I’m fascinated by Luke’s account of Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem on Monday, just four days before His crucifixion. As the crowd worshiped Him as a Moses-like liberator who would end their slavery to Rome and lead them to the good life in their land flowing with milk and honey, Jesus burst into tears (Luke 19:28-44).

We know that the Lord’s grief had to do with the coming destruction of Jerusalem (43-44), but it also had to do with the shallow peace they clamored after.

Jesus could see through the festive atmosphere of the Passover that energized the mass hysteria. He could see into their hearts.

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One or two days after most of us receive the free gift of salvation by believing in Jesus, some religious person is going to start working on us to “straighten out our life.” We’re scolded for our shortcomings and shamed for our indulgences. It doesn’t take long for the message of a toxic, performance-based spiritual community to penetrate our soul.

Grace, it seems, stops the moment I receive Christ. Now it’s all about doing and not doing, measuring up and staying within boundaries. Intuitively, I learn to do what everyone else has learned to do with the real me—especially the broken and weak parts. I hide “me” from them.

Count on it my friend. If your spiritual community bases spirituality on performance, the putrid odor of hidden sins and the festering wounds of unspoken pain lie just below the surface. Plastic smiles and placebo sentences band aid the truth, and everyone has learned to ignore the malaise of real life.

But the most serious impact of “jumping-through-hoops spirituality” isn’t on relationships within this nauseous faith community. It’s the impact it has on your relationship with God that’s so damaging. You learn to try to hide from Him with these same plastic smiles and placebo sentences. You approach God dishonestly by praying disingenuous prayers. And so, you tell Him the same lies you tell others fearing the transparency that would betray you. “If He really knows me,” we reason, “He will not care for me as much as I need Him to care.”

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Nothing excites me more than to hear someone say that they want to live all-out for the Lord Jesus. My pastoral heart moves toward them and Judy and I start pouring our lives into them.

There’s always some initial excitement and a lot of marvelous reports concerning God’s powerful movement in everyday life.

“You wouldn’t believe what’s happening at work. I’ve only been praying for this guy for two days. Out of nowhere he said, ‘Tell me about your church.’”

“We had no idea how we would survive if we gave what we felt God was telling us to give to the church. But we did it. The next day my boss came in to tell me that she was so pleased with my work that he had decided to give me a promotion.”

Even as the reports bubble out I’m always praying for them because I know what’s coming.

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When you read those words, Extravagant Worship, what pictures come to mind?

Depending on your personal tastes in music and cultural background, you’re probably thinking about people who worship Christ “over the top” according to your evaluation, or the evaluation of your tradition.

That’s an immediate indicator that you have misunderstood the New Testament’s teaching on worship.

Worship isn’t about styles and traditions. “Good” worship isn’t the music you’re use to or whether or not people lift their hands, use icons and candles, or sit quietly listening to Gregorian chants.

The worship book of the New Testament is Romans, and the worship passage is Romans 12:1-2. After his eleven-chapter presentation of the mercies of God available to us in Christ, Paul says this:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. 2Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

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Cheap Grace!

A new reader of this blog is really getting beat up. Like me, this person emphasizes the grace that is ours through Jesus Christ our Lord as the defining and sustaining dynamic of the Christian faith.

The response to his writings? “When are you going to say something about obedience, commitment, and morality?”

The unspoken charge? “You just want the Christian life to be easy and cheap!”

I assure you that is not what grace-teachers believe. There’s nothing cheap about grace, nothing soft about grace, nothing easy about grace.

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What Tempts You?

What would you consider the most serious and debilitating temptation to a true Christian?

Sexual sin?

Lying?

Spiritual laziness?

How about none of the above?

The most serious temptation that derails Christians is the temptation to return to the law once they’ve received new life by trusting in Jesus. It’s a “Now that Jesus saved me, I better get to work to clean up my life and make Him proud of me!” temptation. And the so-called Christian culture cheers them on, “That’s right. Get to work for Jesus you sorry-little-sinner. That’s what we’re doing!”

No They’re Not!

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When I first met the real Jesus in the 60s revival–the Jesus Movement–I was impressed with His self-control.

I’m not talking about His ability to somehow throttle His emotions while walking on earth the way the fundies picture Him, all buttoned-down and loafered-up with no excesses.

I’m talking about God controlling Himself in the way Jesus did when Satan tempted Him in the wilderness or when His enemies asked Him for a big rocket across the sky miracle.

If I were God, I’d show those people what for.

I’d turn the whole mountain to bread and then throw it into some lake that I had turned into a bowl of chicken noodle soup. “Okay, Satan, my man, how about that?!”

“Okay you dirty little Galileans. All these miracles you’ve already seen aren’t  enough to convince you? Then how about some fire and brimstone to heat this argument up a little. What do you think of me now?”

That’s what I would of done.

But of course I’m not Jesus. I’m not God in the flesh. I’m not the Friend of Sinners who never gives people what they deserve. He just loves them and lays down His life for them.

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What is your first thought?

If you’re a Christian, your first reaction may be guilt and shame when you read words like these from the lips of Jesus:

“I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me” (John 17:20-23).

One of the surest signs of how far the church today lives from the New Testament’s emphasis on unity is that most of us read these words as a challenge rather than a comfort.

It’s time to look at them again, as if for the first time and in context!

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I’ve devoted the last ten months to the study of the Gospel of Mark.

Jesus’ radical words and actions astound me. He refused to be categorized or tamed. He challenged the presuppositions of the religious status quo. He fearlessly took on the most powerful men of His day.

He was constantly surrounded by somebodies clamoring for His attention.

But He always focused on the nobodies–beggars, children, whores, and IRS agents.

So, who are you paying attention to in your world?

I’m convinced that eternal life is a gift freely given to all who believe in Jesus.

Whenever I say this someone will protest, “That’s cheap grace!”

Really?

What’s cheap about an absolutely innocent 33 year-old man in the prime of life walking up a hill with a cross on his bloody shoulders?

What’s cheap about this man who could have called down legions of angels submitting to the Roman soldier who pounded stakes into his limbs?

What’s cheap about this man hanging on that cross while religious people spit on him and shouted insults?

What’s cheap about this man calling out to His Father in heaven to forgive his tormentors?

What’s cheap about this man crying out to His Father that it is finished?

What’s cheap about the tears and wailing of his mother and followers at the foot of that cross?

And what’s cheap about God and His Son, Jesus, agreeing in eternity past that this is what would have to happen if they wanted to express their love and offer their life to sinners?