Have you noticed that, for some people, God’s personality is mysteriously similar to theirs? Sometimes, if we’re dead set on getting our way, the way we see God’s will is going to magically line up with our will. He wants you to have that big house that overextends your budget because God wants the best for you and, darn it, you deserve it. God does think you’re being persecuted because people disagree with you, and it’s not at all because you have zero tact and a big mouth. You see, that kind of thing is not Christianity, that’s just us having an imaginary friend to justify our lousy behavior.

faith sanctification

10:21:00 PM

We Christians love to talk about good works, as if the sanctity of the entire universe were hinging on us making sure that everyone knows they need to be good as often as possible. We have strapped on our gun and badge and made it our sacred duty to secure the world from… well, knowing what most of us already know. 

But we’re not the moral police, we’re the love philanthropists. 

judgment sanctification

12:04:00 PM

A recent study suggested that those who were trying to reach a healthier goal of some sort tended to indulge more. Those who fill their carts with kale and cucumbers (and snap pictures to post on social media) will likely also grab a few bottles of wine or a tub of ice cream as well. Why? Because we crave balance. And the more extreme we are in one direction, we will be so in the other. However, those who simply decided to live a healthy lifestyle had more success. I think there’s a spiritual application there. As Christians, we’re often told that we need to get better and do better. We’re shown perfection as our standard, in much the same way dieters are shown airbrushed muscle-bound men, and leggy photoshopped blondes, and we struggle to reach the unreachable.

There’s only so much struggle a mind can take before it needs rest. A hard day’s work or a deep conversation will need to be balanced with a nice nap or a quiet evening alone. For the moralistic Christian, those breaks aren’t things like enjoying a good book or prayerfully meditating, they’re deep indulgence in that which we have very tediously been trying to avoid. Because our goal is impossible perfection, our failures often involve bottoming out.

A Big Difference

When you’re trying to live morally, all you tend to care about is how your actions make you feel and how they appear to others. You want to get your God-card stamped so you can feel good about your religiosity. Whereas if your faith is less of something akin to a quarterly earnings report and more of a move toward changing who you are, you’ll become more and more concerned with others and how to love them.

Because a Christian lifestyle isn’t about doing, it’s about being.

When I see someone who used to be generally unhealthy suddenly bragging about their newfound healthy ways, I’m a) very happy for them, but b) also a little worried for them. While a little pride isn’t the problem, truth doesn’t tend to have to convince everyone it’s true. It just exists truthfully. I feel the same way about morality. If you’re always trying to convince me how moral you are and passive-aggressively attempting to make me feel guilty for not being in the same place, I wonder who it is you’re trying to convince. What is it that you’re afraid of?

A Life of Quiet Love

The kindest followers of Christ, the people who have had the most impact on me, have been the quietest about their successes and the most humbly honest about their failures. Their left hand doesn’t know that their right hand gave. They are far more concerned with finding an angle to love their enemies than they are with trying to fix or shame them. They are, in short, living love, not trying to be perfect.

Jesus, in his infinite wisdom and love, gave us that perfection through his sacrifice on the cross so that we, in our infinite sinful indulgence, could be redeemed and, by his Spirit, be more like him, without fear that we won’t be enough. Because he was enough in our place.

-Chad

sanctification

12:48:00 PM

There are two types of righteousness in the Christian faith. Martin Luther labeled these two as passive and active. Passive is the righteousness that we receive from God. We do nothing to receive it. Active righteousness is our good works, overflowing from a thankful heart, a new heart created in us by God through a new will empowered by God’s Holy Spirit.

Now, I get that good works is a frightening phrase for those of you who have been beat up by the concept of working your way into God’s favor. But this is not that. And when you realize that our good works don’t fit into the category of passive righteousness—the means by which we have once-and-for-all earned God’s acceptance—then you see you aren’t doing good works as some kind of payment to God. You are doing them because you belong to God. That new heart and God’s Spirit within you are working in tandem to make us more like our Father. As Luther put it, “God doesn’t need your good works, but your neighbors does.”

That may not be a knowledge explosion for you, it may not set you back on your heels, but I grew up with a checklist of things I needed to be doing better in order to appease God. 

I’ll be kinder—check. 

I’ll give more—check. 

I’ll go to church more often—check. 

So, the idea that works aren’t currency is mind-boggling for me. To think that what we label “good works” is just another name for responding to the passive love from God we’ve received, letting it pour over onto the lives of those around us, like a big, beautiful exploding volcano of joy, an ocean of mercy, a world of love, by the power of God’s Spirit within us, takes the pressure off.

I no longer feel as though I'd better love or else, it’s I get to love in my daily life by taking advantage of opportunities that God set up in advance for me, and empowers me to do. And by get to love, I don’t mean that I’ve neurotically convinced myself it’s a great thing. It means that I’ve been loved so hard that I really, really want to love others like my God loves me.

sanctification

5:32:00 PM

I get tired of people telling me to be a better Christian.

I was watching an old episode of Seinfeld the other day and the gang was talking about going to funerals. Jerry hated going because it always made him feel like he ought to do more with his life, but then—when he tried—he couldn’t figure out what more he could be doing. I know… It was a Seinfeld reference, you were expecting a punch-line. But the joke part is kind of on us.

I wish every one of us could experience the thrill of something akin to climbing Everest—or whatever exciting thing you and I believe is going to give our life some final kind of extra meaning. Because it’s worth it to feel the exhilaration of finishing something spectacular and then quickly realizing that it didn’t add poop to your worth. The mountain won’t remember you. It won’t give one fudge about the strips of skin or drops of blood you left on its face. It’ll just keep on mountain-ing, not caring that you climbed it. And you’ll be busy looking for the next thing.

But that’s not bad news. It’s good news.

Think about every single thing that you crave. Every well-formed body you wish to experience, all the cookies, drink or illicit substances you want to stuff into your body. That new car, the bigger house. They’re never enough. As soon as the experience of having them is done, and the initial elation is over, you’re searching for that next thing. The better thing.

Nothing completely satisfies.

That’s the bad news.

 

The good news is that we can stop our frantic search for better.

What’s generally meant by being a better Christian is meeting the useless expectations others have duct-taped onto the Christian faith. Don’t watch those movies. Don’t read those books. Don’t listen to that music. Don’t go there, do that or touch that. I mean, don’t be an idiot, but don’t believe the lie that something is useless unless some religious nut condones it who thinks he knows how to live the Christian life better than you. (Col. 2:20-23)

 

A big part of why we have these rules—that are more preference than perfection—is because we want our faith to be about us.

Sometimes, when a community is raising money for something, they’ll put up a big sign with a thermometer on it, showing how much money has been raised towards the goal. That’s how most of us picture the Christian faith. Perfection is just hanging out at the top, waiting for us to get there. When we feel like we’re doing really well, we proudly show our thermometers to others with the insinuation that they should be more like us. When we’re aware of our failure to even come close to perfection we become discouraged and ashamed.

 

Perfection isn’t a scale, it’s a state of being.

 

You don’t get closer to it. You either are perfect or you are not. It’s not something you achieve every once in a while. Perfection has to be maintained non-stop. (Jas. 2:10)

 

So, you’ve got two choices in the religion game. You can follow the Law (which leads to death—2 Cor 3:6) or you can accept God’s unconditional acceptance.

 

What I’m saying is that you can’t do it. You can’t become a better Christian. Although, counterintuitively, in living a life of trust, walking by faith, you will start to look more like God because of His Spirit.

Besides, perfection was given to us because of Jesus. Now, getting better isn't the main point at all. It's having a relationship with the Father who ceaselessly sought you out.



Photo used under CC

Christian Life sanctification

3:20:00 PM

They keep telling me I’m forgiven. A choir of trumpet-wielding Angels could sing the message to me in three-part harmony and I'd tell them I'd have to think about it. But sometimes it sneaks up on me. The message finds its way through the maze of pride in my crinkly brain and sets up shop. Then I wonder why I ever questioned, what I ever thought could be better than full acceptance based on the work of another—Jesus himself.

That lasts about a day. 

It's a vicious cycle.

I start wanting to do something in return. That's not a bad thing, mind you. That's where it should come from--a response of love to an act of ultimate love. We love him because he first loved us, and all that. It's the part where my perfectionism starts me rolling back down that hill, Jack and Jill style. Then I need to hear the gospel all over again.

Vicious.

I know, I’m neurotic. But that’s what makes sense to me. It seems illogical for me to be less than perfect, even if I’m loved no matter how badly I screw it up. Because then I feel like I’m just phoning it in. I'm taking advantage of God's grace. But then I fail and fail and fail. I feel like one of those ropes that dogs tug on, and there’s a bulldog on both ends and neither will let go.

Really vicious.

That’s been a recurring theme in my life since I became a Christian. God tells me to trust him, and I'm like, "No, I totally got this, man." I feel like Rocky in that first movie—where he lost—getting knocked down by the bigger, stronger, faster and better boxer of my own sin. Eyes swelling shut, I keep getting up. My pride won't let me do anything less. I get a few good punches in and the bell rings. Sweet mercy. I can call a day. I can say I’ve had enough. Where’s that towel? All I can think about is rest (and maybe those few good punches), but when the next round starts, I find myself rising, stumbling toward failure. Bell after damnable bell, I fight, until I'm done.

But I don’t win Apollo Creed’s grudging respect. I don’t get the girl. I don't get an adoring crowd. I get nothing. I’m bloodied and beaten and I’ve lost. Because I tried to do it myself.

All that said, I admire the irrational need I have to be perfect. I see it as some misguided outcome of my sanctification. A twisted desire to move more quickly into purification. So it’s a go… What’s that? It’s pride? –Laughs dismissively- It’s not pride. It’s just…

Crap.

Yeah… it's pride.

Here’s the thing: I do know we're not capable of achieving perfection. It’s literally like thinking that if you try hard enough you can fly. And I’m not using hyperbole. No exaggeration here. I mean that. Literally. Because, if you’re like me, you don’t always fully grasp that this is exactly how far we are from achieving perfection.

Not possible.

But I still try to do it alone.

I want to add a but. Yeah, I know it’s impossible, but It doesn’t hurt to try. No, it doesn’t hurt to try. Not at all. Not if you love being mentally and physically drained, feeling like a failure and finally running away because you can’t go on anymore.

That’s the other option. Seriously.

God didn’t come and live a sinless life and die a sinner’s death as some sort of backup plan. Drastic measures highlight a drastic need. That need is ours. While what God wants is perfect, it can’t be done by us. It had to be done for us.

But I still try to do it myself. 

And, so, for the billionth time I will, with a sour stomach and aching head, go to God and ask him what he wants me to do. How I can please him. Maybe I'll listen this time when his reply to me is the same as the one he gave to those who asked in John 6:28-29: “Then they said to him, ‘What must we do, to be doing the works of God?’ Jesus answered them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.’” 

Apart from him. I can't do it. And that hurts.

So, while my ego is left shredded on the floor at the knowledge that even my good works are like filthy rags (Is. 64:6), he goes on, trying to get me to see the hope in this: John 15:4: “Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.”

My will. My strength. Worthless apart from him. (John 15:5)

BUT... 

When I let him love me, in that love I find myself changed. You will too. You’ll find that you love more and forgive more easily. You’ll have strange bouts of patience and find yourself giggling at inappropriate times. Because, as a branch, you got nothing. But when we're connected to the Vine, we grow and produce good fruit.

It’s not guilt that guides us. It isn’t shame that pushes us toward the finish line. It is love that constrains us. (2 Cor. 5:14)  Stop putting all your energy into yourself and start putting your trust in Jesus. Anything else...

Impossible.

But, with God…

Photo used under CC

sanctification

10:31:00 PM

I wish you knew how hard it was for me to write about grace. After years and years of being told how I needed to work harder to please God, it’s like learning to write with my left hand.

Every day, I need to remind myself what it means to live in God’s grace. I can feel the pull to moralize at every turn. I want to tell you to stop your sinning and be better for goodness sakes! Act like an adult! Act like a man! Don’t be a skank! Why haven’t you been to church lately? Are you reading your bible? Early morning prayers are the best! Ten percent or you’re robbing God!

There. I feel better. What’s worse is, I’m not kidding—I kind of do. Because it feels good to be a moralistic blowhard. It feels good to point out your flaws so authoritatively. Kind of makes me feel superior and it actually makes my sins seem a little further away, a bit smaller.

Wow, that’s neurotic.

But, I get it. The guilt can be overwhelming.

But the truth is better than my sinful projecting of my guilt onto you to make me feel better. The truth is that Christianity isn’t Chuck E. Cheese. I don’t have to work really, really hard and earn enough tickets to claim a tiny bit of God’s love.

He already loves us.

As a matter of fact, if you belong to Him, you are like a tree planted next to clear, pure water. Any fruit you manage isn’t because you tried really hard or read the bible in a year. It’s because you stayed put, next to God. You trusted that he has given you all you need, and that he’s already pleased with you because of his child.

Your job is to bask in his love, and let that love change you. 

Image by enmanuel used under CC

sanctification

10:45:00 PM