The One

I get really disappointed sometimes because I don’t hear very much about Jesus in evangelical circles. We talk about what we should and shouldn’t do, but we don’t talk that much about Jesus. I believe that growing in faith means getting to know Jesus better. I think if that happens, the rest takes care of itself. I don’t mean to say that we should not try to be good people, but I think when we focus so much on rooting out sin and doing good, we lose our focus on Jesus.

Jesus is the one who roots out sin and does good through us. Paul talks in Galatians about how he died and Christ lives in him. I think if that happens, we will do the right things. We focus so much on what we should be doing, we forget that Christ has done it, is still doing it, and will do it through us if we let him. Jesus is the one who changes us. We do not need more education or tips on how to live the Christian life. We need Jesus.

What God thinks

One of the reasons that the gospel doesn’t make sense to us is that we have to accept the fact that we might be wrong about ourselves. The fact that God loves us despite our frailty and despite our self-hatred is difficult to grasp. It goes against everything we know. We love others because they’re cute and nice. God loves us because he is love.

So, we might have to accept that what others say about us is wrong. We might even have to admit that what we say about ourselves is wrong, even though we profess to know ourselves quite well. God has the final say about who we are and how much value we have.

There’s this Brennan Manning book where he’s talking about this very idea and he quotes a line from the movie Apocalypse Now: “The only real freedom is freedom from the opinions of others, even freedom from the opinion of yourself.” The apostle Paul takes hold of the same idea in 1 Corinthians 4:3-4: “I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.” The truth that we grasp at as Christians is that because of Jesus, we are judged worthy. God has the final say on our worth and because he is love, we can trust his say and not anyone else’s – not even our own.

People of Love

It seems that what God tells us to do is to love each other. That is the mark of a Christian and that is Jesus’ command to us. The sign of a healthy church is one that lives in community and is united. The problem is that to do that, we have to be willing to give up more than one day a week. John says, in 1 John 3:16-18, “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.”

Laying down your life for other people takes a lot of time. You could help people in need all day long. Actually acting in love rather than just saying it is much more involved. The early church members in Acts apparently met together daily. They were in constant community and sold their possessions to provide for one another.

Our commitment to each other seems to be something we do on a convenient basis. We often treat our church membership as we do a country club membership or some other community activity. We are involved in our work, our family, our hobbies and our commitment to the church is something lumped on top of that. Now, I’m not saying we should all quit our jobs and go to church all day, but I think we could start honoring the commitments we’ve made to be people of love everywhere– at our jobs, in our families, and in our other activities.

Offending the right people

I read this morning in some article that one of the biggest problems evangelical theology is facing today is pluralism – the view that there is not just one way to God or salvation, but many. Biblical theology flies in the face of anyone who says that there are many gods or that there are many ways to God. It’s almost like many people view Christians as elitist because we say that Jesus is the only way to God.

Now I believe that Jesus is the only way to God, but if we’re not careful, we start to think that “the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing” (1 Corinthians 1:18) because God is elitist, too. We might start thinking that God only wants to save certain people and not others, but I believe what 1 Peter 3:9 says, that God is “not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” It’s true that God will not save us if we do not repent, but the “offense of the cross,” that Paul talks about in Galatians 5:11 is that Jesus died for everyone. The people who are offended by that are those that believe that they have done something to deserve God’s favor. There is nothing any of us have done to deserve God’s love. We only receive it when we admit we are powerless to save ourselves. The cross is offensive to those who are elitist – those who think they should be saved and others should be condemned. Jesus is the only way, but what Jesus did, he did for all. The cross is offensive because God’s love is so ridiculously big and grace is for all.

Joy

Sometimes I can’t tell by looking at Christians whether God wants us to be happy or miserable. I think God wants us to have good lives. There is quite a bit in the Bible about suffering, but Jesus does say that he came that we may have life and have it to the full. The thing is, I don’t think that means that we are always going to be happy.

But, I don’t think people are after perpetual pleasure. I think people naturally understand that in order for life to be fulfilling, we have to do some suffering. It’s the suffering that makes the overcoming so satisfying. It’s when people don’t think there will be an end to the suffering, or there is no way to deal with the suffering that they get discouraged and depressed. That’s when people start looking to keep themselves happy whatever it takes.

I’m a Christian because I think God has the answers to the big questions. I think Jesus speaks to the human condition. The problem is that we often think that God is only concerned with our eternal souls. We are so concerned with whether or not we are going to go to heaven in the future, we forget that God wants us to live full lives and help others live full lives now. I don’t think God wants us to be happy all the time. Happiness is overrated. And I don’t think that God will take away suffering because he knows what suffering produces. I do think that he wants us to love our lives and that comes through struggle.

Spirituality

I don’t think our spirituality is safe from our humanness. Yes, we are very human in every pursuit. There is always a voice in our heads that is evaluating, comparing, and judging others. It’s that voice that often convinces us that we can be “better” than other people and by “better,” I mean more “spiritual.”

Grace is the great leveling force, though. God does not offer grace based on who deserves it. That’s kind of the point of grace.

There is this song by Sufjan Stevens about John Wayne Gacy, Jr., Chicago’s infamous serial killer. Sufjan describes in intense detail Gacy’s horrific acts, and despite its subject matter, it is quite a pretty song. The best part, though, is the final lines: “In my best behavior, I am really just like him/look beneath the floorboards for the secrets I have hid.”

We get to thinking sometimes that there are things of which we’re not capable. Among them are usually rape, murder, and child abuse. It’s usually people that have done those things that we compare ourselves to and start feeling good about where we are. But realizing that we are just as guilty as killers if we are spiteful or prideful is the first step to true spirituality. It is the first step to realizing who we are and who God is. We are sinners and the more fully we understand our own brokenness, the more we will understand the depth of the grace God offers us.

The truth about you

Boy, we Christians are really bent on separating ourselves from the world and in the process, separating ourselves from the truth. Did you ever notice that there’s all this stuff you can’t do while you’re at church? You can’t cuss, you can’t smoke, and when you roll into the parking lot, you have to turn down your music. Even if that’s all stuff you do normally, it’s not kosher at church. And it’s not all that kosher to talk about all the other times you’ve sinned, either.

There’s something wrong when we can be ourselves in other places, but we get tense when we go to church. In trying to be so Christian, we forget about the importance of truth. Christians seem real big on truth – about doctrine, about God – until you start talking about the truth about yourself. You can’t tell the truth about some of the stuff you’ve done because at the very least you’ll make people feel uncomfortable. Or you might “make people stumble” or “ruin your testimony.” We forget that we have ruined our testimony by being phony.

Now, I’m not saying that we should all run around church trying to be provocative or doing things just because we can. “Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial.” (1 Cor. 10:23) But I am saying that church should be a place where people can be honest. We wonder how we can produce transformation, but we require that people are already transformed when they get to us.

The truth is important. Let’s be people of the truth.