Their god is their belly

Philippians 3:15-21

Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.

Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.

Yesterday I asked myself in what, other than Christ, do I place my confidence.  Today I have to ask myself, how is my god my belly?  How do I imitate those who walk as enemies of the cross of Christ instead of imitating the saints?

In some ways this is a difficult concept, in others it is dead easy.  There are those, those that we in Christian circles generally refer to as “the world”, who live apparently only to satisfy their own desires.  These desires may be obviously sinful, like the womanizer, or they may be less obvious, like the idolater of family.  Some of the desires seem (and are in themselves) very good, and we feel justified in obsessing over them.  Things like marriage, children, a job.  Some of them are obviously sinful if we read scripture, but we have learned to justify them because they have been normalized for us or even glorified by our culture.  Sex, violence, self-centeredness.

The key point to this passage comes immediately before this passage begins:  “Forgetting what lies behind, and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”  Those who are mature are to think this way.  So the cares and desires of this world are things that we ought to forget as we continue on in the path to glory.

It would be easy, too easy, for me to turn this into a session of pointing fingers at those wicked sinners who have left the fold in favor of whatever appetite they desire to satisfy.  I could list every sin and how it defies scripture.  But there is another wicked sinner that is harder for me to examine, but that will be of greater benefit to me as I continue on in the race, in the discipline and sanctification that are mine by the gift of our loving Father.  I do not plan to share my deepest sins with the internet.  But I will walk through something of a rubric as I examine myself in case it may be of benefit to others.

As I look at my desires, some of which have been with me for a long time if not my whole life, I have a series of questions to ask to determine whether they are good or not.  The first question is Did I learn that it was good by watching TV or movies?  If so, it is immediately suspect.  Why is it suspect?  Because TV and movies are the primary windows we have to “the world” if we grew up in the church, as I did.  Question two:  Did I learn that it was good by listening to someone trying to persuade me of some ideal that isn’t Christianity?  Like a politician.  (As it turns out, nationalism and patriotism aren’t listed among the fruit of the Spirit.  I’m pretty sure those are Aristotelian virtues, not Christian ones.  And I never need to mention that again.)

Question three, now that the two easy ones are out of the way:  Is this desire rooted in fear?  I’m afraid of being alone, I’m afraid of being poor, I’m afraid of being shamed, so I want a wife and children to give me company, a high paying job to give me security, and the approval of the masses to give me validity.  And to the end of attaining these things, I will do anything necessary.  And until God gives me these things, I will not be satisfied.  I will not be satisfied in Him, I will not, because I can’t see Him and the world is big and scary and if I let go for a minute of my ambition and my single hope in the midst of all this chaos I will crumple up and die, a heap of ruined nothing.  How do I forget what lies behind when it surrounds me every second?

I press on, keeping my eyes on Christ who became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.  I imitate St. Paul and the other saints who counted all things as loss for the sake of Christ.  And I cry out to God, sometimes wordlessly as the Holy Spirit groans on my behalf.  Everyone who has run a marathon or a triathlon or around the block if they aren’t used to it will tell you that there comes a point when the only thing that keeps you running is will power.  Endurance.  Not physical endurance, but the resolution to keep on running.  In this resolution the physical endurance can manifest itself, but without the resolution it never can.  So we must be resolved to keep our eyes on Christ, to continue running the race, even when the exhaustion seems ready to overwhelm us and all we can see is pain, loss, or a mountain of unfulfilled desire.

And having asked the difficult question, we get to ask a fourth question that is even easier than the first two to answer but harder to accept:  This thing that I desire, is it Christ?  We might expand it slightly to “Is it something that Christ desires” but that gets us on dangerous ground, where we might all too easily deceive ourselves.  (“Of course Jesus desires me to be happy and fulfilled, so I will eat this giant taco of sin.  Because it makes me happy.”)  Is it Christ?  What goal am I pressing toward?  Do I make the upward call of God in Christ my aim?  Or do I make, for instance, fatherhood my aim?  Or priesthood?

This is not to say that all desires are bad.  I have a dear friend who is getting engaged any day now and he desires to get married.  This is good, and is from the Lord.  But the goal that he is pursuing is Christ, not his marriage.  Many desires that we have can be fulfilled during the course of this race, but they are not the goal.  Like the marathon runner, we may have secondary desires as we run the race.  We may want a drink of water as we run, and we may find someone on the sidelines to give us a cup as we run.  But the marathoner is not running for the water.

I said before that the key to this passage was found in the previous passage.  In a way it is.  But only the key to unlocking what I have just been writing of.  There is another key that we cannot forget.  Our citizenship is in heaven.  We leave this world behind because we are at home in another world.  We are being daily conformed to the image of Christ, but a time will come when our Savior returns when he will finally transform our lowly bodies to be like his glorious body.  The time is coming, and is not far off, when we will be with him and be made like him.  Take heart, little one.  Do not be afraid.  The one who has the power to subject all things to himself has called you and made you his child.

Thanks be to God, who does not abandon his children or leave them to suffer alone.