AVOIDING FAMILIARITY

I remember one of my good friends and roommates at Christ For the Nations telling me about how beautiful yet rugged the area he came from in the State of Idaho was.  He had served as a game warden for several years in a wooded and mountainous region of the State as a young man.  There were dazzling streams, beautiful waterfalls, stately trees, and majestic mountains all around him each day.  Yet, with all this breathtaking scenery, he told me that the surprising thing was that as the months and years went by, it somehow became less and less impressive, to the degree that he barely noticed his surroundings as he drove to and from his workstation.  This is largely due to a thing called familiarity.

Familiarity can dangerously creep into our family life, marriages, workplace, and even our walk with God.  It is sobering to think that the archangel, Lucifer, was in God’s manifest presence and enjoyed the awe and beauty of heaven, yet somehow became discontent with what he had, rebelled against God, and was kicked out of his place of authority there. 

Those of us who know Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior are now enjoying having the Holy Spirit living inside of us every minute of every day.  Yet there is something called our “human nature” which wars with us regularly and tempts us to take God and the things of the Spirit for granted.  HERE ARE SOME KEYS TO AVOIDING FAMILIARITY…..

1)     HAVE AN UNDERSTANDING OF HUMAN NATURE. 

If you consider all of creation, which includes the animal kingdom, the fish kingdom, the kingdom of reptiles, plants, insects, birds, and even the universe, it all pales in comparison to the study of mankind.  No matter how much you learn, if you don’t understand human nature, much of your learning will be in vain.  Ignorance of human nature is the biggest enemy to gaining knowledge. 

2)    ALL THINGS RESPOND TO LIFE OUT OF THE ESSENCE OF ITS NATURE.

The nature of a dog makes its behavior predictable.  The nature of a cat is different from the nature of a dog.  When you come upon a cat as you go for a walk, your response is different than if you had encountered a dog.  For example, if a cat shows up quietly behind you, your response is different than if a dog does the same.  This is because their nature is not the same.

Because you know the basic nature of these animals, their behavior is mostly predictable.  This is also evident when you encounter a dog or cat while riding a bicycle or driving your car.  The nature of a thing determines the characteristics of its behavior.  This is even true of inanimate objects such as a piano, motorcycle, airplane or can opener.  Because of their nature, you can usually predict what they are going to do.  The nature of things produces expectations.  Therefore, the knowledge of its nature helps protect you from disappointments.  Behavior is a product of nature.

3)     A PERSON IGNORANT OF HUMAN NATURE WILL ALWAYS BE A VICTIM OF IT.

Most tragedies that people go through are due to a miscalculation of human nature.  This produces conflict because we tend to expect more than the nature of someone could deliver.  You can never be disappointed if your expectation equals nature.  If you expect more of something than its nature can deliver, you are in trouble.  Many great men and women have been reduced to failure because they miscalculated human nature. 

Jesus displays the danger of us miscalculating human nature in John 2:23: "Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did."  The people experienced the gifts and spiritual treasure within Jesus, which was placed in Him by His Father to serve others.  We call these kinds of people our “fans,” which comes from the word “fantasy”.  A fan has a picture of us that is not real.  Jesus was a lot more than His gifts and spiritual treasures. 

If you have fans and want to keep them, you can never be yourself.  This is why many people who are famous go to great lengths to avoid the press and public.  They know they are not the person their fans have made them to be.  They feel the pressure of having to perform every time a fan shows up, and they come to despise it.  Sadly, this happens too often in the church.  If we ever reach a place of prominence in the congregation and then begin enjoying having fans around us, we are on the way to self-destruction.  If we need people to make us feel worth, we are in trouble. 

In John 2:24-25, it is said of Jesus, But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.  Jesus knew the nature of man.  After Jesus fed the 5,000 (plus women and children), there was a major ramping up of the multitudes to be in awe and press into following Him even more diligently.  Jesus immediately knew that giving away free food and bringing satisfaction for one meal wasn’t going to make a true disciple of any of them.  Jesus said to them, …” I tell you the truth, you want to be with me because I fed you, not because you understood the miraculous signs.” (John 6:26)  Jesus knew that they did not “understand” what this event was really about and that was that He is the bread of life.  

4)     ONCE YOU UNDERSTAND HUMAN NATURE, THEY CAN NEVER DISAPPOINT YOU.

Since Jesus understood human nature, His expectation of them never rose above His knowledge of that nature.  Sin never surprised Him.  He knew that man was born to sin.  This is important because it will save you a lot of future heartache and disappointment.  In the early 1980’s I had doors open to me to give over 300 multi-media seminars on the dangers of the secular rock music culture.  Because I had come out of that culture myself, I had no false expectations on how the audiences would respond, good or bad.  I understood the nature of those immersed in this culture.

Problems develop when we begin to expect righteousness from the unrighteous.  As believers, this is one of the dangers of familiarity.  We can become so immersed in Christian people and culture that we take them for granted while having unreal expectations of unbelievers around us.  The more you understand human nature, the more success you will have working among unbelievers and believers alike.  You will be able to have more impact in their life. 

The challenge that you and I face is that out of all that God has created, only Satan, demons, and humans can act without training.  In fact, II Corinthians 11:14 tells us that Satan masquerades as an angel of light.   Have you noticed that animals get the most applause when they are trained to act in a way that is against their nature?  

The characteristic of human nature that frustrates life is the one we call a “familiarity phenomenon”.  The is the natural tendency of all humans to eventually despise, or place less value on, or even hate something that they once loved because they are now acquainted with it.  It is human nature to eventually despise the familiar.  It is in human nature to turn against the very thing that once turned you on. 

This is the reason it is so important to have a vibrant, expanding, and meaningful relationship with God through the Holy Spirit.  It is He who will cause what is important in life to be “new every morning”.  God will maintain our gratefulness, thankfulness, joy, contentment, and appreciation for the people He puts in our lives, even for Himself.  Satan got his eyes off God and onto himself.  His biggest problem was that instead of allowing his gifts and treasures to exalt his knowledge and love for God, he allowed them to exalt his love and fantasy of himself.  He became his own biggest fan.