I must admit, I want to be done with going through Whisper and know all the 7 languages and dialects that Mark Batterson shares. I want to have the volume of God’s voice all the way up in my life. I pray the same for you. Today, we take a look at the 5th love language – people.
5th Love Language – People
Mark Batterson starts out reminding us of the importance of people in our lives. He writes:
“When we isolate ourselves from others, we become islands unto ourselves.”
“You know why God puts people in our lives? It’s not just to overcome solitary conceit; it’s also to overcome solitary confinement. He puts people in our lives to keep us humble and to draw out our potential.”
Accountability & Confession
I have personally seen the benefit of having people in my life I can look to for accountability and confession. Often times, we suffer, because we fail to implement these things. Batterson goes on to say, “Confessing our sins to God nets forgiveness, but confessing our sins to each other is a critical part of the healing process. And it’s not just for you; it’s also for the person your confessing to…Confessing gives the other person the opportunity to encourage us, exhort us, and console us”.
Blind Spots
Relying on others to help us with accountability and confession enables us to see blind spots. In Whisper, Batterson highlights the problem of and the overcoming of blind spots, in that he says;
“Without the influence of others, we develop blind spots. And those blind spots are spiritual weak spots”.
“…I generally don’t like it when someone says what I don’t want to hear. But if it’s what I need to hear, that’s the person I’ll thank most at the end of the day”.
“The voice of criticism can blind us to our own potential. But if the truth is spoken in love, the right word at the right time has the power to open our eyes”.
Loving & Empowering Relationships
As a pastor, I must admit the following quotes resonated with and challenged my heart. May we endeavor to truly love our neighbor, our brothers and sisters, in the way that Christ loved us – with grace and truth.
“Loving your neighbor starts with an awareness of his or her existence and passions. No one is in your life by accident; everyone is there by divine appointment. It’s your job to not just notice them but to care for them.”
“Without grace, relationships have no heart. Without truth, relationships have no head. But when they are full of grace and truth, our relationships ring true. Then and only then will we hear the voice of God through others”.
Language Rules
Batterson leaves us with some language rules to help us navigate our interpretation of this language.
No one is above rebuke.
Don’t let criticism pierce your heart unless it first passes through Scripture.
Don’t make decisions in a vacuum.
Listen long and hard before you dish our advice.
Always encourage before you correct.
Tough conversations get tougher the longer you wait.
Critiquing the Culture
The portion of Untamed that I read today focused on the challenge of culture. For the next portion of the book we will critically think through details of contemporary culture and compare and contrast them with Kingdom values. Alan Hirsch highlights this as vital to our discipleship, in that he writes, “Identifying the spirits of our age while living in and – to varying degrees – being immersed in the prevailing culture is one of the trickiest things disciples have to negotiate…we must affirm that which is genuinely good and present in any and every human culture, and discern that which is dehumanizing, degrading, and evil. The problem is that unless we are very sensitive to God and can discern the sometimes- blurry boundaries between right and wrong, or holy and unholy, culture can have as much an affect on us as disciples as we can have on it”.
“…If Christianity just mirrors the culture, what’s the point of it’s mission”.
“If we are going to be untamed followers of the wild Lord of our lives, then we are going to have to deal with dynamics of our culture. We have to escape Babylon and return to Zion in order to liberate Babylon”.
Coupling Alan’s thoughts about discipleship with Mark Batterson’s thoughts on our necessary loving, partnering, and fellowshipping with people highlights that our discipleship is both individual and corporate. We can have neither without the other – there can be no individual discipleship without corporate fellowship, and there can be no corporate fellowship without each of us focusing on our individual discipleship. May this inspire us to continue to see the glory, power, and blessing of the local church.
For the Glory of God,
Pastor Michael Miano