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).

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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Radio Excoriator

As a SoCaler, I spend a lot of time on the freeways. Sometimes I listen to Christian radio. Sometimes it truly blesses me. Other times it just ticks me off.

Like yesterday when this radio preacher was screaming and shaming his congregation and anyone tuning in about their lack of commitment in just about every area of the Christian life. What bothered me most as he bellowed his way from one shaming truth to the next, was that he acted like he didn’t struggle with this stuff. He, unlike the peons and maybe-not-authentic-believers he vilified and mortified, had his religious “stuff” together.

Right. Sure. Wanna-bet?

My first thought when I hear these performance-driven sermons is, “I wonder what this guy’s hiding?”

I’ve Got a Secret!

Because he is; count on it.

Most of the teaching in the church is framed around the notion that the button-down, loafered-up, “I-got-it-all-together-and-never-have-any-doubts” Christian actually exists somewhere.

Read your Bible. The only One who fits that description wore sandals, had long hair, and is now seated at the right hand of the Father. Paul was the “chief of sinners”; Peter denied Christ, and Mark ran from the garden naked like some frightened little puppy.

They all let the Lord down mightily; but the Lord used them mightily.

That’s called grace. I prefer grace to arrogance any day.

Promises, Promises

I vividly remember riding my bike home after an adolescent sinfest and promising God I would never do it again, if He just wouldn’t send me to hell.

Of course I didn’t keep my promise. A few years and about a million broken promises later I figured, “What the heck? I mean if I’m going to hell anyway, the best plan is to have as much fun as possible along the way!”

But the guilt and shame just got worse.

Then I met Jesus in the Jesus Movement of the 60s and 70s. As I grew in my awareness of His perfect work on the Cross and His love, mercy, and grace, my self-esteem grew. Not because I had made myself better, but because He had remade me into a better person.

Authentic self-esteem doesn’t come from within. It comes from Someone else.

His name is Jesus.

And when He tells you He loves you so much that He died for you, that He delights in you, and that you are not who you used to be, you know that you have been delivered from the religious mythologies that tell you to “get your life together for God.”

Question: Are you tired of trying to keep your life together for God?

Galatians 6:11-18

Galatians is the Magna Carta of Christian liberty. It’s a powerful little book. We’re studying it this year at Church of the Open Door. In Chapters 5 and 6 Paul applies the messages of justification and sanctification by faith.

In the first section of the epistle proper, 1:11-2:21, Paul defended his apostleship. In 3:1-4:31 the Apostle clarifies the implications of justification and sanctification by faith and why it’s true. His final section (5:1-6:10) demonstrates how this grace works in life. Grace works through liberty. Christ set us free to demonstrate His righteousness in ways that transcend any enslaving set of rules or moral codes (5:1-12). This liberty isn’t so that we can indulge the self-centered desires of our flesh as we did before we trusted in Christ. Using our freedom in that way will cause us to lose our inheritance in the coming kingdom (5:13-21). We’ve been set free to walk in the Spirit (5:16-18) so that we can display Christ’s righteousness through the fruit of the Spirit (5:22-26). But even this transformation isn’t about us; it’s about Christ and others. What we’ve really been set free to do is to love and serve others (6:1-10).

Paul closes his epistle with bold letters from his own hand to highlight the urgency of its message to his beloved Galatians (6:11-18). He unmasks the true motives of the legalists and reminds them of his pure motive to release new life by preaching the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ:

Here’s the link to the sermon, study notes, and discussion notes from my exposition of Galatians 6:11-18:

Paul’s Heartfelt Plea

There’s a definition of faithfulness I absolutely reject:

It’s the idea that a faithful man or woman is that Christian who has sinned a little less, hasn’t embarrassed Jesus as much, and has generally measured up a little more to churchy standards of “faithfulness” than others by giving more money, coming to more meetings, and looking good on Sundays.

Two Problems with That:

I have two problems with that concept of faithfulness:

1) I suspect that the self-proclaimed faithful Christian has a secret life. Really, I don’t suspect it, I know it. There are no together people. And the least together people I’ve ever met are the ones churchianity assumes have it together the most.

2) The truly faithful Christians I have met in life are those who are acutely aware of their failures, their shortcoming, their sin, and their weakness and have learned to cling to Jesus.

One of my favorite writers, Brennan Manning, says this about faithfulness:

“Faithfulness requires the courage to risk everything on Jesus, the willingness to keep growing, the readiness to risk failure throughout our lives. [When we risk] everything on Jesus…the gospel says we can’t lose, because we have nothing to lose.”

I think that had a lot to do with the success of the Jesus Movement. We came from the streets, from the mess of our lives, we had nothing to lose…and Jesus had everything to give.

Question: Does that smug definition of faithfulness bother you as much as it does me?

In the forty years since our revival, the Jesus Movement, I’ve heard a lot of theories about so-called “separation.”

No one would argue that Christians should live separate from sin, but the solution is not to live separate from sinners.

Jesus sure didn’t do that. He gained a reputation as a friend of sinners. He purposefully touched the unclean, hung out with the outcasts, and even entered a pagan Gentile’s home.

“Scandalous,” His critics cried. They even spread rumors that He was a glutton and a drunkard.

Did Jesus care?

Not a bit. Every time He made contact with the ones the religious culture tried to quarantine good Jews from interacting with, they were transformed.

That’s the way it was in the Jesus Movement. We didn’t separate, we penetrated. We didn’t run from sinners, we watched God run them down with His mercy and grace.

As Walter Wink put it so eloquently, “The contagion of holiness overcomes the contagion of uncleanness.”

Question: How has a false view of separation quarantined you from the very ones Jesus wants you to love in His name?

In the forty years since our revival, the Jesus Movement, I’ve heard a lot of theories about so-called “separation.”

No one would argue that Christians should live separate from sin, but the solution is not to live separate from sinners.

Jesus sure didn’t do that. He gained a reputation as a friend of sinners. He purposefully touched the unclean, hung out with the outcasts, and even entered a pagan Gentile’s home.

“Scandalous,” His critics cried. They even spread rumors that He was a glutton and a drunkard.

Did Jesus care?

Not a bit. Every time He made contact with the ones the religious culture tried to quarantine good Jews from interacting with, they were transformed.

That’s the way it was in the Jesus Movement. We didn’t separate, we penetrated. We didn’t run from sinners, we watched God run them down with His mercy and grace.

As Walter Wink put it so eloquently, “The contagion of holiness overcomes the contagion of uncleanness.”

Question: How has a false view of separation quarantined you from the very ones Jesus wants you to love in His name?

From Dave Burchett:

One of my favorite blogs is written by my friend and fellow grace-warrior, Dave Burchett. Recently he posted this paragraph exalting the power of God’s grace in our lives and our reluctance to embrace it:

“Jesus offers us so many gifts. But the one we seem to have the hardest time unwrapping is the gift of grace. The gift that allows us to become who God desires us to become as we simply trust Him and quit trying to be “good” for goodness sake. We are saved by grace and faith in Christ. We become like Him by the same radical strategy. Faith that He has changed us into a new creation. And understanding the grace that gives us good gifts even when we don’t deserve them.” daveburchett.com/archive/2009/12/16/8038.aspx

Wait a Minute Here!

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