in being able to retaliate, to rule over people, but despite that, not doing so.

Many guys act the same way, the ones we call with a ‘servant’s heart.’ When they are hurt, they don’t retaliate. Wow. Good. Know how to ‘forgive’ and forget.

But the thing is, many times it is not they don’t retaliate. It’s because they cannot. They don’t have the strength to retaliate, they don’t have to strength to rule.

Jesus strength was in that while He could slap you back, He didn’t. He could rule, but He served.

Many guys today, they don’t slap you back because they simply can’t. They don’t lord over you, because they simply can’t. That is not TRUE
strength, That is NO strength.

I remember Pastor Kong shared a story in Bible school, once when he was a very young pastor, there was this guy that was two-timing two of the girls in his church. When he found out, he immediately asked the guy to come meet him with his teacher.
He first talked to the guy nicely, and the guy was appeared rather disinterested with the ‘what-can-you-do-with-me’ look.

Then Pastor Kong just stood up and banged the table, held him by his shirt collar and said, “If you ever lay hands on any of my two girls again, I’ll make sure you’ll get it from me!!” The guy was so shocked and frightened he almost cried, agreed, and never came into the girls’ lives again.

Now that is strength. That’s offering your strength.

How many ‘nice’ guys in church you see is capable of the same thing?

Turning the other cheek applies to people who can choose not to. It doesn’t apply to people who don’t have a choice anyway.
When you can retaliate and screw your enemy upside down but don’t. That’s real strength.

Forgiveness applies to people who have been hurt and want to seek justice. They don’t apply to people who think nothing of an offence; the people that go “Ah, it’s okay, it’s nothing” and suppress all that hurt inside. No, its NOT okay. When you acknowledge that you have been hurt, misunderstood and offended, and this strong desire to find justice for yourself comes up, but you put it aside and say, “I forgive.” That’s real strength.

And when our leaders encourage this behavior without teaching and helping guys discover their strength, they emasculate them.

“Wow, look at XYZ, he’s so serving. Everytime I ask him to do something, he’ll never say no.”

Eh, have you considered he doesn’t have the guts to say no to you?

And we celebrate it! Woohoo! Let’s all just do what our leaders tell us no matter how many ministries we’re holding and how little time we have for prayer, its okay. Let’s just be serving.

Oh, we just need to crucify our flesh and pray no matter how tired we are after we’re done.

If you loved your wife, would you set some quality time aside for her, time that you’re not tired, but alive and able to engage actively with her? Or would you leave her to the last agenda of the day and try to keep awake, telling her about your day and not listening at all? “You really have to pardon me, I’m the breadwinner of the house so I have to work till late, so I can’t give you my best time.”

What is strength? Strength is when you know your relationship with God is the most important thing above all, and you’re not afraid to say no to a few leaders because of it.

Strength is when you’re clear about God’s vision for your life and you know who to say no to, and who to say yes to.

That is strength. And no, when a person is ‘okaying’ to everything that is asked of him, including giving up his quality time with God. That is not servanthood. That is weakness.

Have you also considered that the guys that are okaying to everything are doing so because they don’t know what to do with their own life?

Be a God-pleaser, and not a church-leader pleaser. That is strength.

The truth is: With a culture like this, many of the passionate men, the same ones you see in the Bible, they are turned away by the church. They are labeled unspiritual, ungodly, rebellious, disobedient. NDW. Bah.

Would a man like Martin Luther who stood against the Roman Catholic Church in the dark ages and against ‘God’ be found in the church today? If Jesus would step into church today, would he find a group of passionate men, loving the truth, loving Him, knowing what their calling is, and pursuing it. Or would He come back to really find… ‘nice’ guys. yuck. Guys who are really just following the crowd, and just flowing along and being a great ‘servant’ and not knowing what they’re really there for?

The truth is: God uses shit-stirrers.

Yeah. People who can stir shit.(This is an army term for troublemaker).

He used Saul, who was passionately killing Christians. And with that same passion after conversion, Paul worked harder than any of the apostles.

Look at Martin Luther, who stirred a hell lot of shit in the Roman Catholic Church with his 93 thesis, then started the Protestant movement.

Look at Pastor Kong who filled his first church with youths that upset all the elders in the church, and started our church.

God uses passionate people. You can be passionate about the wrong thing, but God can re-direct your desires for the right thing.

But the #1 thing is Passion. It is Desire. God will use a man with desire. Not a man who knows how to follow the program.

And passion comes from knowing your heart. It comes from knowing that your heart is important, that your desires are important, your feelings are important to God. Yes YOURS. Don’t do the ‘My desires are God’s desires.’ It kills your heart.

And it doesn’t come by a sermon about “Let’s have MORE passion!” and then suddenly Passion comes. Ha. I wished it worked that way.

God needs people who can stir shit to change the world. He doesn’t need nice people.

And guess where does your first opponent come from when you decide to ‘stir shit’? No prizes for guessing: from the church. It’s ALWAYS from the church. Because the Pharisees haven’t died today.

That’s why the ones who can change the world aren’t even in church. Cos they’re stirring too much shit for the Pharisees inside the church to take. They’re the ‘unspiritual’, ‘bad attitude’ , ‘rebellious’ guys.

But they are the ones with the passion. The ones with the real strength.

“Why aren’t the guys rising up?”

Hur hur.

You cannot ask them for strength they don’t have. You have either chased them out of church or stripped them of it.

I think we have to be intentional here. We must help a guy find his strength, and then teach him to use it right.

Let’s not be nice guys. It kind of sucks.

And please don’t call me NICE.. eeeeee. I promise not to be nice from today onwards. Hahaha.

Turn to your neighbour and say, “ I’m a shit-stirrer.”

Ha. =)

Goodness. How unspiritual of him.

=P