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
10:45:00 PM
I wonder what would have happened if, as a pastor, I had stood up in front of the church one Sunday and said, “I don’t want to be here. I’m tired of playing games. Pretending I’m all happy and that I’ve got Jesus in my back pocket. I don’t care about a single person here this morning. Not today. Not most days. I’d rather be in bed because I’m tired, my mind is completely drained of any helpful thoughts, and most of this sermon is cobbled together from five other crappy sermons I was too ashamed to preach in the past. Not today. …How about you?”

What if we could openly tell people our marriages are falling apart and that we’re selfish and hate admitting we’re wrong, and not worry about how they’d react? 

What would it be like if we could, without a second thought, slump down into the back pew and start weeping into our hands knowing we’d only attract fellow weepers comforting us? If we humbly laughed at our nice Sunday clothes because they were so far removed from how we really felt inside? Would the whole place erupt in a chain reaction of laughter and tears as we realized how superficial and silly we are being?

Would we finally get honest?

I want to go to a church where a doctor and a prostitute can bump into each other at the entrance like a bad dirty joke, and walk in holding hands, laughing, and nobody thinks a thing. Because they both know they're sinners. And they both know they're loved. You may believe that’s nuts. You may shake your head and remember all the Pharisees you know, and the shame in your own heart, and know it will never happen.

But it could.

It really could.

It starts with you. It starts with me. Just believing the Gospel.

We have to focus our stare on the Good News and not look away for judgmental stares or arrogant whispers or talk of our hanging out with the wrong crowd.

It’s not going to be easy. Count the costs.

             Then laugh at the costs.

A big,

breathless

belly laugh.

               Because… well, Jesus.

I struggle almost every day. Sometimes, nonstop. I doubt, I’m angry and bitter and arrogant and I struggle with my self-worth. I don’t like people very much, I lust, I have poor social skills and I’m a crappy friend sometimes.

That’s really difficult to say.

In fact, I’m just pretending, at this point, that I’m not actually going to publish this. But I’d rather chance that you see that Jesus is for the screwed up than think church is some kind of elite club for the arrogant few. And because I’m a liar to say anything different. I’m dishonest to cherry pick. I misrepresent the God of my faith to say anything less.

And, even though I don’t like people…

because of Jesus, I love you.

(Jesus is always messing up my self-righteousness)

This isn’t therapy, it’s truth. It’s professing our need for Jesus. It’s comfort for a fellow Christian and our witness to the non-Christian. “Christ died for sinners, of whom I am the worst!” I promise you, there’s someone you know, someone in your church, that’s struggling so hard right now and they think they’re alone.

And because we think it’s about us and our goodness, they’ll continue to suffer alone.

I’m not trying to make you feel guilty. Guilt doesn’t work. I’m saying, the gospel is that we aren’t alone. The gospel is that we are loved. The gospel is that our deep, abiding existential angst can be brought to the table too, because it’s not so big that God can’t handle it. It’s not too much that the blood of God’s own Son doesn’t cover it.

My point is: if there are people that are suffering alone—and there are gobs—we haven’t been honest about the Gospel. We haven’t said it right. Or maybe we’ve been saying it in a way that they haven’t understood. (Or maybe we haven’t understood.)

The thing is, we are frightened of the Good News because it frees us and—as good as that sounds—we don’t want to be completely free. We want people to tell us what to do sometimes.

We take comfort in the idea that it’s about how we look and act. Because then we can pretend to be better than we are. We don’t have to talk about our doubts. We don’t have to talk about our deep hurts. Sunday morning we can get our ego stroked. The rest of the time, we can just sit back and be moral examples to the world. But that’s just a game. That’s not real. People see right through our act, and those that don’t just walk away because they think they’re not enough. When that’s the whole point!

None of us are enough! But we’re all loved.



Photo by Kelly used under CC
11:37:00 PM

I stumbled across an article today about Mitch Hedberg, and it made me sad. A good friend of mine introduced me to Mitch a few years back. I promptly laughed, then I laughed some more, and then I found out that he had passed away. This then made me not laugh. So, now, every time I hear his simple genius (and laugh again), I am sad that he’s gone. 

Then, last night, I was introducing my fiance to a new sitcom I really liked on the Hulu. During the mandatory commercials, I saw one of the main actors in a commercial for a new show, on a different network. This got me curious, so I looked it up: cancelled. This is a brilliant time for dramas and even, one could argue, dramadies, but the sitcom is currently–with a few outstanding exceptions–trite and boring. So, it was a shame to see a show that genuinely surprised me with laughter at times, go away. But, that’s the nature of this world, isn’t it? 

Good books end, comedians die, they stop making Ding Dongs (no, seriously, that was a thing). But those people, and things, leave an indelible mark on us.
kingdingdong
Especially King Ding Dong

We are changed by that which we love. My grandmother passing away over ten years ago is still the most significant loss in my life. But her death has forced me to deeply consider her life. The fact that I miss her has made me gather up all the wonderful things about her and think about them more just for the simple reason that there will be no more.

Do I wish she were still here to take for granted?

Absolutely.

But, hi, welcome to Earth. (sigh)

So, that’s what I (try to) do. I mourn, but then I rejoice that I had that thing at all. I find satisfaction in the idea that I was added to by that thing that is no longer a part of my life. 

Whether it’s a piece of entertainment, highly processed food stuffs or a flesh-and-blood piece of my metaphoric heart. I am different in some fundamental way because those things existed near me. I choose to see it that way. 

Otherwise, I’d go mad with grief. 

I definitely wouldn’t want to have never had those experiences just because I can’t have them again. (I mean, I can’t imagine seeing rice and not thinking to myself, in Mitch's voice, “I like rice. Rice is a really great when you’re hungry and you want 2,000 of something.”) So, thanks, Mitch. And, thanks grandma. Thanks guy who invented ding dongs and cast of cancelled sitcom. 

I’m sorry you’re gone, but I’m so thankful I had you.




Photo used under CC
11:03:00 AM

I sat, in the dark, hunched over, my fingers digging into the carpet as I prayed. I was never possessed of the ability to harm myself—at least not in any way defined as suicidal—but as I sat there, quietly weeping as not to wake my parents, I asked God to end it. Just thinking about this, writing it down, all these years later, and tears come to my eyes. The experience was so existential that its emotion seems to transcend time.

PAIN DEFINES US

In ways I don’t even understand, I am defined by the experience leading up to, and after that night. In ways that are both negative and positive, parts of my core personality were birthed out of that experience. Most certainly empathy, but also an unfortunate inclination for relating peace with drawing away from others.

I’m not sure about you, but I suspect you’re a lot like me in that when you look back over your life, the bad looms over the good, making it difficult to see it in its shadow. Our proclivity toward pessimism defines us as well.

A young man with a joyous outlook on life became an angry adult, tasked with fixing the world and its idiocy, only to become embittered by the fact that I could not change a single soul. I became so afraid of my feelings—so crushed by the world and my faulty expectations—that I pushed them away. I swept them away so often that I became numb. I have always been an unapologetic clown, but then I was an angry, unfeeling, bitter clown. But a clown nonetheless. And it’s difficult to tell a person is in pain when they can make you laugh.

PAIN EMBITTERS US

Hebrews 12:15 says that we should avoid a bitter root growing up in our midst. This verse seems to speak more of uncorrupted doctrine and heart than actual bitterness as we think of the word, but the acrimony and sullenness that comes with bitterness is, in my estimation, also a corruption of Christ’s law of love.

That misinterpreted verse was my mantra coming out of a heart-wrenching pastoral experience as I entered my thirties. But I watched myself slowly sliding toward bitterness, even as I begged myself not to.

Life events give us forked roads. Jerk that life is, it often greases the road toward resentment and self-pity (or maybe that’s me). Once you’ve gone down that road, it is difficult to find the other path. Even if you see that you should, and cut through the trees to find it, bitterness comes bounding after you, knocking you down and pulling at your pant leg to go back.

I often went back.

PAIN LEAVES US LONELY (OR DOES IT?)

Pain, whether mental, physical or emotional, leaves stark scars—some of which are even visible. I often wondered if there was anyone who could truly understand my specific brand of pain.

A high school teacher friend of mine told me about a student of hers whose parents are so rich that he simply can’t comprehend what it means for someone to not have money. She was startled by his lack of empathy. It once occurred to me to question if God could possibly understand what it means to be in pain. I wondered if the perfect God of the Universe, who knew no sin, just looked at us and shook his holy head, wondering why we just didn’t get over it.

Then I remembered Jesus.

Hebrew 4:15: “For we do not have a [God] who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.”

That was an important revelation for me. It was something I knew, but it wasn’t a truth that I’d connected with on a personal level. God knows what it’s like to hurt. He knows what it’s like to be betrayed by someone you love. He knows what it means to grieve. He knows how hard life and people are.

The next verse in Hebrews 4 goes on to say that since we know we have this kind of a God—a God who understands, we should “come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.”

Our God understands our pain, and so he knows exactly what we need, when we need it most. I don't know about you, but for me, that means everything.




Photo by JD Hancock used with permission under CC
11:15:00 PM
Jared Wilson is the pastor of Middletown Springs Community Church in Vermont and he blogs at Gospel Driven Church. He's also the author of The Pastor’s Justification, Your Jesus is Too Safe, Gospel Wakefulness, and Gospel Deeps. You can also follow him on Twitter: @JaredCWilson 

Recently, he took a few minutes to talk to me and had some interesting things to say. We hope you enjoy...


Chad: In your spiritual journey have you ever struggled with the idea of God's grace?
 

Jared: I don't think I've ever struggled with the idea itself. The grace of God is such a compelling idea, mainly because it is so unique. Only Christianity talks about grace in this way, and I think I've always found that, oddly enough, a great part of what it makes it so credible to me. But I have definitely struggled with the idea of God's grace being *for me.* I have wrestled with feeling that God could love me, that God would accept me and approve of me. It has taken a lot of convincing on my part to get through that, but God is the great convincer, and I'm grateful that I don't struggle nearly as much today with believing that God loves me and has saved me.
 
 
Chad: In your book, "Wonder-Working God" you talk about the miracles of Jesus revealing "what we go through such great pains to deny" or affirm. Talk about what you mean by that.
 

Jared: I believe that Jesus' miracles are glimpses into the new heavens and the new earth--windows, if you will, into heaven. So the idea that "heaven is coming to earth" is something that the miracles make very real and promise very gloriously. But many people are staunchly opposed to such an idea. Religious and irreligious people alike tend to take on a grandly cynical view of the world, that we're all "going to hell in a hand basket." There's a kernel of truth to that, and we should have a cynical view of the way of the world, the sinful cycle of injustice and wickedness that is indeed passing away. But hopelessness is not a fruit of the gospel outlook. So when I say people will go to great pains to deny heaven on earth, I just mean that people will shoot themselves in the foot if it means not bowing the knee to Christ's Lordship. And similarly, some people will go through great pains to affirm Christ's Lordship--they will suffer oppression and insult, and in many parts of the world, persecution and martyrdom.
 

Chad: As a former pastor myself, I’m pretty sure you’ve thought about this next question: If you could give one sermon to Christians today what would it be? (i.e. What do you think we need to hear most?)
 
Jared: Christians need to hear that they need the gospel as much as nonChristians. Not in the same way, but just as much. So I think I would preach a message on that concept, probably something from 1 Corinthians 15 which begins with that simple reminder of how we need the historical work of Christ's gospel every day of our lives and ends with a glorious exposition of the resurrection of the believer through Christ's resurrection. 

 

Chad: This question is more inspired by than directly from your book, “The Storytelling God.” The way we see the parables is often very concrete, and the way you describe them takes one having a creative bent. I think Jesus, and the bible in general, gives a lot of credence to story-telling and the arts in general (parables, poems, songs, etc.) Why do you think Christians are more known for staying away from the arts?
 
Jared: I don't know, but I think it's largely a fear of either "lying"--because telling the truth through art is seen as less direct or less useful than straight teaching--or of being wasteful. I think many Christians just tend to think of the arts as a waste of time. This is why when Christians do engage in the arts, they tend to be very didactic and bland--we propagandize. We haven't quite figured out as a culture how to make art for God's sake that knows how to exist as art, not as a tract or treatise or teaching tool.
 
 
Chad: As a fellow writer, I always like to know what other writers read. What’s on your nightstand, Jared?

Jared: I'm always grazing in multiple books. Right now these include RC Sproul's "The Holiness of God" and Dane Ortlund's "Edwards on the Christian Life." I'm also doing a lot more re-reading these days, and I am finishing up re-reads of Keller's "The Reason for God" and Ray Ortlund's "When God Comes to Church." On the fiction end, I just finished Gillian Flynn's "Gone Girl" in anticipation of the film adaptation and am beginning a re-read of Hugo's "Les Miserables."




Photo by Tom Verre used under CC
10:41:00 PM

We hear about sinners sinning and we shake our heads and cluck our tongues. The fires await them, we think. Then we bury our heads in our bibles and smile at how very holy we are. We attack homosexuals and democrats as if they had erupted from a crack traveling up from hell itself. And we feel satisfied with ourselves, and sing our songs and thank our God we’re not like them.

At times, God will show me something that I’m wrong about. I find myself humbled and thankful that he would be so kind to love me amidst such ignorance. Then, I encounter someone who is still wrong about that thing, and I immediately judge them for not being as spiritual as me. There’s something about us that habitually turns the best of gifts from undeserved grace into deserved veneration in our minds. So we start to believe that God’s love is something which began as grace, but soon enough began to sprout from God’s admiration of our goodness.

The love of God should leave us breathless. Hit us square in the gut, silencing our doubts and fears of never being fully accepted. It should be the water which nourishes our faith. But the awe has worn off and we’ve patted God on the shoulder, telling him that we’ll take it from here. And, now, it is pride which feeds us, fertilizing our hate. The one so deep in debt no amount of work could pay it back, freshly forgiven, is running the streets, pointing fingers at all the other debtors.

We were all born ugly and we’ve found our beauty. Should we then use it to shame others? Because God’s goodness has been superimposed over our evil, is our evil now acceptable?

Because we can’t be the things God desires of us, we don’t then humble ourselves before God as logic dictates, we raise up superficial works that can be easily accomplished as that which God desires. We baptize our opinions as law and wedge them into legitimate Scripture. These clownish replacements for God’s righteous demands make us feel superior, and so we stand judge over anyone who dares oppose us. But, until the church rejoices with the weak, shouting, “You too?” instead of scowling behind pious masks, we say Jesus’ death was a band-aid.

If it were ever about us, and our goodness, God would have sent a holy scoreboard for each believer. Instead, it is about what Jesus did. Because we’ve accepted his love, we’re not then better than others. We are humble receivers of a great gift.

We are the hungry, and having found food, we arrogantly judge other beggars for still being so hungry.

What could be more beautiful than the undeservedly loved shouting, singing and whispering that the loveless are loved too? Instead of berating them for their lack, we should nourish them with the happy news. But first we have to remember who we are and who God is. We are Sinful. And our sin runs deeper than too much drinking or marital unfaithfulness. Those are just symptoms of who we are. Our entire nature is evil. That’s what we’ve been saved from—ourselves. So, there is no room for pride.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)

God forgave us so that our sin is no longer the issue. We no longer have the demand of impossible rules to earn the favor of God, it was given to us freely by Christ. So what makes us so prideful? Is it because we can’t accept that it’s all free? Is it because we feel better thinking we’ve contributed? Believing spirituality is as easy as wearing nice things to a church service?

But spirituality isn’t wearing a tie to church, that’s a cop-out for the real deal of loving so much it may break you in two, knowing that only God can put you back together. Our well-manicured Sunday go-to-meeting clothes are ridiculous replacements for a clean heart that only the death of God can provide. We bite our tongues to keep from saying four-letter words when our tongues are swelled with evil expressions for those not like us. But all any of us has is grace.

All you have is grace.

You are naked and think you’ve succeeded in covering yourself with the abundance of air around you. All you have is grace. We smell of death and the bones inside rattle when we angrily shake our bible at others, but we think the whitewash is good enough. We need a resurrection, not a paint job. We need to lose ourselves in the truth that we are loved not because of what we do, but wholly in spite of it. All we have is grace.

We are thieves and vandals, adopted by a good man who cancelled our debt and announced to the entire kingdom to put anything more to come on his account. Murderers and whores for whom God danced so violently when we came home that we couldn’t help but laugh and dance along.

We are not fit to jab our fingers at anyone else's failings.

That finger-pointing is sometimes why they giggle at us and shake their heads. And we fret over us losing our moral authority. Please God, let us. Let us have nothing but our sin at so arrogantly slapping the hands of others when our own are still so freshly bruised. Then remind us that sin is all we’ve ever had. It’s all we ever brought to the table. Even the table was yours, God.

Then, maybe we’ll laugh and remember how to dance again.

Maybe then, we won’t care about being the moral authority. We’ll become the house of joy! A parade of rowdy misfits. And we’ll all become more like you, but we’ll barely notice because we’ll be so fixated on giving your love away.

Then they’ll look at each other, these children yet to come home. I know some will still scowl and roll their eyes. But others will chuckle and slap their hands across their mouths, unsure where it came from—not knowing the Happy Spirit. But soon they’ll let it come freely—straight from their bellies, and shortly they’ll be dancing too.

The dance of the free.

The dance of the filthy, rotten sinners.

The dance of the forgiven.

Photo by Hortlander used with permission under CC
12:21:00 AM
"When you’re trying to be respectable, you have to seem correct all the time, you have to look like you've got it all together, and you have to say that which is thought to be decent, good and upright. As a pastor, I tried walking that road and I found out that, while I could fake it, I couldn't live with myself as a fake

12:30:00 PM


Being sad and vulnerable is generally seen as a negative thing. So much so that me offering to disagree with that assessment is probably looked at askance. I think that’s largely because we have no idea how to comfort people, so we try to bully them out of their pathos: “You look so pathetic.” “It can't be that bad.” “You don't need Prozac. You just need Jesus!” So, on top of already feeling like crap, because of being made to feel wrong for feeling like crap, we also experience a nebulous guilt about feeling like crap. But, I offer the hope that, perhaps, being pathetic isn’t such a bad thing after all.

5:50:00 AM
Dr. Preston Sprinkle is director of Eternity Bible College's extension site in Boise, Idaho. He co-authored The New York Times bestselling Erasing Hell with Francis Chan and is the author of the recently published Fight: A Christian Case for Non-Violence. His new book Charis: God's Scandalous Grace for Us is available now. Follow him on Twitter @PrestonSprinkle
 
Recently, Preston took the time to answer some questions for Mister Preacher...

 
How did you get to grace?
 
As a Christian, I always thought I understood grace. It's what gets us into the door of salvation. But oddly enough, it wasn't until I starting teaching a college level Old Testament survey class that I really started to become blown away at the radicality and persistence of God's grace. God doesn't just unconditionally save us, but desires us on a relational level even when we're not desirable. And His love is unbound, shameless, and counter-intuitive. It doesn't fluctuate when we have a bad day--or a good day. He loves us based on what Jesus has done, not based on what we continue to do. 

We’re told it’s gauche to toot our own horn, but what’s your favorite part in your book, Charis? What does it mean to you?
 
That's a great question! Honestly, I think the chapters titled, "Whore," "Tattoo," and "Thug" are my favorites! Writing is like playing baseball. Sometimes you're on and sometimes you're off. Well, for whatever reason, I feel like God flooded my soul with favor when I was writing those chapters, and the messages therein still convicts, challenges, and encourages me. 

Why do you think Christians are so afraid of grace? (or do you?)

Yes I do. Grace is risky. Grace means letting go of control and letting God do the work. Grace means you entrust good things to very bad people. When it comes to bad people, people will always prefer justice to grace. This is why I open the book with a story about a cannibal who had sex with 17 dead people. In theory, our doctrine of grace can reach such a criminal. But why is it then that Christians mocked his conversion? We speak of grace with our mouths, but we mock it when we respond with doubt over God recklessly converting a heinous sinner.

What do you think is the biggest thing we misunderstand about grace?
 
That's a great question! I think most Christians believe (to some extent) that grace brought them to salvation. But it's after salvation when they beginning to have a conditional, works based sanctification. I think most Christians believe that if they do good things they will be blessed, and if they do bad things they will be cursed. But this is law, not gospel. This is conditionality, not unconditional favor. God has blessed us and will continue to bless us based on what Christ has done and not based on what we do.

What are you reading, and why should I pick it up (after I finish Charis, of course)?
 
Oh man, too many things to list! I'm actually reading a great book by a Christian philosopher named James K. A. Smith called Desiring the Kingdom. It's pretty weighty but oh, so good! I'm also reading tons of stuff on homosexuality, since that's the subject of my next book. Now there's a topic where Christians tend to front law rather than grace...
 
 
6:00:00 AM


Love is a complicated issue.

It’s an issue we’ve all dealt with, in one way or another, our entire lives. You’d probably be surprised how many of your personal issues can be traced back to love—it being withheld, or tainted in some way. Love is ubiquitous in life’s story. When people say that we’re losing any sort of common ground with the lost I always think, That’s not possible! We all need love! Love, or lack thereof, affects almost everything we do. As I’ve said, it’s that which we all need and strive for. But it’s also something that we have a difficult time accepting.

In the religious tradition in which I grew up, we talked a lot about what we weren’t supposed to do. There was a junk-load of conversations about sin and getting better every day in every way, but—to my memory—there wasn’t a lot of love to give that stuff context. So, God became a taskmaster so that I flinch a little when I hear His name.

Needless to say, I didn’t grow up with a very healthy idea of what love was.

And so this idea of God’s grace has been a tad intimidating for me to get grasp on. My concept of God-love has been, whether I want to admit it or not, tit-for-tat. Now that I think about it, that’s probably the same idea that a lot of us have, and most likely the assumption that pulls us in weird directions. It’s the impression that God’s love for us only becomes available once we are saved.

That idea may not be the answer you’d give to an essay question on the topic of God’s love, but it might be what you actually believe deep down, where it can do the most damage. Even after all these years, that sinister thought has been dwelling in my head until I recently came to blows with it. If asked, neither would I have told you God didn’t love you before he saved you. I would have cheerfully said that he loves the lost, and seeks after them.

But there was always a squeak of a voice somewhere
deep
inside,
saying: 
     “Yeah, but not in the same way.”

Last night, at around one, (because I’m an idiot who doesn’t know how to go to bed at a decent time) I was lying there, thinking about this. And this morning, I saw a tweet from a pastor named Scott Sauls, who I don’t know from Adam, that quoted John 8:11, where Jesus is talking to the woman caught in adultery, that says, "Neither do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more." and this guy tweeted, “if you reverse the order of these sentences, you no longer have Christianity.” 

That hit me really hard (in the best of ways) and sort of finished my thought on this topic of when and why we are loved. He doesn't ask us to clean up before we come to Him. We do. But God doesn't. (And that's a problem.) But Christ's response begs the questions and gives the answers:

Why are we loved? Because God loves us.

When did we start being loved? Always.

Paul said that “while we were still sinners, Christ Jesus died for us.” (Rom. 5:8) That utterly crushes any idea that anything secured the love of God.

Love is why He came for us in the first place.

If you think that your Salvation was what made you lovable then you will conversely believe that those who have not found the free gift of God in Christ are hated. "Go, and sin no more. Then God won't condemn you," we lie. That’s the danger I talked about earlier. And it’s not just some potential, theoretical danger.

We see it every day.

Christians holding up picket signs that say, “God hates fags!” Believers burning down abortion clinics. Followers supporting other followers who say extremely hateful things in the name of God. This and a million other things, all because those outside of the body are somehow less to us. Those for whom Christ died that have yet to, and may never, find his grace, but are made in His image, and loved desperately nonetheless.

WHILE WE WERE STILL SINNERS… Christ died for us.

You want to talk about dangerous. That’s dangerous. Dangerous in the best possible way. It’s dangerous to judgment. It’s dangerous to hate. It’s dangerous to legalistic manipulators who get a thrill from controlling others.

Think about it:
How does knowing that God knew you, depravity and all, before the foundation of the Earth, and loved you, affect what you believe? How does that affect how you serve him? How you treat others? When you really get your head wrapped around it; when you actually let your doubting heart believe it,
it
will
change everything.

“Neither do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more.”

If God loves you, you don’t have to work for His love. Now go love Him. If God loves sinners, you don’t have to make non-Christians lovable (that was never your job, anyway!). Go love them. You were, and are, and will be, loved. Go, and sin no more.

That scares yesterday’s dinner out some people. “But,” they want to say. “Don’t forget to add,” they politely remind you. “Well, you don’t want to encourage sin,” they say, patting you on the head.

Did you know you don’t lose brain cells if you drink. That was a “lie for the greater good” made up during the temperance movement to discourage people from drinking. Can you believe that? I’ve believed that lie all my life. Here’s the thing—it never kept me from drinking too much, but it sure made me feel guilty afterwards.

We sort of tell a lie of omission “for the greater good” when we don’t present the full Gospel. Because the Gospel scares us. We’re afraid if we tell non-Christians that Christ died for sinners because they might not get better. We don't tell Christians they're forgiven because we're scared they’ll go crazy and rob a liquor store or hire a prostitute! We’re terrified to let Christians know that God loves them, and always has, because part of us believes they’ll walk away. So we load them down with guilty burdens until they actually do walk away. 

Then we say, “Well, they must have never been believers to begin with.”

You want to feel guilt? You should feel guilt for that. (But, go to Him. He forgives you.)

Knowing that I’m forgiven. That I stand before God with the righteousness of Christ credited to me. That there’s nothing I can do to lessen God’s love for me. That even when He doesn’t like what I’m doing, He doesn’t walk away—He pursues me, because of that love. Well, that makes me want to give Him everything I am. It makes me want to learn God’s ways and be more like Him.

That’s Him working in me.

Guilt may drive a person for a time. But it will eventually destroy them.

Love, on the other hand. Love makes you do crazy things. (Just not the ones you may be worried about.)
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