As a Christian, we can’t quite bridge the divide between sharing our faith and living it. It’s like a playwright wondering if advertising for actors to be in his play is as important as putting it on. James get a bad rap as a theological wet blanket, but this is all he was saying. Faith without works is meaningless. Not that works earn faith, but that they are a natural evidence of it. Because of God’s Spirit working in us to will and do, we will do. But what does that look like?

For some, their faith is a very personal thing. It’s about them being angry less, gossiping less, reading their bible more, or sharing their faith more. That’s all good stuff, but faith isn’t a straw through which we sip ourselves into morality. It is a non-stop fire hose that fills us to running over. In other words, love soaks us, but it also gets all over every nearby. Being around a Christian should be like sitting in the first three rows at Sea World. You should expect to get wet. 

The Mysterious Answer 

God’s love in us creates not only an empathy and kindness toward the needs and hurts of individuals, but a growing passion for anyone in need. The oppressed, the defenseless, the poor and the lonely. The marginalized, that can’t do anything for society, will generally be ignored by society. But our eyes should be locked onto them, our feet running toward them. Why? Because love is alive.

The message of the gospel—which is Jesus’ death and life for all sinners—shouldn’t be something we share out of duty. It should be the but, of course outcome to lives of love. It is the mysterious answer to our lives of hope. It is the truth that snaps the chains of our bondage to serve ourselves, so that we may serve God in serving others. 

Overwhelming Need 

There’s so much need out there that it’s overwhelming. Who do I help? How can I possibly help one without helping them all? To bring it home: which starving child’s mouth do I feed to the neglect of another. I feel Foer’s words: “Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living.” But instead of running away because we know we can’t possibly carry the entire weight of the world, we can stand right where we are.

We can love those we come into direct contact with. Those in the first three rows of our lives. Not only should we give to organizations or individuals who are working on those larger problems as we have the ability, our love should spread like a vine, holding those around us. We have family, friends, co-workers and total strangers we pass by daily to whom we can open our hearts. A helping hand, open ears, hearts that are willing to enter into the pain of others, and eyes willing to stay open in the midst of the uncomfortable reality of the others hurt.

It’s all, we will find, part of sharing the gospel. The literal saving message of Jesus for sinners is primary, but the loving works it produces as an example of the type of love that we’ve learned from God is unavoidable. And they will create questions that can only be answered by the gospel.


-Chad West

Featured The Gospel witnessing

1:51:00 PM

Jesus said that his followers are to be a city on a hill; a light that’s not hidden (Matt 5:14). He goes on to define that light as good works that bring glory to God (v. 15). We, however, love to redefine that light as other things. Things that don’t bring all that much glory to God.

The Light of My Self-Righteousness

We pick on the Pharisees a lot. But they aren’t there to point at and shake our heads in arrogant dismay. They’re a picture of what we humans do to the message of Jesus. We make it about us.

Christians, as do all broken humans when presented with an area in which we’re failing, will look at the sins of others as an excuse. Like the holy roller praying in the temple who saw the sinner next to him and thanked God he wasn’t like him (Lk 18:9-14), we are “confident of [our] own righteousness and look down on everyone else” (v. 9).

I don’t want to face the areas in which I fail spectacularly, so I point to those outside the church and talk about the sins they commit. I make a show of how I’m not a drunk, or an addict, or gay. None of that, if you think about it, accomplishes anything except to prove how "righteous" I am compared to another.

And the light goes out.

Talking a heck of a lot about what we’re against isn’t good works. It isn’t anything, in fact, but a smokescreen of pride.

The Light of Our Good Example

The whole point of being light isn’t that non-Christians will see our good works and do likewise. It isn’t to foist our niceness on the ignorant masses of mean. I know lots of people that are nicer than me, and you, too. The light is meant to bring glory to God.

We have this mixed-up idea that our faith is about sharing good morals with an immoral world. While Jesus changes the hearts of his followers, we don’t change anyone's hearts. No matter how hard we try, we can’t force anyone to love. And—and this is the important part—even if you did, it wouldn’t bring them one step closer to salvation.

Light... snuffed.

Paul is hopping mad at the Galatian in chapter 3 of his letter to the church there because they’ve started making their faith about them instead of God. He says, “I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?” (vv. 2-3).

If I guilt you into acting better or even emotionally manipulate you into saying a prayer, what have I accomplished? Is salvation mental assent to the idea of being a good person or even believing there’s a god? No way! The demons know that much to be true (Jas 2:19). Salvation comes from faith in Jesus alone for our salvation.

True Light

The light of our love toward our neighbors doesn’t come from us. It is a side-effect of being a child of God. People do nice things all the time—some because they want to be seen as the kind of person who does nice things, others because they want a pat on the back, and others still because they’re just actually nice people. But the kind of love that Jesus is talking about is supernatural.

Supernatural love that brings glory to God is self-sacrificial, expects nothing in return, and gives simply because God has changed the heart of the giver into one more like Himself.  

(Excuse me... I need some sunglasses.)

Featured witnessing

1:44:00 PM

We Christians want to change the world.

We feel as though it’s our calling, nay, our right to give this butt-ugly planet a makeover with our sterling religious principles. And I don’t disagree that the world is a mess. It’s an entire bottle of grape juice on an expensive white couch in your boss’s house. Your ex-boyfriend calling because he wants his Zeppelin album back when the serial killer is just about to walk past you unawares. A disaster of tremendous proportion with terrible consequences. 

Problem is, no one can seem to agree about what that change should look like, or how to accomplish it.

Well, Jesus, people answer. And it’s a tight Sunday School answer, I’ll give you that. How can a religious-minded person of the haloed variety disagree when another Christian plays the Jesus card. You don’t, is what you do. You fold. …But, before I do that—at the risk of lightning to the face—I’ll ask you the question of what Jesus looks like.

I only ask because I hear so many varying views. Sometimes he’s cackling as he runs down the street with a posse of angels, cold-cocking the wicked, and other times he’s too busy telling his followers how to be happy and successful to bother with sin. He’s all about each man owning his weight in weapons and wiping out his enemies, or wiping the sweat off his brow after a long day of turning AK’s and scimitars into plowshares.

Exactly which Jesus do we want the world to look like?

The Problem of People

Then there’s the other people. I’ll be honest here and tell you that I’m not that big a fan of people. I mean, I like myself pretty well, and can occasionally stand people who are like me, as well as people who agree with my profundity as a general rule. But I don’t like you all that much. That’s kind of our thing as Americans—individuality. Heck, it’s kind of our thing as human beings. Even people who belong to the same group, with vastly similar beliefs—such as Christians—can’t seem to get along well enough to decide on a new color of carpet, let alone solving the puzzle of a complex society steeped in sin.

Everybody Wants to Rule the World

People like me want to make the world into people like me. We think it would be a better place where others had logical conversations and cared about whether their opinions were based on fact or low-rent rhetoric. We’d also be more civil than you jackholes. (Even now—even though I know I’m being sarcastic—that sounds like a grand place.) But, that’s how deluded I am in sin.

In reality, I flatter myself. It would truly be a world full of neurotic, apologizing citizens who would rather read a book or watch a cartoon than interact with one another. Fixing potholes would get put off until tomorrow, school would be mostly art classes with no sports or math, and the world would be ruled by a counsel of gingers who were too polite to disagree with one another. Chaos.

That’s you too, by the way. So there’s no wonder we can’t change the world. We may all look at ourselves, and the crowd of heads nodding in agreement that we’ve surrounded ourselves with, as stable people with good ideas. But as good as those ideas may be, they’ll be forever tainted with our self-righteousness, indecision, and anxiety over what those nodding heads will think of us if we go against the grain even once. We can’t even implement God’s good and loving laws without corrupting them with our agendas, selfishness, and arrogance.

So, how do we change the world? Good question.

Living a Radically Normal Life

Maybe we let Jesus speak for himself. Tell us who he is. Jesus talked about loving our neighbors, and our enemies. His disciples learned to think of the needs of others as just as important as theirs. There was talk of giving with no expectation of return. Not showing preference to the rich or powerful, but treating everyone as equals. He even died for the ungodly, offering his righteousness to his unrighteous enemies (us).

I feel guilty because I’m not a missionary or whatever. But it could be that what I do every day, keeping in mind what Jesus and his followers did and said, I’m doing my part in changing the world. If I faithfully care for those God puts in my daily life, do my job as if I were working for God, and treat my enemies like dear friends, I will have the opportunity to share the good news—Christ for the sinner. Sinners like me.

I’m not trying to do the impossible task of making heaven on earth by passing laws to adjust the behaviors of all to my liking, but I’m living out the love of Jesus. In the job I have, in the town in which I live, among the people I naturally encounter, I reach out to the needy, the hurting, the poor, the lonely, and the angry with the love of God. Speaking it is finished into the lives of all who will listen. That's the mission.


-Chad West

Engaging Culture witnessing

8:00:00 PM

I stopped my thoughts before they escaped into words, checking their pockets for hidden slights or contraband foolishness. I might not even say them at all... Just to be safe. There was too much chance they might offend. And who knows what would happen to the eternal soul of some poor listener if I unwittingly ruined the Good News of God with some imperfect pronunciation?

My actions went through the same rigor. I scrupulously weighed them in light of how they might affect my witness to God. I had come to believe that I was the only bible some people would ever read, and that weight was enormous. In my mind, how well I seemed to keep the imperatives of the bible (and those inferred and tacked on by various other Christians for good measure) was indicative of how many people I could lead to Jesus. 

I wish someone had told me that my goodness wasn’t the Good News. 

Moralism The Gospel witnessing

4:05:00 PM

If I didn’t know God; if I were among those who hadn’t tasted the Bread of Life and so knew the upside-down wonderfully crazy love of Jesus, I know I wouldn’t want to be a part of this religion. I see it just like everyone else—the hate and anger, the self-righteousness and illogically applied beliefs that counter what the bible actually says. I don’t see the Jesus I know in that stuff. I don’t experience the warmth of the fire that would draw me in from the cold, cold loneliness of the world.

So, it’s not surprising that a new Pew Report showed that people identifying as Christians is in decline. 

Christian Life witnessing

5:07:00 AM

While I’ve chosen not to practice counseling for the time being I still have all that training and even some real-world practice under my belt. So people know that and, frankly, they will occasionally get a little weird around me. I think that's because people are scared of being found out and judged. 

The same sort of thing happened when I was a pastor. You sometimes got the feeling that people were not altogether comfortable being around a religious professional (whatever that means).

My point is that we’re all, religious or not, kind of scared of being found out and/or judged. But  that's fairly rare on the counselor side. It wasn’t rare at all as a pastor. In fact, judgment seemed to be the primary expectation of religious people from others.

I did my best to disabuse people of that idea (which didn’t always sit well with the more starchy pants-wearing church members). But it’s a surprising thing to watch what happens when you treat people who are used to being judged and dismissed as if they matter just as much as Charlie Churchmember (sounds Dutch) who shows up every Sunday.

Because, you know, they are just as important. 

Christian Life witnessing

11:12:00 PM

Christians are a worrying lot. One of the things we worry about lately is that our culture is becoming more secular. It is. You can stop worrying. While that will create some unique challenges for us, we’ll manage. But, that doesn’t change the fact that we are still really worried about this. And it’s not just the loons in the family this time. It’s the, ahem, respectable among us, too.

In fact, what stirred this up for me was this guy I respect a lot saying something that I didn’t really agree with. His comment, to me, is representative of a larger, wrong-headed idea about evangelism and dealing with those outside of the church.

It’s the End of the World as We Know It…

The comment was in response to the question of what he thought one of the greatest challenges we’re facing in evangelism was. He responded that we are talking past each other because our common ground is being lost. It was a quick response and I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that he meant something different. However, that doesn’t change the fact that this echoes the worry I’ve heard a lot lately.

Well, you might ask, aren’t we losing ground? Isn’t American culture slowly realizing that they don’t believe in God and that lack of belief means they also don’t believe in morality as God defines it?

The answer is yes, but…

…And I Feel Fine.

I’ve heard a lot of people lament the fact that we used to know that, at the very least, the vast majority of those outside the family of God shared similar moral beliefs as we. Now that’s not the case. So, they are deeply concerned that if we don’t have that moral common ground that we can’t even begin to talk to them about God.

But I submit that having common moral ground is beside the point.

I think the problem is that we’re focusing on the wrong things. We’re so used to the advantage of having some morals in common that we think we must have that particular advantage to talk to people outside the faith at all. It’s just not true. Because we’ve built up entire arguments based around those similar beliefs over dozens of decades doesn’t mean they’re the only arguments (or that they were particularly good in the first place.)

I simply don’t have to convince someone of my views on morality to talk to them about Jesus. We don’t have to agree on anything at all for me to talk to a fellow human being about unending redeeming love.

If Christianity was a philosophy, which we seem to believe it is, then we would totally have to convince the living heck out of people. We’d have to come up with different intricate arguments which we then used to counteract other’s dubious beliefs and make sure that we are well-prepared to give an answer for the totally logical argument we have within.

But it’s not a philosophy. Christianity is about a person. (Notice the prefix.) Jesus Christ. God among us. The Prince of Peace.

So, the idea that we are losing common ground is somewhat of a silly notion. At least, to me. I think it comes from a false premise, namely that we need some type of philosophical mutual understanding to talk to people about Jesus. If you want common ground—love without strings and sincere friendships are universal common ground, and I detest the idea that this would be considered a simplistic answer.

God’s Spirit and the visible love of Jesus on our behalf are plenty truth to go around.

If anything, I think it is in fact Christians who tend to lose common ground with Jesus.

(Live Studio Audience says, “Oooooh.”)

The conversation we have been very publically having with the world at large has been about morality, and not Jesus. Therein lies the problem. We have somehow confused what the Bible says with what we’re more comfortable with. We’ve made ethics an idol, when it is God himself who changes us by virtue of being in a relationship with him.

If you’re looking for common philosophical ideas, your boat is sunk. Thankfully, Jesus isn't even a little nervous.



Photo used under CC

culture witnessing

9:00:00 PM

We think it’s about doing things. I mean, consider one of the most popular (I’m doing that quote thing with my fingers) movements of the last few decades: WWJD? Let’s be honest, that was about not lusting and giving it back when you got too much change, or not getting so angry at that horrible driver. That’s all good stuff to shoot for in life, but Jesus is so much bigger than you and I not being such a jerk. But, like that silly fad, we latch onto such things whole hog.

If those bracelets, shirts and lapel pins had any real power, the poor would find themselves better off, the outcasts would find a safe-haven in church and the world wouldn’t be shaking their heads at us about our self-righteous politics, but at our insane concept of thinking of the weak, disenfranchised and openly sinful as just as important as ourselves.

Our problem isn’t our desire to be better, it’s the poor reach of our imaginations. 

We can’t think past ourselves. We can’t seem to think past the socially unacceptable peccadilloes of our particular denominations or personal belief systems. We so focus on sin that we forget that it has been paid for in full by our God and what that means beyond our superficial worries about things like cigarettes and too-tight yoga pants.

It means letting God ridiculously love others through us who show no love (because we are loved even when we turn our backs on Jesus.)

It means allowing God to inspire generosity toward those who might not deserve it (because riches were poured over us at our least deserving.)

It means trusting God to provoke in us radical kindness to the most sinful people we know (because God was radically kind to us at our worst.)

Sometimes, we despise ourselves because of our sin. Other times we despise others in which we see sin. Neither is helpful or particularly Christian. When we see the weak-willed, the cheaters, the speakers of broken theology, the thieves and the sexually promiscuous, we shouldn’t then look away in disgust. We should see reflections of ourselves—those for whom Christ died. They should stir in us, by God’s grace, a great compassion that moves us to love.

We should ask ourselves what good it does to attack the non-Christians due to their sin? What becomes of the world if we change its laws to match our fastidious moral natures? That world fades and dies. A footnote in a long history of poorly chosen wars the Christian church has chosen to fight. But the men and women we love by God's power, without measure, those we forgive the unforgiveable (because that’s what Christ does for us), those whom we speak life into—now we’re talking about Eternity. 

Photo used under CC

Christian Life Moralism witnessing

9:00:00 PM

I have opinions. I love my opinions. I mean, I have a blog and a Twitter account that I type my shinier thoughts into regularly. And while It’s possible that all this opinion-sharing has something to do with deep-seated narcissism or some neurotic cry for the world to notice me (Love me, world!) there are a few things that I try my best not to talk about. As full of myself as I obviously am, I do attempt a modicum of restraint on things I feel will unnecessarily drive people away from Jesus.

As a follower of Christ, it’s easy to lose perspective...

And, sometimes, it's worth keeping it to yourself.

We have these varying beliefs about life, and the things we think are important.

That’s cool.

Some people are conservative and some people are liberal, some are vegetarians, others are unapologetic carnivores, some like chocolate chips, others like raisin oatmeal coo…

No, that’s too far, those particular people are probably not even saved… Raisins… Anyway, my point is: we’re an eclectic bunch with a variety of thoughts on various matters. (I mean, who thinks that’s an acceptable alternative to chocolate?) And variety among believers is totally acceptable. It’s part of what makes us unique parts of the same body. I’m not a cookie-cutter Christian kind of guy. (…They look so much like chocolate chips before you bite into them. It’s why I have trust issues!) But, despite your differing ideas, if you follow Jesus, you follow Jesus first and foremost.

PUTTING OUR RIGHTS IN OUR BACK POCKET

Before departing for Heaven, Jesus told his followers to go and “make disciples of all the nations.” (Matthew 28:19, NASB) We’re all pretty familiar with that, and we may even be passing familiar with Paul saying, “I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some” (1 Corinthians 9:22b).

We just don’t adhere to it.

Here, Paul is finding common ground with unbelievers, suppressing his rights so as not to put anything in the way of the Message of Hope. I don’t think that sits well with us sometimes. We well remember that we’re supposed to tell the world about Jesus, but we are real jackholes about it. And, as someone has said, the truth without love ceases to be the truth.

Jesus himself said that the greatest commandment, the one that he said sums up all of the Law and everything the Prophets said was to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind,” (Mt 22:37, NLT) and that the second commandment was similar, in that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. So if love is the theme in being a Christian, sharing the Good News in  love always means that others souls are more important than us or our opinions.

THIS MIGHT BE HARD TO HEAR...

But we must stand firm, you say. We must speak the truth about sin to the lost! Pass legislation to ban gay marriage and strip clubs, and keep prayer in schools! What if none of those things are our business?

...I know a lot of you just made a scrunchy face and said, “What?” out loud, but if you believe something to the contrary, you—like me for many years—were living bad teaching. Stick with me here. It’s as simple as one verse in one chapter:

1 Corinthians 5. In this chapter, the writer is clearing up a miscommunication with the church in Corinth. He starts off by saying that he’d told them not to associate with immoral people. That’s where most of us stop. Apparently, so did the Corinthians. But he goes on to explain he didn’t mean all immoral people. We’d have to leave the planet if that were the case. He meant immoral Christians. Then, he says IT in verse 12. “For what have I to do with judging outsiders?” That’s God’s job, he says.

So, what’s our job, then?

He continues, “Do you not judge those who are within the church? But those who are outside, God judges.” Do you feel a heavy something-or-other sliding off your shoulders?

I did.

I thought, “You mean, I don’t have to be the world’s mother? I don’t have to feel bad if I’m not stuffing morality down their throats?” I was flabbergasted, and then I realized something. I realized what my job is as a Christian—to love my neighbor as myself (Mk 12:31).

IT'S REALLY, REALLY GOOD NEWS

We spend a lot of time trying to fit a square peg into a round hole—attempting to get non-believers to act upon our religious ideas and personal morality when they don’t believe in God and so have no interest in our religious ideas or, perhaps, our idea of morality. It’s like trying to teach poodles how to fly. They have no desire to do so and grow angry at the person throwing them out the window. So, put down your cudgel and reach out to your abortionist neighbor. Offer a hot meal to that foul-mouthed young lady at the park. Hold the door open for the guy who thinks you’re a pushy, arrogant nut. He might be right. Show them Jesus, not your latest blog post against… all the things.

Here’s the thing, because of Jesus’ sacrifice, when God looks at Christians, he doesn’t see our sin—he sees the completely forgiven son or daughter that he loves. And the Bible is telling us to see the lost world in a very similar way. If it’s God’s job to judge them, then we don’t have to. We can look past their sins and see the human being for whom Christ died. We can befriend them without reservation and live out love in their lives with no strings attached and no judgment. Maybe we will earn the right to be heard. Maybe they'll have ears to hear about the God who died for them.

Maybe they will never become Christians.

That’s sad, but that needs to be okay. Because that’s not your job either. Living for God, bearing the fruit of the Spirit, and always being ready to give an answer for the Hope that you have. That’s your job. And they will ask.

So stop thinking of people in terms of their sin—that’s not cool—and see them as the humans made in God’s image that they are. Just love people, don’t debate them. The last thing we want to do is to drive people away from the Good News because of our political and social beliefs, no matter how right we feel those things are. It’s not our job to judge the lost. It’s our job to love them!

That’s freeing!

Winning an argument is never more important than a person’s immortal soul.

witnessing

9:55:00 AM