Counting the Wrong Thing

I’m embarrassed…

Yesterday I learned how to use a lock... the twisty kind :)

I thought I knew how locks worked. I was wrong…

I have recently started a job that requires me to use one of those locks that most children master in middle school. “Most children,” however, does not include me. So yesterday, I approached this twisty lock with all the confidence of a grown man who has absolutely mastered opening locks with a key…

I twisted the twisty lock 2 times to the left, then promptly 3 times to the right before returning it to 0. To my HORROR, however, the twisty lock did not open…

As it turns out... I was confused. I was entirely counting the wrong thing, and because of that, I both started and ended in the wrong place.

I was having way too much fun counting how many times I was spinning the lock around, so that I completely failed to notice that the lock seemed much more interested in where I was actually landing (which is honestly a little dramatic of it in my opinion).

Subtle transition

The more I thought about it, the more I realized I do this same thing with spiritual growth all the time.

I think a lot of us do.

We like counting things because counting things makes us feel productive. It makes us feel like we are making progress. So spiritually, we count church attendance, quiet times, chapters read, prayers prayed, worship songs listened to, volunteer hours, sermon notes, and how many Christian books we have started and then heroically never finished.

Now to be clear, those things are not bad. Most of them are really good. I am not trying to say Bible reading does not matter or prayer does not matter or church does not matter. They do. A lot. But I do think it is possible to count all the right-looking things and still miss the actual thing Jesus was after the whole time.

Because… Jesus makes it pretty clear that the real measure of spiritual maturity is not just what we do. It is whether or not we are becoming more loving.

Jesus makes this very inconvenient

In Matthew 22, Jesus is asked which commandment is the greatest. Out of all the commands in the law, all the things He could have pointed to, He says to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself. Then He says that all the Law and the Prophets hang on those two commands.

All of it.

Which means the goal was never just external obedience. It was never just being visibly religious. It was never just doing enough Christian things to feel like we are doing okay.

The point was love.

That is a little annoying, honestly, because love is much harder to measure than activity. It is easier to count chapters than patience. It is easier to count church attendance than kindness. It is easier to count how many times I served than how often I was gentle. It is easier to count what I know than to ask whether the people around me are actually experiencing more of Jesus through me.

And I think that is where this gets uncomfortable.

Because I can read my Bible every morning and still be harsh with people. I can serve at church every week and still be impatient. I can know more theology than I did two years ago and still be arrogant. I can be very involved in “Christian things” and still not be very loving.

Paul somehow makes it worse

And then Paul comes in with 1 Corinthians 13 and removes basically all room for spiritual pride…

He says that you can speak in the tongues of men and angels, understand mysteries, have all knowledge, have mountain-moving faith, give away everything you have, and even suffer for your beliefs... and still be nothing without love.

Nothing.

That is such a rude verse.

Paul doesn’t allow us to use “but I am doing a lot for God” as an excuse for not looking more like Jesus. Apparently, God is not nearly as impressed by our spiritual activity as we are.

That does not mean activity does not matter. It does. It just means activity is not the final test. Love is.

And if that is true, then it means it is actually possible to become more religious without becoming more like Jesus. It is possible to become more disciplined without becoming more patient. It is possible to become more theologically sound without becoming kinder. It is possible to get better at “living like a Christian” while getting worse at loving actual people.

That should probably bother us more than it does.

EXPOSED

I honestly think one of the clearest tests of spiritual growth is not what happens when I am alone with my Bible but what happens when someone interrupts me.

What comes out of me when someone is annoying? When someone is slow? When someone disagrees with me? When someone needs something from me at an inconvenient time? When someone in traffic appears to have gotten their driver’s license through prayer and imagination?

That is where a lot gets revealed.

Because anyone can feel spiritual in a quiet room with coffee, worship music, and a Bible open in front of them. I can feel incredibly holy when nobody is bothering me. But love gets tested in normal life. In conversations with family. In text messages. In church hallways. In grocery store lines. In dealing with the same person making the same mistake again. In moments where I have every fleshly reason to be irritated… and Jesus is still calling me to be patient.

That is where spiritual growth can be seen.

Jesus did not just love people in theory. He actually loved actual people. Confused people. Needy people. Slow people. Awkward people. Selfish people. People who misunderstood Him, doubted Him, used Him, betrayed Him, and eventually killed Him.

And He loved them anyway.

So if I say I am following Jesus, but the people around me are not increasingly experiencing grace, patience, humility, and compassion from me, then I need to stop being so impressed with all my “growth.”

To be clear...

This does not mean love is just being nice all the time or pretending truth does not matter. Jesus was full of grace and truth. Real love tells the truth. Real love confronts sin. Real love does not avoid hard conversations.

But real love also carries the heart of Jesus while doing those things.

It tells the truth without cruelty. It serves when it is inconvenient. It forgives when it hurts. It is patient with weakness. It sees people as image-bearers, not interruptions.

So the answer is not to care less about doctrine or holiness or evangelism or spiritual discipline. The answer is to remember what all of those things are supposed to produce. They are not supposed to make us more impressive. They are supposed to make us more like Christ.

And if we are becoming more like Christ, then we must be becoming more loving.

The Big Q (question)

So maybe the question is not just, “Am I doing more Christian things than I used to?”

Maybe the better questions are: Am I more patient than I was a year ago? Am I harder to offend? Am I quicker to listen? Do the people closest to me experience more grace from me? Am I more burdened for lost people than I am annoyed by them? Am I growing in compassion, or just in opinions?

Because if I am reading the Bible more but loving people less, something has gone wrong. If I am more involved at church but less kind at home, something has gone wrong. If I know more truth but carry it with less humility, something has gone wrong.

Following Jesus should absolutely change what I do. But if it is real, it will also change who I am becoming.

Let’s lock back in on the lock story haha!

In the end, the problem with the lock was not that I was not trying. I was trying very hard. The problem was that I was measuring success the wrong way. I thought the important thing was the turning. The lock cared about where I landed.

I think a lot of us are doing the same thing spiritually.

We are counting all the turns. All the chapters. All the services. All the prayers. All the podcasts. All the volunteer hours. All the Christian things.

Meanwhile, Jesus is looking at where all of that is actually leading us. Is it making us more loving? More patient? More merciful? More gentle? More like Him?

Because the goal is not to become people who are very good at doing Christian things. The goal is to become like Jesus. And Jesus summed up the whole thing with love.

So yes, read your Bible. Pray. Serve. Fight sin. Learn theology. Share the gospel. Wake up early. Take notes. Do all of it… But do not count those things in a way that makes you miss the point of them.

Do not be so focused on the turns that you never notice what the end goal is.

Maybe the clearest evidence that we are actually growing is not that we know more, say more, or do more… Maybe it is that, by the grace of God, we are slowly becoming the kind of people who love more.