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Move over Robert Schuller, the latest mega-preacher to emerge in what I will call “motivational Christianity” has reached superstar status.
I’ve been asked to tune down my criticisms of Joel Osteen in my blogs elsewhere the last couple years by some folks I am pretty fond of, and even some I’m close with. I’ve been asked to tune in and listen to the latest pep talk of Joels’ by someone I love to death. I’ve been told Joel isn’t all that bad of a guy (which I don’t doubt nor am I accusing him of being by the way) . Just yesterday I was told by another good friend that Osteen… “Has a way of making me feel so much better about myself.” Well, I’m sure everyone means well (am I allowed to say it’s Jesus we should be feeling good about and him we should be trusting in and looking to instead of ourselves?).
If you’ve watched Osteen on the tube, you’ll agree that he’s engaging, polished, and has a million dollar smile . The first time I caught him 6 years ago I was laid up and pretty ill with what seemed to be an incurable disease Read the rest of this entry »
Let me give you a principle: When Satan is going to deceive a believer, he first makes it religious. There are a lot of Christians who think that because someone quotes Bible verses and looks religious, it’s of God. That’s not true. The truth is that the most spiritual person you know probably isn’t and the least spiritual person could be a servant of God… sent to get you to be a little less religious. I hate religion and God does too. Religion is our effort to please God and find him. The Christian faith is God’s effort to get to us and tell us that, because of his Son, he is already pleased. The only people who made Jesus angry were not the winebibbers, the prostitutes and sinners. He was angry at the religious folks…
-Steve Brown
A question I have heard over the years goes something along the lines of Did Jesus come to introduce a new religion? The answer isn’t as tough as we might think.
The old adage If it ain’t broke don’t fix it couldn’t be more appropriate when it comes to religion. There are a good number of folks who are indifferent to religion and others who vehemently hate it. And then there who those so unfortunate to be addicted to it’s lure and happy within it’s confines and spell—these are the very kinds of folks who hung Jesus on the Cross (seeing that Jesus wasn’t an advocate for their religion).
Religion isn’t only broken—it’s condemned and never will be fixed.
Whatever your affection or disdain for religion—the truth is, religion has been broken from it’s inception. We make a mistake of mass calculations by assuming that Jesus came to reform or modify—replace—add to—or even offer an alternative to religion. He did nothing of the sort.
Now, in these last sentences, I want to emphasize in the bold scrawls of my personal handwriting the immense importance of what I have written to you. These people who are attempting to force the ways of circumcision on you have only one motive: They want an easy way to look good before others, lacking the courage to live by a faith that shares Christ’s suffering and death. All their talk about the law is gas. They themselves don’t keep the law! And they are highly selective in the laws they do observe. They only want you to be circumcised so they can boast of their success in recruiting you to their side. That is contemptible! (Galatians 6:11-13, The Message Bible)
God sent us Jesus to introduce himself whereas religion gives us hell.
Do you know why most Christians don’t get any better or why you don’t get any better? It’s because you’re doing it wrong, dummy! You are obsessed with sin and your faith has become another ’system of laws’ whereby you feel guilty and try and try and try to do better. It doesn’t work, never has worked, and never will work…
-Steve Brown
If I had this freedom thing down pat I wouldn’t bother writing about it. But I want to breath it with every gasp of air I have left before they box me up and stick me in some stuffy cemetery.
A few days ago I returned from a weekend away to see my oldest daughter graduate from high school. It was exhilarating and frightening all in the same swoop. Maybe you can relate to my feelings—she’s my first-born and makes me one proud dad. Anyways, I woke up the other morning and headed into the bathroom after putting my morning coffee on just to be greeted by a big red spot on the tip of the end of my nose (and for those who haven’t seen me—I don’t have the smallest beak in the world). The thing was irritating and it hurt too. Figures Id’ get one—my dad gets the pesky buggers every once in a while and I make fun of him. I thought by the time you were so close to forty these little ego deflaters would be history for good—let alone a man in his mid-sixties. I suppose I have something to look forward to besides streets of gold.
Nobody likes zits, or least no one has told me any different. Zits are like sin if you ask me—although those of you lucky enough to never get a zit can’t say you never get a sin. Sadly, some times it seems like I hate zits more than I hate sin. I also got to thinking about the fact that I didn’t touch my big zit—not once, and it disappeared within a day (to my satisfaction). Sin is like that I have found, and although my sin nature hasn’t taken any extended vacations lately to my dissatisfaction—my sins do seem to have a way of being less of an issue when I don’t obsess about them but rather trust that God meant it when he said he forgives every last one of them.
13 Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. 14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. (Romans 13:13-14, ESV)
I think the idea here is to starve the flesh—my sin nature has trouble surviving let alone prospering when I don’t feed it. Like my big zit, I have this thing for obsessing about things that are better left alone and I am slowly but surely learning that it helps to stop thinking about my sin and start focusing on the one who has delivered me from it’s penalty.
Temptation has a way dissipating when it isn’t messed around with.
And then she understood the devilish cunning of the enemies’ plan. By mixing a little truth with it they had made their lie far stronger.
-C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle
Deadly snakes don’t do much discriminating in terms of their victims and our enemy isn’t about to cut us a break just because we’re not much in the mood to run into him today.
Religion is sneaky. It’s covert and cunning. It doesn’t raise it’s ugly head and humbly announce Here I am. Religion is always saying things like hath God said—twisting, perverting, and eventually getting us to settle for something akin to a nasty artificial sweetner in the place of the real freedom that life in Jesus entails. It’s as old as sin and goes back to the very beginning with the first cave-man on record—Adam.
The serpent was clever, more clever than any wild animal God had made. He spoke to the Woman: ‘Do I understand that God told you not to eat from any tree in the garden?’
The Woman said to the serpent, ‘Not at all. We can eat from the trees in the garden. It’s only about the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘Don’t eat from it; don’t even touch it or you’ll die.’
The serpent told the Woman, ‘You won’t die. God knows that the moment you eat from that tree, you’ll see what’s really going on. You’ll be just like God, knowing everything, ranging all the way from good to evil.’ (Genesis 3:1-5, The Message Bible)
Truth is—we are afraid that our biggest fears will be realized in embracing freedom—so we reluctantly hang on to religion. Ditching the law and order (control and manipulation) that religion represents and the supposed protection that religion seems to offer is a very frightening proposition. In many ways we see religion as safe, when in fact in it’s rawest form religion is our enemy’s most seductive poison. It can look so good. After all—it’s sin that looks so bad. Drinking, killing, and cussing—these are no-brainers for us who are mature to identify. But we can’t see past the end of our own noses when it comes to envy, gossip, jealousy, hate, pride, or lust of every flavor—these look delectably tasty to the indiscriminate eye. And when we do see the offense to God in these minute lapses in judgement, we pass them off as if they were the smallest of small infractions or worse yet we just don’t see them at all.
The serpent’s fruit is always carefully packaged and presented, making it almost impossible for us to discern. It should come as no surprise that Satan carefully construes many of his most harmful lies in the form of harmless religion and in a light that fails to show any signs of being worm-ridden and rotten to the core—just like the first fruit he picked to begin with.
He won’t stop at anything to rob our freedom.
There are some who have no understanding to hear the truth of freedom and insist upon their goodness as means for salvation. These people you must resist, do the very opposite, and offend them boldly lest by their impious views they drag many with them into error. For the sake of liberty of the faith do other things which they regarded as the greatest of sins… use your freedom constantly and consistently in the sight of and despite the tyrants and stubborn so that they may learn that they are impious, that their law and works are of no avail for righteousness, and that they had no right to set them up.
-Martin Luther
Some of you must to be shaking your heads and saying by now—Come on Ken, there has to be some rules, you are giving people the idea that they can live any way they choose and still be a Christian.
I have said nothing of the sort. I will concede—the gospel of grace is abused—but we don’t pull the medicine off the shelves just because some would use it recklessly. What I have said is that we want rules instead of relationship. We like religion over Jesus. We’ll take self-serving outward religious fashion shows over inward and uncomfortable revivals. It’s much more difficult to be genuine than it is to be religious. And it’s much more advantageous when it comes to our fragile and attention-starved egos to follow a man-made code than to follow the Son of the Living God. Let’s face it—we want people to pat us on the back when it comes to our being so religious, so giving, or even so Christlike—we’ll trade the freedom that’s ours for an ata-boy not even thinking a split second about what we are giving up to get the small worthless token.
11-12 The obvious impossibility of carrying out such a moral program should make it plain that no one can sustain a relationship with God that way. The person who lives in right relationship with God does it by embracing what God arranges for him. Doing things for God is the opposite of entering into what God does for you. Habakkuk had it right: “The person who believes God, is set right by God—and that’s the real life.” Rule-keeping does not naturally evolve into living by faith, but only perpetuates itself in more and more rule-keeping, a fact observed in Scripture: “The one who does these things [rule-keeping] continues to live by them.”
13a Christ redeemed us from that self-defeating, cursed life by absorbing it completely into himself. (Galatians 3:11-13a, The Message Bible)
God understands something that we just can’t seem to get through our thick skulls: A heart set free doesn’t need rules any longer. If you want the unadulterated-unfiltered-cold-hard truth—our hearts never needed rules to begin with. Our hearts were plenty lost without any help. Rules or no rules, we were wretched without Jesus.
You see, a heart set free wants to follow Jesus—it doesn’t need seventy-five rules about how to do anything. Rules got us no where before Jesus and I can’t understand what on earth makes us think they will post-Jesus. Seriously—it’s like learning where to get a spectacular gourmet meal and then returning to the place we were paying the same money to get a maggot covered plate of slop—as if we never found the new restaurant. Maddening behavior really.
What possesses us to return to rules and religion when we have Jesus?
The reason we’re so bad is that we’re trying so hard to be good.
-Steve Brown
Have you seen these invisible fences they have for dogs? I have to imagine that an invisible fence would make a good candidate to ruin your life if you were a dog.
You can’t see these things driving around your subdivision because they are invisible after all. They have become quite popular and it’s no wonder—what a great concept. We had a dog some years ago that was a prime candidate for the invisible fence thing. We didn’t end up getting one for several reasons and looking back I’m not so convinced our dog wouldn’t have run right through the thing no matter how many shocks it would have zapped him with. Max and I were pals on day one, we were two peas in a pod. Like me, he liked to move around and he wasn’t much excited about being told he needed to conform.
The spacious yard we had so kindly provided for our new dog was not even close to sufficient for him. I guess it didn’t help that we had one of those stupid metal stakes you put in the ground so your dog can run around in circles until he makes you so dizzy watching him that you need to scarf down a box of Dramamine to handle it.
It didn’t help that Max was a bird dog either. He’d just about rip off anyones arm that dare try to walk him. Even with one of those cruel choke collars on, he was a terror. It might explain the pain I have in my shoulder lately and it’s been almost five years since I saw the crazy dog. If there was something within a mile to chase—you might as well have attached yourself to a telephone poll. Max even decided one spring that he wanted to redecorate our backyard with crater’s he decided to dig—our yard resembled the moon when he was done with it.
I felt sorry for Max.
Looking back now, I think obedience school or Ritalin would have only made Max more frustrated. The reality is, we got the wrong dog to fit the bill. What we had in mind was a nice little pet for our kids. It didn’t work out that way. Sitting still and taking orders wasn’t the dog’s strong suit. And I’m not sure that dog was even capable of it. He was a dog after all, and dogs aren’t made to be couped up in an 4′ by 2′ cubicle all day long. Invisible fences have to make dogs resentful I figure, I mean how fun is to see a female two lots over you’d like to frolic with and have a straight shot at her and then all of a sudden you remember that you have a stupid invisible fence that you can’t jump over?
Dogs were made to run free without a leash tied around their neck when you think about it.
I think it’s reasonable to say that religion is a lot like the invisible fence thing.
While we were in conference we were infiltrated by spies pretending to be Christians, who slipped in to find out just how free true Christians are. Their ulterior motive was to reduce us to their brand of servitude. We didn’t give them the time of day. We were determined to preserve the truth of the Message for you. (Galatians 2:4-5, The Message Bible)
When we set up rules to keep and all sorts of regulations in regards to our life in Jesus we end up serving the same purpose an invisible fence serves; the moment no one is looking or the fences come down we are off and running to some place we have no business going.
Invisible fences aren’t for us Jesus-followers. Come to think of it, they aren’t much good for dogs.
If you but love God you may do as you incline.
-Augustine
I’ve stumbled across a story from the life of President Abraham Lincoln a time or two now about an appointee within the president’s cabinet that would try to challenge and stimy the president every chance he got. A friend of honest Abe’s finally came to him and asked why he didn’t have the pesky man replaced. Lincoln, in turn—told his well-meaning friend a story about walking down a country road one day and coming upon a farmer who was busy plowing his field with a horse-drawn plough. As Lincoln approached the farmer he noticed a jumbo sized horsefly on the back-side of the working horse and figured it couldn’t be helping the poor horse concentrate on the task at hand. Lincoln—in an attempt to help the farmer out, went to simply brush off the little pest. As Lincoln raised his hand to take a swat, the farmer protested—Don’t do that, friend. That horsefly is the only thing keeping this old horse moving.
The moral of the story for today’s lesson is simple: Religion is nothing more than a jumbo horsefly and there are those within certain circles of the church who’d like you to do anything—and I stress anything—other than contribute to freeing people from living under the irritating and deadly oppression that religion represents. Those caught up in the facade of religion do not like any one who messes with their religion and they are not afraid to tell you so—to mess with religion is to mess with God. Many church leaders feel the need to use religion to do the same exact thing the farmer was doing with the horsefly—use religion and the endless rules that accompany it as a means of motivating others to live the Christian life.
These preachers of bondage wouldn’t know freedom if it hit them upside the head. In his letter to the Galatian believers—Paul had something entirely different to say than what the peddlers of religion in his day were preaching.
What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn’t work. So I quit being a ‘law man’ so that I could be God’s man. Christ’s life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not ‘mine,’ but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that. (Galatians 2:19-20, The Message Bible)
There is a better way.
It’s called freedom—and it can be a rare commodity in some circles.
Freedom is transformative.
-President George W. Bush, May 1st, 2008 (Celebration of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month)
No matter your political persuasion—or non-persuasion—there is no arguing the effects that freedom can have on a country (of course it’s not so smooth at times or unopposed as we are seeing in other parts of the world—and then there are the blatant abuses of freedom here at home that may very well prove to be the undoing of our great democracy). More specifically though—I’d like to look at the impact that freedom can have on one solitary human heart.
Like the slave girl that Lincoln purchased (see previous post) and her subsequent decision to stay with him after learning she was free to go where ever she pleased—freedom is a liberating and moving force. Freedom has the power to transform a life like no other power on earth. Just ask a prisoner upon their release from prison.
God loves us with a love that sets us free.
15-16 We Jews know that we have no advantage of birth over ‘non-Jewish sinners.’ We know very well that we are not set right with God by rule-keeping but only through personal faith in Jesus Christ. How do we know? We tried it—and we had the best system of rules the world has ever seen! Convinced that no human being can please God by self-improvement, we believed in Jesus as the Messiah so that we might be set right before God by trusting in the Messiah, not by trying to be good. (Galatians 2:15-16, The Message Bible)
Some of us are up to our eyebrows in legalism—so caught up in the snares of rule-keeping that we don’t even bat an eyelash at it’s death-hold on us anymore.
The religion God promotes is never about rigid rules but it’s always about transforming freedom.
I ask you neither for health nor for sickness, for life nor for death; but that you may dispose of my health and my sickness, my life and my death, for your glory… You alone know what is expedient for me; you are the sovereign master, do with me according to your will. Give to me, or take away from me, only conform my will to yours. I know but one thing, Lord, that it is good to follow you, and bad to offend you. Apart from that, I know not what is good or bad in anything. I know not which is most profitable to me, health or sickness, wealth or poverty, nor anything else in the world. That discernment is beyond the power of men or angels, and is hidden among the secrets of your providence, which I adore, but do not seek to fathom.
-A prayer from Blaise Pascal
We are the do-it-ourselfers. We get much too much caught up in attempting to fix ourselves—Thanks God for the offer, but we’ll take it from here. If anything, when it comes to our growth in grace—our efforts to better ourselves are off the charts (as if it were possible for a terminally ill man to provide his own cure). Like any project gone bad—we only make our condition worse than it originally was at the onset when we take matters of our sanctification into our own hands.
A good friend of mine who leads a Christian men’s recovery movement is fond of putting it this way—We aren’t bad people trying to get good, we are sick people getting well. I would confer as I think the gospel message proclaims exactly the same. And while I would agree that the human body has a remarkable capacity to heal itself, I would only add that it is God who created that same human body and that he is the one behind it’s being able to recover health and wholeness in the first place. In other words—we can’t heal ourselves alone. Worse than ending in mere frustration, any attempts to do so will ultimately end in failure.
If you have ever seen a face-lift gone bad, you might understand what I am getting at.
Our self-improvement projects are doomed from the onset and only serve our own peril, mind you—how many of them are for the wrong reasons? Our personal holiness and righteousness initiatives are nothing more than religious ego trips—efforts to make others think of us as spiritual—more Christlike than we actually are. Shouldn’t we want to live lives that glorify God out of love for God rather than for the love of applause? Our insecurities and our hunger for approval and acceptance run deeper than we readily admit. We have to ask ourselves what our motive is when we become either obsessive or compulsive about our own growth in grace—and a good indicator we are out of bounds is when we find ourselves beating up others about their own lack in such matters.
Solomon wrote:
13 Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked? 14 In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him. 15 In my vain life I have seen everything. There is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evildoing. (Ecclesiastes 7:13-15, ESV)
God is making those of us who were nothing but crooked—straight. We haven’t arrived yet—we are still being changed and we still have a ways to go. We can be sort of like kids who ask on the way to the family vacation destination—Are we almost there?
Not yet—but we’ll get there soon enough.
We have God’s word on it.
In the meantime–let’s trust him to drive while we attempt to relax a little and enjoy the ride—he does know where he is taking us after all.
In moving on to another topic in our next blog I will summarize with this: Life for the Jesus-follower should be lived in the light of just what it is Jesus did on the Cross. We ought to focus less on our piddly efforts and more on the suffering of Christ Jesus—including the priceless fruits and glorious benefits afforded to us by his doing so—today and in eternity future.
God’s not giving us a face-lift—no, it’s much more than that—he is renovating our hearts, and as any skilled surgeon would have it, he’s doing the surgery.
Philip Malancthon once said to his friend Martin Luther, ‘Today, Martin, you and I will discuss God’s governance of the universe,’ to which Luther replied, ‘No, Philip. Today you and I are going fishing, and we’ll leave the governance of the universe to God.’
-Mark Buchanan—The Rest of God (p. 220)
I’ve never gotten along real well with the hot-shot who seems to know exactly what the poor sap trying to beat Tiger Woods ought to do. This is typically the same guy who won’t play the terrorizing game of golf since it means getting off his rear. Maybe our would-be Tiger-killer would have an altogether different attitude if he were to go out and try and qualify for a PGA Tour Event himself. Tougher to do than to talk about.
Beating Tiger Woods on a regular basis doesn’t happen. The whole field has one goal in mind… although he was beat last weekend at the annual Master’s Tournament, and in case you missed it, he took second—even with a bum knee he had surgery on hours after the event had concluded. Big talking never does amount to much and Tiger Woods never has been much of a talker come to think of it—he lets his clubs do the talking whether he places first or second.
It’s pretenders and critics that are busy talking a good game while the Jesus-followers are quietly walking with God.
6 ’With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? 7 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?’ 8 He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:6-8, ESV)
There are more armchair quarterbacks than real ones. It’s easier to beat Tiger Woods in theory than on the course, although I’m not so sure even beating Tiger in theory can be done. When it comes to reality—fat chance. My point is this: Try being like Jesus yourself before you pass judgment on someone else who has decided to take up the occupation. Jesus was no slouch and being like Jesus isn’t the same as being like your favorite uncle. It’s easy to compare ourselves to a guy like John Daly lets say—and it may be why he’s just so popular. But Jesus—good luck. It’s impossible in your own strength to follow Jesus, and unless you’ve done it, you might want to consider reserving your criticisms until you have. It’s always the non-practicing Christian (oxymoron I realize) who has all the answers. I’m not denying that there are phonies—that’s the case with everything. And I’m not talking about the bogus television preachers in this blog. I have met a police officer or two who do not represent the majority.
I still haven’t met an armchair quarterback I like.
But it’s sure hard not to like Tiger Woods.
I more fear what is within me than what comes from without.
-Martin Luther
It’s not always surprising to me when I hear all-out-hard-core sinners bemoaning those Christians. There is no doubt we could do a better job representing Jesus—I have no beef with the argument so much. If you happen to be one of those elite Christians who thinks otherwise, let me know—I’ll pray for you. The line of reasoning that followers of Jesus are supposed to be perfect is ludicrous if you ask me—when I read my copy of the New Testament I don’t read anything that gives me the impression the early church was either.
What is clear is that Jesus was perfect.
Recently, a favorite preacher of mine made mention of a T-shirt among his varied collection that reads Jesus, save me from your followers. We have all felt that way—most of us anyways—and for good reason I’m sure. But the T-shirt would really better read Jesus, save me from myself. As unloving as we can be—there still isn’t a more loving family than the Body of Christ. And even though we aren’t perfect yet—we will be. I may feel like I need saving from the followers of Jesus—but I am just as big a part of the problem as anyone else.
One of the great writers of the early 20th century, G.K. Chesterton (widely known as the prince of paradox)—was once solicited by a well-known newspaper as they had invited several prominent authors to write essays on the theme: What’s Wrong with the World?—Chesterton’s contribution took the form of a letter:
Dear Sirs,
I am.
Sincerely yours,
G.K. Chesterton
And I am too.
12 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, 13 waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. 14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. (Hebrews 10:12-14, ESV)
It sure seems to me that Jesus is our perfection.
Maybe we should worry less about being perfect and more about worshiping our perfector.
Give me chastity and continence, but not quite yet. ~Augustine
You could say something supernatural happens the moment we place our trust in the finished work of Jesus on his cross of shame and suffering as evidenced by our confessing we are a sinner and by our denouncing all other allegiances. And although often times it may not look like we are changing all that much to those who are much too busy inspecting our fruit (while their own spoiled bananas are rotten and rancid)—we can be sure God’s own will be a changed people. Faith without works will always be dead. Satan himself believes in Jesus and it makes him no follower.
The reality is that as Christians we do change. But the change is many times not the way we might guess or assume—it sure takes longer than we’d like—and worse yet the biggest obstacle to our changing is the person we see in the mirror every morning when we brush our teeth. I am in no way suggesting that we stay the same—because we do not—but the point I am making is an important one. If we are honest, we have to confess that we still dabble with sin—we nibble and even splurge. No matter—sin is always over-indulging. If we are really honest, we’d be willing to admit that we wallow around in it at times and privately wonder how as a Jesus-follower we could do such a thing. You can’t deal with what you don’t acknowledge. Sin hasn’t packed up his bags and left us quite yet—we may have thought he left for good when we shooed him out the door last, but he’s been merely hiding around the corner patiently waiting for a more opportune time to clear his throat and whisper sweet nothings in our ear. To believe otherwise is only to deceive ourselves and worse yet—to mislead our younger brothers and sisters in Christ.
We just get in the way sometimes. The not-so-natural but inevitable progression when we become Jesus-followers is that we begin to do away with our old ways of living and thinking. It’s not that we must be someone we are not—no—we have been given a brand new permanent identity. Challenging to say the least—and just like old habits—our old identity doesn’t die so quickly. It is the miracle after all that transpires at the very instant of our conversion which makes the absolute difference and it is this: God comes to dwell within us via the Holy Spirit who is the Third Person in the Trinity (for those who may be new to this whole idea). God himself living within us. I didn’t say we become God. Big difference.
The mark of a true follower of Jesus isn’t an unchanged heart but a changed one—and a changed heart is only seen through a changed life. I started this short blog thread titled In Process based on the premise that following Jesus is just that—a process—which according to Merriam-Webster is A natural phenomenon marked by gradual changes that lead toward a particular result.
3 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, 4 by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. 5 For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, 7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. 8 For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:3-8, ESV)
Notice Peter—the very man who denied even knowing Jesus on the eve of his betrayal—writes if these qualities are yours and are increasing… Peter’s growth in grace didn’t end just because he stumbled again—he went on to be changed over and over again. It can seem as though it is two steps forward and one step backwards at times—if anyone knew a thing or two about gradual change, it was Peter himself. I’ve never liked the old saying Christians aren’t perfect just forgiven because it falls so grossly short in painting a picture of just who us Christians are. Cheesy little maxims never do summarize what God has really said—they might sell some bumper stickers, but that’s about it.
Christians are surely forgiven—but that’s not all they are if they are true-blue followers of the Son of God—they are changed in the process.
People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.
-D.A. Carson
Talk to a skilled sailor and they will tell you that you can’t get to a desired location by simply drifting. You need a few things in order to sail. I mean what good are sails if you don’t set them?
I have been at this occupation of following Jesus for over half my life now and if I have learned anything it is this—I am prone to wander as are my brothers and sisters in Christ. It is nothing for me to coast—settle—and even flee. God knows it. So what good does it do me to hide it or deny it? What I need to acknowledge is my need for God’s grace if I am going to get anywhere in becoming more like Jesus. Without his grace I simply drift directionless. Simply put—God’s grace is the wind that powers my sails. I don’t need to make more efforts—that has gotten me no where. What I need is God’s grace.
1 Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. 2For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, 3 how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, 4 while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will. (Hebrews 2:1-4, ESV)
For as long as I can remember I have struggled with the question—How does God’s grace and my efforts to grow in Christlikeness co-exist? And what I have learned is quite simple: My findings undeniably tell me that my efforts have to be grace-driven (as Carson eludes to in the quote above).
My prayer becomes not Help me try more God—but Please give me more grace so that I can grow in Your grace.
Drifting becomes much more difficult when that happens.
…The law is divine and holy. Let the law have his glory, but yet no law, be it never so divine and holy, ought to teach me that I am justified, and shall live through it. I grant it may teach me that I ought to love God and my neighbor; also to live in chastity, soberness, patience, etc., but it ought not to show me, how I should be delivered from sin, the devil, death, and hell.
Here I must take counsel of the gospel. I must hearken to the gospel, which teacheth me, not what I ought to do, (for that is the proper office of the law,) but what Jesus Christ the Son of God hath done for me : to wit, that He suffered and died to deliver me from sin and death. The gospel willeth me to receive this, and to believe it. And this is the truth of the gospel. It is also the principal article of all Christian doctrine, wherein the knowledge of all godliness consisteth.
Most necessary it is, therefore, that we should know this article well, teach it unto others, and beat it into their heads continually. ~Martin Luther
Some time ago now, my pastor was sharing on the wondrous Book of Romans over the course of a couple year span and still didn’t manage to exhaust all the gems of truth throughout Paul’s ground-breaking letter. On this particular Sunday my pastor was explaining in detail the nature of our bondage to sin while at the same time making a case for the freedom from that same power of sin that faith in Jesus affords each of us the very split-second we come to a place of conversion. As he began to speak and walk around the lectern it became obvious to all of us in attendance that our pastor was sporting more than his usual striped conservative tie and white shirt under-neath his black robe he’d wear during the colder winter months. He was being followed by a rusted iron sort of thick link chain that had been attached to his ankle—as it also had been affixed to a post of some sort in the middle of the stage area. Every time he would get so far as he meandered about, he would be forced to stop. The chain—symbolically sin—was holding him back or captive and it was doing a good job in limiting him as to how far he could go.
The point became crystal clear that sin ruled and he had no freedom to go beyond it’s death hold on him.
21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:21-23, ESV)
The following week Dr. Alberta had the same chain with him. However, there was one exception—it wasn’t attached to him any longer. The chain was laying there cut off and all by it’s lonesome. He had been set free and was free to go wherever he wanted—but there was a problem. A big problem. Whenever he would get to the area where the chain had previously restricted him the week before—he’d all-of-a-sudden get caught up and find it difficult to go any further than he’d gone before he was set free—just as if the chain were still attached to his ankle. It was almost as if he had been conditioned to believe that he could only go so far. Sound familiar? It does to me. It explains a struggle I have found myself tangled up in on more occasions than I could count on of all our fingers combined.
Have you been set free from the bondage of sin?
Are you living like you remember—or are you living like you have forgotten?
Lord Jesus, you are my righteousness, I am your sin. You have taken upon yourself what is mine and given me what is yours. You have become what you were not so that I might become what I was not. ~Martin Luther
WBIR out of Knoxville, Tennessee, reported the following in June of ‘07: For almost six weeks, a Murfreesboro man forgot that he had entered the Tennessee Million Dollar Madness lottery. Rick Checchin was reminded of his tickets by his co-workers Thursday morning, checked them–and discovered he had won $1 million. The drawing was May 14th–and he said today he just went about living his life and forgot about the two tickets he had purchased in March. Checchin said that with a wife and two children, he’d have no trouble spending the money. He works for the Standard Candy Company. After taxes were deducted, he pocketed $750,000. Three other winners in the big jackpot claimed their prizes shortly after the drawing.
The guy was a lottery winner and he was unaware until someone reminded him about just who it was that he had become. How often do we do the same?
16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. (2 Corinthians 5:16-17, ESV)
Have you forgotten just who it is you belong to? Are you a follower of Jesus? Do you need to be reminded that if you are in Christ you too are a new creation never to be the same and no longer bound to the law of sin and death?
Can you remember the last time you stood in front of the mirror and instead of looking at the latest age spot on your temple or the more defined wrinkles adorning your face—you looked yourself square in the eye and reminded yourself that you are a new creation?
When God takes someone and makes a new creation out of them he doesn’t do half the job.
Sin cannot tear you away from him [Christ], even though you commit adultery a hundred times a day and commit as many murders. ~Martin Luther
A good buddy of mine told a story years ago about spanking his oldest son and in doing so he explained to his son that it wasn’t something he wanted to do as much as it was something he needed to do because he loved his son. His son responded I love you too daddy, can I spank you?
None of us were fond of going to our bedroom and writing until our fingers fell off, I won’t rip the hair out of my sisters Barbie Doll during this lifetime ever again. It never did help anyways. The only way to punish me was to take away my baseball privelages.
Many of us got the wrong idea at an impressionable age that because our mom or dad didn’t just let us get away with murder that somehow they didn’t care about us. Remember feeling that way? I do.
Well, they did care.
8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. 11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:8-11, ESV)
Maybe it’s because we have somehow gotten the impression that God is fond of kicking bad kids out of his family that we get uncomfortable over topics such as discipline? If so, I hope you would read the scriptures to dispel your fears. God doesn’t expel his children from his family to be sure. He never has and he’s not about to start now. But, just because God’s loving enough to not kick us out of the family doesn’t mean he’s not loving enough to see to it that when we need a good lick or two—he won’t stop at sending us to the detention center for a brief stay or the wood-shed for a re-introduction with the family paddle to get our attention.
We have to trust that when it comes to discipline or any other family matter—as the old dinosaur of a television program most of us are too young to remember went—Father knows best. Aren’t you glad he’s the one deciding how and when we get a spanking—I know I sure am—if not, I’d have been hung a thousand and one times by now.
When you sense you might be in for some punishment of your own, remember, nothing in this world can separate us from his love—even his rebuke is out of love.
Ye contracted with Christ, I hope, when first ye began to follow Him, that ye would bear His cross. Fulfill your part of the contract with patience, and break not to Jesus Christ. Be honest, brother, in your bargaining with Him; for who knoweth better how to bring up children than our God? For (to lay aside His knowledge, of the which there is no finding out) He has been practiced in bringing up His heirs these five thousand years; and His bairns (children) are all well brought up, and many of them are honest men now at home, up in their own house in heaven, and are entered heirs to their Father’s inheritance. Now, the form of His bringing up was by chastisements, scourging, correcting, nurturing; and see if He maketh exception of any of His bairns (children); no, His eldest Son and His Heir, Jesus, is not excepted (Rev. 3.19; Heb. 12.7-8; 2.10). Suffer we must; ere we were born God decreed it, and it is easier to complain of His decree than to change it. Forward then, dear brother, and lose not your grips. ~Samuel Rutherford (Scottish Presbyterian theologian and author), Letters, VIII. To John Kennedy on his deliverance from shipwreck ANWOTH, Feb. 2, 1632 (taken from an expert).
I’m quite sure I am not the only kid who was reminded about his or her last name while growing up from time to time. Shoot—kids with parents that make Al Capone look like a choir boy still get the treatment—Johnny, why can’t you just be a good gangster like all the other little boys? I may not have heard the exact words, but I can still hear them anyways—Kenny, you are a Stoll—now act like it—can’t you see that you are disgracing the family name.
If you were from the typical family with average parents you probably never had your parents lash out and tell you that you’d be kicked out of the family for your bad behavior—and neither did I. No, that wasn’t gonna happen. But I was scolded mind you–and for good reason when I think about it. My sister and I (our brother was not around yet) were even told on occasion when we got really out of line that we were gonna be dropped off at the Indian Reservation—whatever that meant and wherever that was—I still don’t know? Being that we are part Cherokee Indian it sure seemed like a valid threat though. So, rather than pack up the bags under our beds and take a trip in the wood-paneled family station wagon—we’d straighten up for a couple hours and get along. Of course, if it were something my dad used all the time we’d have laughed at him—but it wasn’t—my dad seemed to know just the right time to use just the right trick.
God doesn’t play any tricks with us on the other hand—family business isn’t monkey business with him. He never fails to prescribe just the right medicine for what ails us. Our tendency is to either see God as a big soft teddy bear or a cosmic impersonal hall-monitor just waiting to whack us when we get out of line—when he is neither.
He is a loving Father and that makes us his loved children before anything else.
And like any loving father he deals with us in ways we don’t prefer from time to time.
5 And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? ‘My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. 6 For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.’ 7 It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? (Hebrews 12:5-7, ESV)
If he’s disciplined you it may just serve as a good reminder that he loves you.
The thing we need concern oursleves with is this—are we honoring the family name?
In Romans 7, Paul says ‘The law is spiritual.’ What does that mean? If the law were physical, then it could be satisfied by works, but since it is spiritual, no one can satisfy it unless everything he does springs from the depths of his heart. But no one can give such a heart except the Spirit of God, who makes the person be like the law, so that he actually conceives a heartfelt longing for the law and henceforward does everything, not through fear or coercion, but from a free heart. ~Martin Luther
I got online some time ago to read my free copy of the Detroit News as I do most mornings while sipping on my cup of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. First it’s sports and then I’ll check out the front page. The growing story of importance here in town besides the slumping economy and ballooning unemployment rate is our beloved Detroit Tigers baseball team. They are off to a surprisingly dismal start after winter acquisitions equaling the signing Goliath and a few of his buddies. Expectations have been rising all off-season, so to begin the season 0-7 wasn’t the start many of us fans anticipated. The paper had one of those cybersurveys to chime in on today. So I did. I answered with the 27.75% who said “A little. There are some bad signs“, in response to the question: “How concerned are you about the Tigers’ inauspicious start to the 2008 season?”
Some times we feel that way is regards to our journey of faith, our disconnect with sin can seem a million miles away. Our rally-cry to beat sin sort of like Mike Tyson used to pummel his victims in the boxing ring can quickly become a whimper—the guy who was gonna whip sin into shape can suddenly find himself the whipping boy. For many us, our anti-sin-crusade came to a halt much earlier than we had announced to the world. And then we did it, we gave in to some old familiar vice.
15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. ~Romans 7:15-20, ESV
Losing seven games straight is no occasion to throw in the towel on the season. Like any MLB baseball team worth the dirt on the bottom of their spikes, we can’t give up on our entire season after a 0-7 start when we have a 162 game schedule in front of us.
Oh, the Tigers won game 8 in Boston last night—154 more to go.
This life therefore is not righteousness but growth in righteousness; not health but healing, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not what we shall be but we are growing toward it; the process is not yet finished but it is going on; this is not the end but it is the road. All does not gleam in glory but all is being purified. ~Martin Luther
My friends in Alcoholic Anonymous say without apology something to the following effect: We are a program of spiritual progress—not spiritual perfection.
But I want to be perfect today.
Some time ago I was enjoying the community within the cozy confines of men that I trusted and the topics we’d sit around and discuss were of an extremely personal nature. Hence, the group was all about authenticity and although it was a so-called Christian group of men—it was a place where you could feel safe enough to unpack your dirty laundry and be real.
If you ask me—the church should be a body of folks who use a little more of that kind of approach and a little less of the opposite sort in which we pretend to be someone we are not like we do at work—with our relatives—at the baseball diamond—and with the neighbors in our subdivision. As a matter of fact that was one of the main ideas behind our meeting in the first place—taking off our masks we are so prone to put on in the morning before we scurry out the door. The group wasn’t anything like the Promise Keepers group I was introduced to some 10 years earlier—not a knock on them so much—but the whole lot of us in our new society of men had found out in our own journeys that we collectively and individually were all the more likely to play promise-breakers than promise-keepers if we were at all honest about ourselves. And now our forum was giving us permission (if you will) to be just that, honest—actually encouraging us to do so. We could even cuss or talk about sex and not be asked to leave. Imagine that—where I came from that was an all-out license to doubt someones very salvation.
Truth be told we were just a bunch of guys in need of grace and without any help from one another we were not getting all that far in our personal walks of faith by ourselves.
We Jesus-followers are all in process—every last one of us—and it does us some good to be reminded about this truth from time to time.
2 For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, 3 if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. 4For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. (2 Corinthians 5:2-4, ESV)
Being further clothed—that’s about now. So much of the time we mistakenly make reference to the Cross in terms of futuristic or in the past tense with very little if any reference to the here and now—today. By failing to name our sins and admit our need for forgiveness we be-little our dependence upon the finished work Jesus did on the Cross that made grace possible in the first place. Jesus suffered and died so we could live today in the power of that reality verses having to wait until tomorrow. There is hope for me to love my enemy—to care for the unlovely—and be sober—right now. As I take a serious and deliberate inventory of my life of late I have to be truthful with myself—that is if I want the freedom that is mine to be active and appropriated. It’s embarrassing when I really get honest about how little I believe God when it comes to my private life—as if it’s my right to have one. Do I trust him enough to sweep out and replace my torn apart and broken up furniture in the rooms of my life? Will I continue to hold the keys to those rooms in the death-grip of my grimy little fist or will I turn them over to Jesus?
Our growth in righteousness is only stunted when we ignore our plight.
May the prayer of our hearts be to have some more of the not yet in the here and now by the grace of God—that we would be further clothed—and may we understand that while we have not arrived, we are in the process of getting there.
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