You gotta turn from this, and from this, and from this, and from this…if you really want to be a Christian!

That’s what I hear too many Christian leaders saying today. “If you’re really serious about God, you’re going to turn from your sin and start living right!”

The problem with that is that it’s the same message the Pharisees were spouting to people when Jesus showed up. It’s called “reformation“–reforming yourself by stopping to do some of the bad things and starting to do some good things.”

The other problem is that it doesn’t work. You can reform all you want, but the more you reform the outside behavior to please religious people, the more crap you have to hide.

Christianity isn’t about reforming people so that they measure up to the human deciders of who gets into God’s heaven.

Christianity is about the transformation that occurs by turning to the only God who can rescue you and me from our sin and believing what He says about getting into His heaven: Trust in my Son; receive my life, eternal life by believing in Him, and I will transform you. I’ll make you a new person.

Christianity isn’t turning from sin and getting a new start in life. Christianity is turning to God and receiving a new life to start with–a transformed life. It’s called eternal, and it comes with the desire to grow out of your sin and the power to do it.

So, are you trying to reform yourselves to please some bigoted religious types?

Stop it, please God by believing in His Son and receiving His life.

“For without faith it is impossible to please Him” (Hebrews 11:6).

Almost every time I talk about grace some religious person asks me accusingly, “Isn’t this just letting people off easy?”

My answer to that is, “YES!”

“But it’s worse than you ever imagined,” I continue:

“It’s not letting them off easy; it’s letting them off for free!”

And then comes the probing question, “What if He didn’t let you off easy? What if you had to pay for your sins, every stinkin’ one of them?”

You see, if we’re honest we know that every one of us needs a rescue from our sin. And, we must admit that if the rescue wasn’t free, we’d have no hope.

But if we lie to ourselves and others, we’ll decide that our sins are the ones that don’t need payment, that our shortcomings and pathologies are the ones God must have decided were okay. And then, the grace He gives to others upsets us.

We can’t believe that God actually gives grace to really bad sinners like those other people.

We don’t need that kind of grace, cheap grace. Because we earn our grace, costly grace.

But the Bible says that those who say this aren’t holier than the rest of us. They’re liars:

“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8).

The scribe wondered at the behavior of the Jew from Tarsus. Typically an author simply signed the letter he was dictating, proving its authenticity and adding a personal greeting. But not Paul, not in this impassioned letter to his friends in Galatia.

NOTICE WHAT LARGE LETTERS I USE AS I WRITE THESE CLOSING WORDS IN MY OWN HANDWRITING! (Galatians 6:11)

The desperate heaviness of the letter compelled the apostle to keep writing. One more paragraph, all in bold capital letters. One final plea, one last opportunity to turn this fledgling church on the frontier of faith from Satan’s most effective lie about Jesus and his work on the cross.

The same lie Paul battled in Antioch of Syria. The lie even Peter seemed vulnerable to. The church at Antioch was still abuzz over Paul’s shouting match with the revered Apostle from Jerusalem.

The same lie Paul was preparing to stand against next week up in Jerusalem. The Apostles and elders had called a meeting to discuss the matter.

He stops, wipes his brow, and sums up the main lessons of his epistle in eager, disjointed, and intense sentences. The words erupted from the deepest part of his heart.

It doesn’t matter whether we have been circumcised or not. What counts is whether we have been transformed into a new creation (Galatians 2:16).

In my mind’s eye I picture the Apostle putting down his pen, leaning back, and handing the document to the courier.

“Make haste!” Paul’s companions who have fought against the lie with him add. “Everything depends on this message. If the lie takes hold in their hearts, it’s over.”

It’s Over

By “over” I’m not saying that a true Christian can lose his or her relationship with God. By “over” I mean failure as a victorious follower of Jesus—neutralized as a Jesus-enjoying, Jesus-representing, Jesus-focused world-changer.

The most insidious aspect of the lie is that its victims, who are trying so hard to live the Christian life but failing, are told that the reason they’re failing is that they’re not trying hard enough, need more commitment, or be more fully devoted. Before we know it, we’re in this try/fail death spiral. Try; fail. Try harder; fail more. Try even harder; fail even more.

Finally, our Christian life crash lands and we just give up. “Guess I’ll never be a ‘victorious Christian’,” we conclude. “So what’s the use?”

Does this describe you? Are you one of those worn-out-by-constantly-striving-but-still-failing believers the Holy Spirit had in mind when He inspired Paul to write Galatians?

Has your Christian life become less about enjoying Jesus and more about getting “it” right? But then, just when you begin to get “it” right and think you can start enjoying Jesus again; somebody moves “it” to a more demanding standard to live up to?

What if I were to tell you that the problem isn’t your failure to try hard enough to be a better for God because striving to be better isn’t the issue. It never was.

Now there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be better for God as the Bible defines “better”–a devoted follower of Christ. The problem is the idea that trying harder, getting more committed, or becoming more devoted is the way to get there.

That’s not Christianity; that’s religious slavery.

Christianity is not about what we’re doing for God; it’s what God has done for us.

That’s the Good News. We have been made new already, the moment we believed.

The only thing that matters is the New Creation!

Question: Are you working your Christian life harder and enjoying Jesus less?

Maybe you need a big dose of grace in this reminder that you were made new in Christ when you trusted in Him.

There’s really nothing like grace!

Grace explained the revival I was a part of, the Jesus Movement of the 60s and 70s.

It was the spiritual air we breathed.

Recently I spent a weekend in a church in Pennsylvania talking about grace in every forum they give me: book signing at the local book store, Campus Crusade for Christ “cru” meeting at the university, a group of young men from the church, a men’s retreat, and finally at the worship service of the church.

My message?

Grace, grace, grace, grace, grace.

Grace explained our revival. We were thirsty for it, and those who embraced us and discipled us gave it to us.

Grace explains Christianity. Paul told us not to be ashamed of it (Romans 1:6-7).

Grace saves us from ourselves. Under grace we’re not who we used to be, and we don’t have to live the way we used to live (Romans 6:14).

Grace is what the world needs.

Not our theories, our works, our hidden and driven little religious communities.

The world needs grace.

Let’s start giving it to them.

Grace is free to us because it cost God everything.

Judah Tried It

A few years ago I was calling through a list of people we hadn’t seen at church for awhile. A young mother answered the phone and told me, “We’re just taking a break from God right now. Our life is really busy with the kids in sports and our careers. My parents have been sick and then there’s the remodel. I like to think of it as putting Him on the shelf.”

She’s not the first to try “putting God on the shelf,” an entire nation tried to take a break from God—Judah, during the days of Josiah (2 Chronicles 34-35).

The Lord sent His indifferent people a message through His prophet, Zephaniah. The message was simple, and it had two parts: Judah, you belong to Me and no, you’re not taking a break from Me!

God Says, “No”

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It’s About Capacity, Not Desire

Being around professional ballplayers during Spring Training a few years ago reminded me of one of the toughest lessons I had to learn growing up: I will never play for the Dodgers.

My problem wasn’t that didn’t dream of playing for the Dodgers. That was just about all I thought about during my little league years. I took extra infield practice, worked on my hitting, and may have been the most enthusiastic and dedicated little blossoming first basemen ever.

But, by the time I went to high school, it became very obvious. I would never play first base for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Shoot, I couldn’t even play first base for the South High Rebels.

I didn’t have a “want-to” problem. I had an “able-to” problem—a capacity problem.

Watching the Dodgers take infield practice and batting practice at Vero Beach, it hit me again. As much as I love baseball, I’m just not very good. On my best day I could never do what those guys do every day.

Why I Love Following Jesus

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When most people think about sin and God their first thought is, “If you want to be with God, you better do something about that!”

This may be a popular religious idea, but it’s not what God says.

God never asks us to take care of our sin because He already has. 

That’s why He sent His Son, Jesus Christ–to die for our sins.

It’s always been that way.

Even in the Old Testament God didn’t ask the Israelites to “take care of their sin” to approach Him. He did ask them to admit their sin and trust Him to cleanse them from the penalty when they sacrificed an animal. The blood of the animal atoned for their sin (Leviticus 17:11).

In the New Testament we discover that even after trusting in Christ’s blood to pay for our sins at salvation, there’s an ongoing need to admit our need for the ongoing cleansing power of Christ’s shed blood (1 John 1:5-10).

God’s not asking us to take care of our sin. He’s already done that.

But He is asking us to admit it if we want to have intimacy with Him.

That’s the big idea of Leviticus: God is holy, but sin is horrible. If we want to have intimacy with Him, we need to trust in His provision for our sin.

Question: Is there something God is asking you to admit? 

Flawed Systems Fail

When Christians get caught up in a system of works righteousness, failure is their only ultimate option. It all feels good and holy and even smug at the beginning.

“We’re the Christians who don’t do this, or this, or this, or this. We’re the ones with self-discipline. We’re the most committed, the least sinful, the truly spiritual.

If they were totally honest, they would admit that it begins to unravel the moment they begin trying to restrain their sin. Even as they are following all the formulas and attending all the meetings, they can’t hide their dirty little secrets from themselves:

• A mother convinced membership in her new church would control her runaway spending, turns into the mall “just to look.” She buys stuff she doesn’t even want and once again wonders how she’s going to hide this from her husband. As she drives out of the mall parking lot she tells God, “I’ll get even more involved at church next week.”
• The Bible School teacher has been practicing his spiritual disciplines with more dedication since his wife caught him looking at pornography online. He came home for lunch and was surprised that she wasn’t home. He was also surprised that he ate his sandwich at the computer cruising past the same vile sites he told her he would never look at again. He confesses his sin on the way back to work and promises God that he’s going to fast more.
• At a recent men’s retreat he had joined an accountability group and told the other guys about his anger. It felt good to finally get it off his chest. He knew that if he didn’t do something about his rage his wife would leave him. But this morning she wouldn’t quit asking him questions about their money problems and he lost it. He punched her in the usual places so nobody at church would notice. What would he say to the men tomorrow at breakfast? He decided not to tell them about this “little slip.” What would they think of him? They wouldn’t understand. And besides, with the new insights he had learned at the retreat, he probably wouldn’t do it again anyway.

These are the kinds of Christians who eventually find their way into my office, sit dejectedly across the table from me, and with eyes dead of hope tell me, “I’ve had it with Christianity, this just isn’t working.”

Christianity Works!

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If you were to survey 100 people, including a lot of people calling themselves Christians who claim to speak for God and ask the question, “What must I do to have a relationship with God?” Most of the answers you would receive would go something like this:

If you want to have a relationship with God, you have to begin by making some changes. Stop sinning, or at least sin less (meaning sin about the same amount that I sin), get your life together, be more holy, go to church more, care more for the poor, be more compassionate, care more for justice in the world. And then, once you’ve turned your life around, once you’ve decided to be better and do better for God, then you can think about having a relationship with God.

I want to demonstrate from the book of Exodus why this is wrong, terribly wrong; in fact, it’s absolutely backwards to say, “Change your life and then maybe you can have a relationship with God.” It’s never been that way with the God of the Bible. From the very beginning it’s been the other way around: “God will change you by liberating you from slavery, then, and only then are you set free to enjoy a relationship with Him.”

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We just finished the Book of Genesis in our series, bible.cod, “Give us two years and we’ll give you the Bible. Every time I read the first 50 chapters of the Bible, I’m jarred by the stuff God puts up with in the life of the Patriarchs of Israel—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph

Abraham and Isaac told their wives to lie to kings to save their skin. “Tell him you’re only my sister, and sleep with him if you have to.” Jacob was a trickster and a manipulator from the beginning. Joseph seemed insensitive to the feelings of his brothers, bragging about a dream that proved they would all serve him someday.

So, why didn’t God just go out and start over with a new family? Why did God insist on moving His purposes forward through these losers? And then God’s Spirit reminds me of another loser God’s using in spite of his failures. Me!

When I consider my own life and all the ways I’ve failed Jesus and how undeserving I am, I look again at the Book of Genesis. Paul said that Abraham is the father of our faith, not because of his performance for God but because of the promise God made to Him when he believed (Genesis 15:6; Galatians 3:6).

The entire storyline of Genesis hinges on God’s response to Abraham’s faith. God made a covenant with Abraham based solely upon his faith. God promised to make Abraham a great nation in a special land that would bless the nations of the earth (Genesis 12:1-3; 15).

Jesus made a covenant promise to me personally when I trusted in Him. He said that He would give me eternal life, and nothing would ever change that (John 6:47). In the forty-some years since I believed, my performance has been up and down. But His promise has never wavered.

Question: Have you claimed God’s promise to give all who believe in His Son eternal life, or are you still trying to perform for Him?