Growing in Christ
Friendship
Book Review: Practicing Affirmation
16 months ago
Have you ever just wanted a handbook on how to be a friend? Maybe you’re like me (but probably not), friendship seems hard and difficult, messy and constantly a source of feeling like an absolute failure. Or maybe you are like me and feel that you get little encouragement from people you think are your friends. I feel both of those relational realities, and if you’re like me, then Sam Crabtree is your man. Not only is he your man, he’s your pastor.
In Practicing Affirmation, Sam Crabtree walks us through the grand reality that affirmation “is the purpose of the universe - specifically, affirmation of God” (11). The great thing about Crabtree’s work is that he orbits in a God-centered universe, and wholeheartedly avoids the psychologized relational techniques, love cups, love languages, and self-esteem paradigms of our culture. Affirmation is primarily about God, and when affirming other people, Crabtree helps us see that we are affirming the “echoes, shadows, and reality of a righteousness not intrinsic to the person being affirmed” (19). Affirmation delights in God and delights in seeing Christlike characteristics in other people. It celebrates the grace of God in those patterns and behaviors in other people.
So what is affirmation for Crabtree? “Affirmation of a recognized quality in a human hints at a real quality in God who stands behind it” (30). And why should we want to practice affirmation? First, affirmation directly relates to our posture towards God. If we rightly love and delight in God, we will seek to affirm God and wherever we see him reflected. Secondly, as it relates to people, affirmation “is like an invigorating sudsy shower after a long day of manual labor. It’s like a cool rain after a long, hot dry spell. It delivers a combination of relief, respite, hope, optimism, satisfaction, and energy. It’s life-giving. It blesses.” (41)
The great thing about this book is that it’s immediately practical. Crabtree doesn’t wait until the end to unpack his affirmation advice. No, from the first page this book seeks to give you handles on how to see affirmation as central to love, and how affirmation works itself out in our lives.
One of the great benefits of this book is that Crabtree, apart from being an endeering author, is a careful pastor. He anticipates our hang-ups and questions. He devotes a whole chapter to Q&A, and several excurses and appendixes on clarifying points. For example, maybe you’ve wondered what the difference is between encouragement and affirmation? He notes: ”Encouragement looks forward and affirmation looks backward” (100). Encouragement looks towards where people can go by God’s grace; affirmation celebrates what God has already been doing in people by his grace.
Or maybe you’re thinking that all this affirmation talks sounds a bit like Christian-manipulation. Crabtree is our pastor here and helps us see the difference:
While affirmation is a free gift with no strings attached and trusts God to bring about whatever good harvest he wishes to bring from the seed planted, flattery is a bribe, and a direct return is expected – soon.
Godly affirmation approves of Christlikeness and disapproves of anything contrary, whereas the flatterer approves anything – Christlike or not – that may achieve the desired response. (108)
Concluding thoughts
This little book has been immensely helpful for me. Crabtree not only gives us a God-centered appreciation for the value of affirmation, but an application method that is God-empowered. You cannot walk away from this book thinking you’ll make much of Jesus and the reflections of him in other people in your own strength. The Spirit is necessary for the living of this material. If you want to oil the wheels of your relationships with love and grace, if you want to have better eyes to see the activity of God in others and communicate it in compelling and loving ways, if you want to learn how to simply be a better friend, Practicing Affirmation was written for people like me and you.
If you’re interested in a few more quotes from this book, check out these two posts:
Agreeing with Atheists about god
Affirmation is the purpose of the universe
Title: Practicing Affirmation
Author: Sam Crabtree
Boards: paperback
Pages: 170
Volumes: 1
Dust jackets: n/a
Binding: sewn and glue
Topical index: yes
Scriptural index: Yes (Scripture index notations are off by 4 pages in my edition. Publisher has been alerted and subsequent printings will be corrected.)
Publisher: Crossway
Year: 2011
Price USD: $14.99 / $9.97 at WTSBooks
ISBN: 978-1-4335-2243-7
This book was provided for review by Crossway but all opinions are entirely my own.
No right to condemn
21 year ago
Do you ever have those moments when you’re listening to a sermon and suddenly you get struck by lightening? I mean like an actual bolt of lightening coming down from heaven and sapping you in your chair? Personally that’s never happened to me, but I try to avoid wearing metal and standing in water.
A moment that was like that for me a while back was when I was in a sermon listening to Paul Tripp, and he said:
You have no right to condemn what God is redeeming.
I don’t know about anybody else in that room, but my audience with the God of the universe got pretty personal.
One of the great declarations of the Bible is Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Here was an all to powerful practical and theological point wrapped into one concise statement. I tend to not be easily deceived (it’s one of the distinctives of being a ninja), but I think what I had subtly begun to apply this truth in merely vertical terms: Jacob, there is now no condemnation for you because you are in Christ Jesus. But I had read this too narrowly and applied it in terms of American Individualism.
What Tripp was pointing out is that the declaration that there is “no condemnation” also applies in how we think about other people. God is in the process of redeeming people, changing them slowly over time, according to his timing and plan. So when I get all huffy about somebody offending me in whatever way (perceived or intentional), and laying on the guilt and condemnation (either mentally or verbally to them) then I am guilty of fundamentally misunderstanding what the Gospel of “No Condemnation for Those in Christ Jesus!” means.
Yea, that person in your church that really bugs you and does everything they do entirely different than you would – yea, they’re no longer under condemnation, and so you have no right to keep giving it to them. That’s right, the person who’s deliberately slighted you by hanging out with other people and not you – yep, they are no longer receiving complimentary condemnation packages, so you need to stop paying for the postage.
For me, it was a moment where I began to see my self-righteous, judgmental heart towards others. I like to condemn because it’s merely an application of “Jacob the King of the Universe” world I like to build. Last time I checked, I put my pants on like every other non-king-of-the-universe human around me.
The point Tripp was making was helpful though: That person you’re eagerly condemning (that God doesn’t anymore) is God’s personal glory story. They are God’s personal way with them of revealing his grace and redeeming a broken human being and making them whole in Christ. Are they going to annoy you? Sure. But is your annoyance really that important?
But Tripp’s point also speaks to love. Love so freely enjoys the glory and riches of Christ that it eagerly seeks to think about others the way Christ does. If you’re a person prone to condemn, consider how things would change if you took up your new right in Christ to “pray for one another, that you may be healed” (James 5:16). Apply “no condemnation” vertically and horizontally and you’ll begin to taste the rich grace of the Gospel that Jesus has freely given us.
Enjoying God Through Friendships, Pt. 1
03 years ago
The following is from my devotional time and meditation this morning. It is in a long line of things that God has been teaching me about delighting in him in the past two weeks (which I may post about sometime soon). I hope it encourages you as it did me.
For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you. ~ Philemon 7
There are three things that I gain from this passage:
- A Christian derives joy and comfort from the lives of other believers, particularly when they show forth the love of the Savior Jesus Christ.
- This is the same joy that I see him elsewhere describing himself as “overflowing with joy” (2 Corinthians 7:4) because of the Corinthian’s example. The heart of a Christian is entranced by, and filled with, the glory of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:8), and thus is brought into an experience of that joy not only through seeing the source, but also in seeing others reflecting the source; not only in the river of life, but also the tributaries (Psalm 36:8; 16:11,3). Just as a person delights in the face of their friend actually before them, they still rejoice, in a sense of being reminded, in seeing a picture of their friend. So Christians delight in seeing a beam of the face of their Lord in another.
- And from this they also derive comfort because it is only in the love of Jesus that they find rest, ministry and care for their souls. And so their friend that they see the glory of Christ in (and therefore take joy in them) also becomes a minister of that fountain of love to them. We rest only in Christ, and so when others care for us, we are only truly comforted and satisfied in their affection for us if its source comes from Christ. And the heart awakened by grace to the beauty of God will sense this love as a smell of their home and lover.
Both of these are the case for a Christian because they do not count themselves very high, but do count their need for Christ as very great. The humble Christian counts all his needs and weakness met in Christ alone, and so when seeing others is brought to joy, delight, and comfort when he sees Christ in them.
- The Christian’s great aim is to so love his brothers that they are refreshed. Not only do we see an example in this passage in Paul of how to delight in our brethren, but also in Philemon on how to bring delight to our brethren. We bring this delight to our brothers and sisters through love. Love is the great aim of the Christian life; a soul ravishing, soul exploding, soul-pouring love. And I cannot help but wonder at this point if Paul is pointing to Philemon and saying that he is an example of a Christian living out 1 Corinthians 13. For since that chapter is bout how to properly relate to each other in the body of Christ, and because Paul says that the use of Philemon’s love was to refresh “the hearts of the saints” through his love, I am sure that here we have a Biblical example of 1 Corinthians “in action”. Thus, we should see that we do not simply follow 1 Corinthians 13 to be loving in a general sense, but to bring our brothers joy in the Lord. Joy and love have the same aim in the Christian life: delight in God.
- Even the best and most useful of gifts and works in a Christian are but merely instruments wielded by God’s own hand. All of the good that Philemon served was because he was used “through”. I gather this from the last two words of the passage,that these things came “through [Philemon]”. The ending of this passage not only indicates the human agent, but speaks to me of the divine agent under and behind the ministry and example of Philemon. Thus, even here in the encouragement of Paul, we see that a Biblical understanding of church life and Biblical friendship is filled by God himself; filled by God’s joy in God, and thus we circle around into point #1 above.
