This week the 20th Anniversary of 9-11 brought back memories of that awful day. As we thought about that day, and the 1-year anniversary following, we remember a variety of solemn commemorations vowing never to forget. At our church’s service that first anniversary Jane took photos of the flags flying in our neighborhood and as she read a journal memory of 9-11 forty photos of “Old Glory” quietly fluttered behind her one at a time on the big screen. As the years have passed the flags faded and were never replaced. In our neighborhood today it is rare to see the flag flying. We fly ours every day except for our Thanksgiving and Christmas banners. It is hard to be reminded of evil, but sometimes we must look it the face and examine our hearts.
In the movie, The Godfather, Michael Corleone, in trying to convince a man to commit murder told him, “It’s not personal, Sonny, it’s only business.” For Alex Murdaugh murder was personal, not business. I watched the three-day dramatic testimony of Alex Murdaugh, at least enough of it that my B.S detector kept going off like a broken smoke alarm. He was, in the end, sentenced for murder. After Hitler, Mao, Stalin, the Taliban, and a congressional hearing, it takes a lot to get us to shake our heads in disbelief.
But there I was, shaking my head, wondering how could this scion of deep-fried South Carolina low country murder his own son and wife? And the way it happened—with a shot gun, and an assault rifle, and in cold blood. And such lying and calculation built on a foundation of generational privilege.
A special category of evil
The contemporary way to explain deep and mystifying evil is to assign it to mental illness. Philip Rieff’s book, The Triumph of The Therapeutic, traces the history of mental pathology from a Biblical world view to a secular one that relies on a medical model or a therapeutic Freudian model. The medical model means the scientific discoveries of brain chemistry. The therapeutic model is about social science, basically, observations on human behavior and some assumptions from Freud about the origin of behavior being based in sexual repression and aggression. What this allows the general public to do is off load any possibility that any normal person could become evil. But for those who still respect the wisdom of Jeremiah, someone who knew something about being hated, here is some foundational truth.
“The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is? But I the Lord, search all hearts and examine secret motives. I give all people their due rewards, according to what their actions deserve.” Jeremiah 17:9,10 NLT.
The source of evil resides in each human heart. The Old Testament’s use of the English word, heart, means the center of a person, the core components of human personality.[1] The question is how does one heart become the one that could permit murder when most others do not? The first part of the answer is that most people are not far from murder.
Jesus told us that to be angry with a person plants the seeds of murder in one’s heart.[2] Granted, however, there is a journey that every heart goes on, either to loving or hating. What is that journey? How does a person develop the heart of God? How do people develop and change?
1. Desire
“Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear. For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.”[3]
The starting line for spiritual formation is rebirth. You will notice Paul writes to the person who has decided to follow Jesus, for he uses “show the results of your salvation.” If you enter the world of spiritual conflict without a new nature and the Holy Spirit, then you are not really at the starting line.
I have known those who made a profession of faith, then turned their back on God when hard times came. Keeping up a good front for the career or reputation but never a making a soul commitment to God does not work. Living apart from God allows a destructive seed to grow.
I think we need to face another question, “How many true Christian believers have committed murder?”
I would think an uncountable multitude. And I do not speak of a soldier, police officer, or agent authorized by authorities to protect a country or a civilian population. I do speak of person to person interaction and conflict. I could start where the Bible does—with Cain killing Abel. “They weren’t Christians,” you protest. True, but neither was John the Baptist, or Jesus, for that matter if you want to get technical. But Cain and Abel knew God, they were in conversation with God, they knew the will of God. What else is there to know about God or from God that is needed to obey God? Yet, in the face of this evidence, Cain did his deed and tried to blame others. Listen to God’s advice to Cain prior to his killing his brother.
The Lord accepted Abel and his gift, but he did not accept Cain and his gift. This made Cain very angry, and he looked dejected. “Why are you so angry?” The Lord asked Cain. “Why do you look so dejected? You will be accepted if you do what is right. But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its master.” [4]
Desire has a great deal to do with the idea you have in your head, the image or picture you have that is success. Cain’s picture was that he couldn’t be seen as a failure in comparison to his younger brother. His reputation was shattered, he was shamed, embarrassed, and his anger overpowered his reason, and even overpowered God’s sound advice to restrain himself and change direction. Emotion took hold and he was swept away in its tide. It takes humility and submission to change your mind, admit you are wrong, and change your behavior—but that is the doorway to acceptance and joy.
In any civil society there are natural restraints to deviant behavior. These moral guides are institutions that have power, families, particularly fathers, and others such as the church, public and private education, the justice system—but when these institutions loose power morals decline.
What happened in the extreme to Cain happens to a lesser degree in all of us. We gain an image based upon a false idea that creates a desire that doesn’t seem very evil at the time. That personal daily battle is described by Paul in his letter to the Galatian region. Where is God, and why doesn’t he provide for us in the same way as my neighbors?
“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.”[5]
When someone asks you, what caused the World Trade Center towers to fall on September 11, 2001, you could answer, “gravity.” You wouldn’t be wrong, but then, you wouldn’t be right. It was caused by the ideas, pictures, images, desires, and emotions that had been shaped in the minds of the terrorists flying the planes.
The first step in shaping Christlike character—rather than it being formed by other characteristics we witness daily—is learning to discern the source of our desires. And the only reliable way to discern such desires are: First, an innate sense of right and wrong based on the conscience that God installed in us at birth. Second, fill our mind with God’s thoughts—the most reliable source is the Bible: reading the word, hearing the word, studying the word, memorizing the word, and meditating on the word. It doesn’t take long to get the basics down.
You will be able to discern the desires that God puts in your mind and the evil or destructive desires that cross your mind. Even the most deconstructed part of American society teaches that stealing, killing, lying, and hurting the weak, the young, and the disabled is wrong. The law itself is built on the foundation of the Ten Commandments and the Biblical record. The commandments still hang in the Supreme Court of the United States. Americans continue to hold onto and wrestle with the promise of equality and fairness for all citizens. Moral chaos, which is now descending on the society, has created confusion. But it is not too late, don’t despair, chaos doesn’t work, it destroys—start reading the Bible for there you will find wisdom.
2. Spiritual Exercises
“Train yourself to be godly”[6]
This is about practice, about discipline, and therefore, for most of us, about community. Exercise, in general, requires groups, clubs, peer pressure, encouragement and peer review. The peer review is another way of saying accountability and also reality checks on behavior and progress. This is where most run aground because we often mistakenly believe that we can handle our lives, particularly our sin, by being alone. Spiritual exercise comes in two forms, proactive and reactive.
Proactive is when we take the initiative and set out on a plan for spiritual growth. This is preferred, it is doing something with a beneficial goal: I went to college and joined a Saturday morning Bible study. It is something that can lead to a desired improvement. You can follow a plan of any kind. The downside is that convincing people to undertake such endeavors is like selling health insurance to the young and the healthy. That is why the majority of spiritual progress takes place in the second category, the reactive.
Reactive means pain and trial enters a life. Phil Yancy and Dr. Paul Brand wrote a classic years ago entitled, Pain, The Gift No One Wants. Pain can save our life by sending us to a doctor. It can alert us to spiritual needs which can drive us to our knees for prayer, Bible reading, church going, and taking spiritual counsel. It all suddenly becomes mission critical.[7]
3. Developing Christlike Habits—the spiritual law of indirectness
“There is much more we would like to say about this but it is difficult to explain, especially since you are spiritually dull and don’t seem to listen. You have been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others. Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things about God’s word. You are like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food. For someone who lives on milk is still an infant and doesn’t know how to do what is right. Solid food is for those who are mature who through training have the skill to recognize the difference between right and wrong.”[8]
Character is primarily composed of habits. Once you have figured out God’s desires from those that would prove destructive, and you know what habits you want to form, then it is a matter of keeping it up long enough to become a habit. This introduces the spiritual law of indirectness. Forming a habit of exercise causes significant improvements in your health. None of these benefits were done directly by verbal commands—they came indirectly because of exercise. The impulse and power to do such a thing comes from the Holy Spirit. Forming habits that come from the Word of God and prayer will change your desires, your mind will be renewed, and your faith in God will increase. Some of the spiritual battles you once had will change. You will still experience temptation and conflict, but many issues that once plagued you will now lose their grip.
The easiest way to understand this concept is food. Almost anything can be eaten if done so in a broad context of good nutrition, but it is a good discipline to be able to walk by a desert tray, an open bar, or turn down your new mother-in-law’s, favorite desert. It is also a joyful feeling to not miss the old hit parade of sins that once identified your life.
4. Transformed Character
Character is a composite of one’s habits. Habits knit together in one’s soul and they form a fabric that is your character. Instead of a person who is constantly with some anxiety searching for God’s will, you become the kind of person who does God’s will. This is what it means to enter into God’s rest. You set to the side the angst of straining for new information. You rest in the confidence that God is not withholding from you anything of any importance.[9]
“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” [10]
You have now acquired the mind of Christ.[11] You think differently, your desires have changed, your habits have changed, your joys have changed, what you work for has changed. Everyone has a spiritual formation—some to good, some to bad, but they have all gone through the same process:
1. Desire
2. Spiritual exercise
3. Developed habits
4. Habits became their character.
Whether it be mythical Michael Corleone, the terrorists of 9-11, Mother Theresa of Calcutta, the murderer Alex Murdaugh, or yes, even you and I—there are no exceptions. It all starts with whom you admire. If you admire your father, your family, a writer, a successful person, or yes, even Jesus who is the Christ—choose carefully— that is whom you will follow and will shape your character.
Bill Hull
September 2023
[1] Christlike, Bill Hull, pages 146-153, What is the Spiritual Heart. Navpress, Colorado Springs, CO 2010.
[2] Matthew 5:21,22, Matthew 15:18,19, I John 3:15.
[3] Philippians 2:12,13 NLT
[4] Genesis 4:4-7 NLT
[5] Galatians 5:17 NLT.
[6] I Timothy 4:7 NLT.
[7] James 1:2-4, I Peter 1:6-9,
[8] Hebrews 5:11-14 NLT
[9] Hebrews 4:8-13, Mt. 11:26-28.
[10] Romans 12:2 NLT.
[11] I Corinthians 2:16.
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