Exhortations appeal to Emotions to Encourage us

I've been realizing a lot lately (through personal experience rather than book larnin') how profoundly my theology can affect even the "mundane" aspects of my faith.

Now despite the fact that it seems contradictory, I have come to this personal, empirical realization at one of my recurring moments of faltering faith. I am willing to argue from within the confines of a possible schema, but don't feel fully comfortable arguing as if it were a faith inspired fact. I felt this sidebar was necessary in case any of my sentence constructions seem a bit...uh...wonky.

In any case, I think it is really easy to slip into a human centered view of theology instead of a God or Christo-centric view of theology. (The irony of my writing a blog, which will in some ways draw attention to myself, on this subject is not lost on me.) The accusation that we are worshipping self more than God sounds like damnable idolatry, which no God-fearing Christian would dare attempt. But that self-centeredness is an insidious little bugger. It crops up when we think we are doing the good things God intends us to do.

I've been reading Oswald Chambers's My Utmost for His Highest and the entry for October 26th taken from John 20: 21 really struck me. "As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you." The context of this verse is the resurrected Christ appearing to his disciples, and Chambers takes this opportunity to discuss what it means to be a missionary. Even more so, he discusses what is our motivation to be missionaries.

Generally when we hear calls to be missionaries, we hear it pitched in terms of the lost who need to be saved. Exhortations appeal to our emotions to encourage us to go. We see the need of the people above all else. What Chambers focuses on, however, is God's command rather than the external need.

That sort of focus reorients me. Yes, I care about people because God does, but do I set them up above him? What I mean to say is, If God chooses to take a particular action and I am not happy about the outcome to a person or persons, have I then put people before God? It's a tricky balance.

Further, why should we need additional justification other than the fact that God commands it? By emphasizing the needs of the people, do we elevate them over God? Or is this some badly developed argument based on arbitrary semantics? And does it make it easier to focus on the the steps that God has issued like a military CO, rather than to think about "collateral damage?