In the first three chapters of my book, Reborn to Be Wild, I tell my story as a 60s radical who met Jesus during this great movement of the Holy Spirit. Every time I read these chapters, the stunning reality of the deep darkness I came out of stirs my heart.

When His enemies came after Him in the garden on the night He was betrayed, Jesus said, “But this is your hour, and the power of darkness” (Luke 22:53).

That describes life without Christ. Every hour blackened by that same desperate darkness–the darkness dominating Christ’s enemies. That was me…that was you.

I’m overwhelmed by the grace of God and Jesus’ love that rescued me from the power of darkness and translated me into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love (Colossians 1:13).

Are you?

If you want to fall on your knees in thanksgiving, spend a few hours writing down what the darkness of your life was like before His love ran you down!

Question: Do you remember the darkness?

Greed

A greedy heart is a disoriented heart—a heart that views life as consisting of the stuff we own. Life is owning a nice home in a neighborhood with good schools. Life is taking nice vacations every year. Life is being able to send our children to the college of their choice. Life is driving that luxury car I always wanted. Life is season tickets, upscale restaurants, shopping at Nordstrom’s, the second home at the beach or in the mountains, the cruise, the expensive hobby, the boat, the ski trips, the….

I’m not saying that any of these possessions or activities is wrong, as long as they’re not a part of our definition of what matters most in life. But before we conclude too quickly that we don’t define life this way, consider what exposed the wrong definition of life in a man who asked Jesus to settle a family dispute over money:

“Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me” (Luke 12:13). His brother must have been there with him, so the crowd was expecting the usual when someone shouted to a rabbi to take their side—charges and counter-charges, inquiries, and an attempt to settle the dispute according to the law.

Jesus Sees Through It!

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Ever think about Who sent Jesus?

Some Christians I know think of Jesus as the Friend of sinners, but His Father as the Judge of sinners.

It’s true that God will judge sinners. But Which Person of the Godhead will be the Judge at the Great White Throne? Jesus, not His Father is the Judge of all humanity (John 5:22, 27).

It’s also true that all sinners need to be judged. But what will they be judged for? Not for failing in life, but for failing to trust in Christ during their life (John 3:18).

So I’ll ask the question again, “Who sent Jesus?”

God the Father isn’t mad at you and waiting to get you. He’s not the God religious people tell you He is. He’s not sitting up there waiting for you to mess up so He can show you a thing or two. He’s not passive and disinterested.

God the Father loves you passionately and pursues you relentlessly with His love.

He’s not impressed with your performance, but He is asking you to trust Him.

If you belong to Him through faith in His Son, fear should never explain your relationship with Him. As John said in his first letter, His love drives out fear (1 John 4:18).

“In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (I John 4:10).

Question: Why do you feel some of us struggle with this idea of the Fatherhood of God?

Does God Have a Spreadsheet?

People who have a hard time with the concept of grace view God as a calculating God.

Rejecting the laminated promises of the Bible that eternal life is a gift given freely to all who believe, they insist that it can’t be that “easy.” In their thinking, there must be some “accounting” for sin that keeps certain types of “sinners” out of heaven.

I find it telling that when they calculate which sins God should tolerate because He is loving and which sins He should condemn because He’s just, the “tolerable sins” are the ones they commit. It’s those other sinners who are getting over on God.

These presentations of a calculating God always make me wonder what they’re doing with the realities of everyday life, the revealing ministry of the Holy Spirit, and the wonder of God’s mercy.

No!

My own experience has been that the longer I walk with God, the more I realize how messed up I was the day He redeemed me, and how much more I need His mercy.

I’ve come to the point that I’ve just stopped arguing with them. If they want to live under the tyranny and hypocrisy of their calculating God, that’s their business.

But, I warn them to stay out of my business. I choose to believe in the uncalculating God of the Bible who relates to me according to the radical “math” of grace. I choose to follow the Son of God pictured in the Gospels and exalted in the epistles. The God of mercy and love who seeks out sinners of all types and degrees and offers them new life in Him and friendship with Him. The God who, as unimaginable as it may seem–knowing what I know about me–delights in me.

Question: What “calculating God” lie from your church of origin causes you to mistrust grace?

Most of the time when I feel guilty, it’s because I am.

Sometimes, it’s only because of some screwed up experience from my past or some sicko moralistic twist on the Scriptures.

The prescription for both is a big dose of God’s grace.

If my guilt comes from the outside–false guilt that’s taught by works-based systems–grace delivers me from the lie. God is rescuing me from what is not true about me.

If my guilt comes from the inside–true guilt generated by the indwelling Spirit–it’s an expression of grace and love. God is rescuing me from what is true about me.

Now I know what you’re thinking. “How can I tell the difference?”

Live in community. Entrust yourself to the truth coming from those who are maturing in Christ. Trust grace to work through those who love you enough to tell you what is not true of you…and what is true.

This is a big reason for what the Bible calls fellowship.

This is an excerpt from my book about the Jesus Movement, Reborn to Be Wild:

I had been attending Fruitvale Community Church for just a few months when it happened—my first over-the-top worship experience. Since I knew nothing about Jesus before I believed in Him, Ted’s sermons unfolded the wonder of new life in Christ every Sunday. But this particular Sunday was special.

Ted taught on the rapture—that future event when every living Christian would meet Christ in the air. I remember thinking, You’ve got to be kidding me! This just gets better and better. Jesus is the only way to heaven. He loves me. He died for me. He gave me new life. And now you’re telling me that He’s coming from heaven to get me?

And then Ted’s wife, Jo, sat at the piano and started to sing.

The market place is empty,

No more traffic in the streets.

All the builder tools are silent,

No more time to harvest wheat.

Busy housewives cease their labors,

In the courtroom no debate.

Work on earth is all suspended

As the King comes through the gate.

I could see it in my mind’s eye. Suddenly nothing mattered because Jesus just showed up. I remember thinking Jo sounded like an angel when she sang the chorus:

Oh the King is coming,

The King is coming.

I just heard the trumpet sounding

And now His face I see.

Oh, the King is coming,

The King is coming

PRAISE GOD,

He’s coming for me!

This was all too wonderful to take in cognitively—I could only stand and sing and cry. Not only is Jesus the only way. Not only is Jesus the King. Not only is He coming back to make things right. He’s coming back for me. Jesus was coming back for me, and I needed to get to work for Him.

I don’t think it’s an accident that our revival occurred during a time when the church and the world seemed preoccupied with biblical prophecy. Everyone, Christian and non-Christian seemed to be asking questions about the return of the Lord. Hal Lindsey’s Late Great Planet Earth was the largest selling nonfiction book of the 1970s, and we virtually memorized it. Citywide prophecy conferences sprouted up in every major metropolitan center. Little Israel was back in the Promised Land, and the only explanation for her amazing victories in the Six-Day War of 1967 and the Yom Kippur War of 1973-74 that made sense was the prophecies of Daniel, Isaiah, and Ezekiel.

You may believe that prophecy is irrelevant today and feel that the church should be about the more immediate needs of humanity, but it seems reasonable to ask if there is any connection between prophetic teaching and revival.

It’s impossible to separate the explosive growth of the church in Acts from its prophetic hope. The early Christians who turned the world upside down for Christ hoped in Jesus’ coming. And so has every revival generation since. I know ours did.

Question: Do you have a Jesus Movement memory of when you first believed your King is coming?

My understanding of the ministry of the Holy Spirit in my life is that when I sin, He makes me miserable.

Not because God’s ticked off at me, but because He’s grieved.

Why is He grieved? Because God’s love always wants what is best for me. And sin never leads to anything good.

So it’s a gift of grace, this misery. It’s God’s tender mercies wooing me back into His love. All I need to do is get honest with Him, and rely on His power to move toward what He knows is good for me.

But it’s still misery.

I can only think of one way to make the misery worse…

…To try to take care of your sin by yourself.

There’s no more miserable creature on earth than a Christian with a secret life, trying to fix himself or herself without God and apart from other Christians.

You may think your hidden life is a secret, but God knows all about it.

Want to escape the misery?

Get honest with God and a few trusted Christian friends. If you take that step of trusting obedience, His love will flood out your lonely misery and you will know the joy of intimate friendship with Him and His redeemed community.

Question: Why do you feel most Christians avoid living in community?

60s

I met Jesus during a revival–the Jesus Movement of the 60s and 70s. We didn’t know we were part of a revival. I suppose the ones His grace reaches in a revival never do.

All I know is that the love of Christ ran me down and overwhelmed me so that I had to tell others about my Savior. And I wasn’t alone, there were thousands of us.

You would think that the institutional church would have embraced us. They didn’t, and here’s part of the reason why–we were talking about something that went beyond mere moralism.

Being Good for Jesus

Most of the church people who resisted us had grown up listening to shaming sermons about being good for Jesus. Their God was for moral people and against sinners. They were caught up in a system that told them they were one of the good people, the moral people. If they gave money to the church, attended regularly, and managed their sin better than ordinary people, they were “good.”

But we came proclaiming a radical message of grace. We had no illusions about our goodness apart from the One who washed us from our sins in His own blood. Our lives pulled them toward the power to break the chains the of moralistic religiosity that enslaved them. Most stepped back from that threshold, and returned to their placid pews.

That’s just the way revival is. It doesn’t wait for those who must have all their theological loose ends tied up, who think that the grace of God is for other, “bad” people.

So if a revival hit the streets today, would you see it and embrace it? Or would you miss it and talk about its participants in self-assured sentences that expose the emptiness of your soul?

One of my most earnest prayers is that the Lord would not let me settle for less than all that He wants to give me by His grace. It’s the best way I know to guard my heart against the grace-killer of religious moralism.

Question: How about you? Do you fear settling as much as I do?

Jesus and Self-Control

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.

Come to think of it, I’m pretty okay with Jesus’ self-control. If He gave me what I deserved, I’d be sunk!

I think there must be a connection between His love for me and His self-control somewhere, but I’m going to leave that to better theologians than I.

I think I’ll just receive His love, jump up and down, and shout about His grace and mercy.

Question: In what specific way are you thankful that Jesus’ love for you and His self-control are connected?

Zachy’s Request

EdUnderwood.com