Klosterman, Likability, and God's Love

Chuck Klosterman on the problem of making it your personal aim to be liked:

"...being likable is the only thing that seems to matter to anyone. You see this everywhere. Parents don't act like parents anymore, because they mainly want their kids to like them; they want their kids to see them as their two best friends. This is why modern kids act like animals. At some point, people confused being liked with being good. Those two qualities are not the same. It's important to be a good person; it's not important to be a well-liked person." IV, 275

To make your personal mission being liked by the world, your neighbors, your kids, your wife, your church, your friends, whomever it may be is setting yourself up for a life of frustration and depression. You will end up living your life based upon others expectations and your discernment on what is right and wrong will fly out the window as the litmus test of everything becomes what will and will not make this or that person happy. The goal of life is not be liked.

The compulsion to be liked by your spouse, by your boss, by your friend, by the people in your church is actually the fear of man. Your desire for likability is actually a revelation of your own fear. Humans were only made to fear one person--God. When your value becomes defined by what other people think of you, you will not be "a good person" nor a "godly person", but a narcissistic person who needs the praise of others for self-fulfillment. This will always disappoint.

Fearing God is what you were made for. His opinion of you is the only thing that matters and fulfills. His value-system does not fluctuate by your likability. He does not like, he loves. The measure of his love is seen in the crucifixion of his Son. The event where God became man to die for sinners, who show their sin by valuing the opinion of humanity more than the opinion of the Creator of humanity.

The love of God is not the like of God. God did not die to affirm you, but to save you. His love is never based on your good actions, but always based on the perfect work of Jesus. For those who trust Christ, God's likeness of you never fluctuates because it is wrapped up in his eternal love for Jesus.

God loves those who trust Him with the same eternal love that He loves His own Son. Knowing and experiencing this love is human wholeness. It frees you from the desire to be liked, and imparts the experience of being loved by the Creator of the universe forever.

It's not important to be well liked, but it is eternally important to be in the favor of God. This divine favor is offered to all who trust Jesus, and those who do will never come into condemnation but live forever in the unwavering and abundant love of God. This reality frees you and heals you from the cancerous desire of being liked.

I doubt Klosterman would agree with me here, but it is the only remedy to the problem that he sees. People act like animals not just because their not liked, but because as the image of God they do not trust the revelation of the exact image of God in Jesus Christ. In doing so their own humanity becomes inverted and the idolatry of likability is traded for the glory of God.

Exercise Naked

I've begun reading Disciplines of a Godly Man with a couple buddies, and came across the author's fleshing out of the Greek word "train" in 1 Ti. 4:7's phrase "train yourself to be godly":

"The word 'train' comes from the word gumnos, which means 'naked' and is the word from which we derive our English word gymnasium. In traditional Greek athletic contests, the participants competed without clothing, so as not to be encumbered. Therefore, the word 'train' originally carried the literal meaning, 'to exercise naked.'" (R. Kent Hughes, 14)

Now this doesn't mean those of you who've always wanted to go to the gym naked now can and call it biblical, but it does say something quite insightful for the discipline of godliness. The author explains:

"Just as the athletes discarded everything and competed gumnos-free from everything that could possibly burden them--so we must get rid of every encumbrance, every association, habit, and tendency which impedes godliness. If we are to excel, we must strip ourselves to a lean, spiritual nakedness." (14)

If you reduce Christianity to "I can do this" and/or "I can't do that", you've just done that, you've reduced Christianity to something that it is not. Christianity is running the race in such a way as to win the prize, not just to barely finish the race.

Spiritual nudity is a good thing--"put off" all that impedes and "put on" all that helps you win and finish well.