When I make mistakes and do not love others freely, I quickly jump to shaming myself and become consumed with my false self for doing such things. I forget my original glory in Christ that God really delights in me and instead focus on how terribly corrupt I am and remain in my shame.

We cannot truly love others well until we learn what it means for Christ’s love to be made true in our own inner world. Many in the work of reconciliation are guilty of loving out of obligation, guilt or codependency. This is to love out of deficit and this is not what Christ has called us to. I know I am guilty of this.

We don’t need to do anything to contribute to God’s work, only respond to what He’s already up to. We don’t need to prove ourselves, be right, sound right, solve or fix any of the worlds issues, because that’s up to the one that is in the world reconciling all things. We only respond to His voice as His beloved children.

The question then becomes to those who are in the ministry of reconciliation and justice, are we aware of what’s leaving us? Do we notice when effort, energy, love or emotion is leaving us? Are you constantly giving and never in a place of receiving? Are you loving from a place of passion or purpose? Passion will leave you empty, while purpose will allow you to pay attention to what's going on internally and force you to slow down to be with Jesus. 

This phrase has been sticking with me every since she said it. Robert Mulholland, a seminary professor that spent his entire life studying the difference between the false self and the true self in Christ says this in his book, The Deeper Journey; “The reality of this pervasive, deeply entrenched, self-reference structure of being as the primary context of our spiritual journey is one of the hardest things for us to acknowledge.”

There’s an underbelly of Christian ministry and service that we need to talk about. This underbelly is that sometimes we are doing things for the wrong motives. We are helping people, running organizations, ministries, or churches because we are hiding something. If we're honest with ourselves we are doing this work because there's something lacking in our family of origin and it manifest itself in the way we love our neighbors. We may be hiding the fact that we don't think we are loved, good enough, or worthy unless we do something.