Gospel (good news) or religion?

All religions say:

* Do good and be good

* Then you will be accepted and approved by God and ultimately achieve heaven - bliss.

Much of the evangelical church says:

* "Trust Christ" — ¹see footnote.

* Do good and be good i.e. live a righteous life

*Then you will be fully accepted by God.

This 2nd view indicates many within the church do not believe the true gospel but only a "Christianized" version of religion i.e. the first view above. 

It is easy to do. We are naturally inclined to want to "save" ourselves. Acknowledging we ultimately can not is a hard pill to swallow and that few of us can easily and constantly admit. 

This is the essence of the same spirit of rebellion our first parents had in Eden and all humanity continues to have since. It was also the spirit that surfaced at the very beginning of the church through the Judizer's.  An entire letter was written to the church at Galatia addressing this. It is clear we are bent on winning the approval of others; including and especially God's.

In contrast to religion...

The Gospel says:

* Receive the free offer of Christ's perfect righteousness and forgiveness because you can not and never will be good enough or do enough good to ²earn God's approval or acceptance. If we could have, there would have been no point in Christ coming and dying. Or to say it another way, we can not and will not ever love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength or our neighbor as we love ourselves. 

* Only when you accept what Christ did for you - versus what you do for him - are you perfectly and fully accepted by God. There is nothing else for you to do to be accepted. FULL STOP!

*Now, in, by, and through His perfect love-acceptance, live to honor God in response to His love that fully restored us back to Him.

Note that obedience - living for God - is just as vital a part of a driven lifestyle as a works-based one (religion). But not as the cause of God's acceptance, but in response to it. Obedience matters, but for a very different reason.

Both views -- I obey God to be accepted vs I am perfectly accepted therefore I obey God -- involve how we live... But they have a different order of priority and for very different reasons.

The former is acting out of the belief I must earn God's love, and the latter out of the belief I already perfectly have it in and through Christ. Nothing I do or do not do will add to or take away from God's love and acceptance of me, ever! Why? Because it's based on what Christ did for us, not what we do for Him. 

The former is about me -- acting for my benefit -- the latter is about ³God -- acting for His honor because every benefit is already mine and bestowed on me in, by, and through Christ.

Christianity is not I obey and then I'm accepted but I am accepted therefore I obey.

The gospel says nothing you do or don't do can add to or take away from God's perfect acceptance of you in Christ - i.e. His love and acceptance is unconditional and complete, not based on any of our deeds, good or bad. The only condition required of you is to recognize you need Him and can not be restored to Him without accepting his offer i.e. being and living justly is by faith. This requires humility i.e. we can not and will not save ourselves by our good deeds or be rejected by God because of our bad ones if we trust Christ.

If we have not been transformed by God's love and do not have the desire to live for and obey Him to bring Him glory, we do not yet understand the good news, aka gospel. We are wise to make sure we are even His child. This is a primary theme of 1 John.

For a discussion on how we are inclined to try and earn God's love click here.

For a discussion on the difference between "Cultural Christians" and grace-driven followers of Christ, click here.

For a discussion on how God's love is conditional and unconditional click here.

For a discussion on whether our focus should be on morality or Jesus click here.

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¹ I put "trust Christ" in quotes because if we truly trust what Christ has done for us, we do not feel compelled to do good deeds to win his acceptance. Love will, however, compel us to put Him on display. "Obedience" is the supernatural and organic response to God's love. I put obedience in quotes only because we act because we want to - as a response to God loving us first before we ever lifted a finger for him - not because we have to gain God's acceptance.

²This is true not only before we come to Christ but after. We can please God once we are in Christ but this is not a matter of His acceptance of us. His acceptance is already addressed and perfectly settled by Christ's work on our behalf. What pleases God now that we are in Christ is faith. Without it, we can not please God. This faith is in the complete love and acceptance of us in Christ. His love - not our efforts to try and earn it -drives us to love Him in return and honor him in all our words and deeds, i.e. obedience.

³Since God has fully taken care of the "me" side of the equation, acting for God is the only reason left.

seeking comfort

Seeking comfort-pleasure is merely the flip side of avoiding pain. This is a clue that pain is the true underlying state of our present condition.

Why are we drawn to comfort? Through it, we gain a sense of importance - significance - value. To not have a sense of these is ¹painful.

We are also drawn to anything that gives comfort because it makes us feel we have control over our pain. And to some degree we do, but only temporarily.

We prefer control and resist dependence with everything that is in us. We don't like trusting and, depending on anything we don't control. Dependence gives us a feeling of weakness. We don't like being weak. We avoid anything that makes us feel inadequate or insufficient – to experience this is ¹painful. We are drawn to anything that makes us feel strong and significant - in control.

Yet, ironically, there is value in weakness and failure. It is a reality check. It helps us realize our limits – how weak and dependent we truly are. It causes us to consider that ultimately we must rely on God to be all we were designed to be. 

It also makes us consider that wanting what we most need but do not fully have yet, is not available in this life. This causes us to think beyond this life. 

For those who trust in God, this is also a reminder we won't have all we are designed for until we are fully united with our Creator in eternity, i.e. until we are glorified -- the true and ultimate state of existence we were designed for.
 

Longing is painful

We all long for a greater sense of meaning and purpose. However, this longing is painful. It speaks of something missing. The greater the longing, the greater the pain.

But, the more we enter into the pain of longing, the more we increase our capacity to experience God in all His glory – what we are ultimately created for. This is true now but even more importantly, in eternity. Therefore, we should not avoid our longings or seek to satisfy them temporarily by our independent efforts, but let them press us closer to God.

For a fuller discussion of “the anatomy of pain” click here.

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¹We weren’t designed to feel insignificant but important. This is a necessary part of our makeup so we might participate in a relationship with the most significant-important Being in the Universe – the Creator and Sustainer of all things. For further discussion, click here and here. 

Because this relationship is severed – by our choice – our self-image is severely damaged and extremely fragile. We are constantly looking to ease the pain of this damage and protect ourselves.

This is why we are so easily influenced by the labels others give to us, both positive and negative? The more significant another person and our relationship with them are – such as a parent, a coach, a mentor, a leader, a spouse or some other person of influence etc. – the more impact their words have on how we see ourselves – i.e. our self-image.

However, the only opinion-identity that matters ultimately is the one given to us by our Creator, the most significant person of all.  We are the beloved sons and daughters of God, loved in the same way the Father loves his only begotten Son.  If the most important being in all the universe -- the Creator and Sustainer of all things -- considers us this valuable that is saying something most significant about us vs. what anybody else says. "If God is for us who can be against us?..."

 

You are (poem)

by Jim Deal
 
You are who you are
To see what you see
To do what only you can do
To reflect God uniquely

You are His perfect design
Lacking only His perfect love
To empower your greatest potential
For His highest glory.

#poemsbyJimDeal

why do we suffer?

When we experience pain or suffer loss, the usual response is to ask *why. Even though we may never know the specific reason or whether there even is one -- or what circumstantial good we might gain from it - if any - we can understand the general reasons for it. There are, in fact, several potential intangible gains.

Why do we suffer?

• To get more of God -- the source of life, love, and all things -- or more precisely for God to get more of us so we might more fully partake of all He is. Suffering is humbling. Humility is key to seeing and knowing God. 
• To better grasp and appreciate the suffering of Christ and the sacrifices he made to restore us to the Father, revealing His infinite love for us and increasing our love and trust in Him. 
• To increase our compassion toward others in their struggles-suffering. 
• To increase our capacity to reflect His glory, thereby bringing Him greater honor and us deeper joy.

In short, to make us more like Christ. This is the ultimate good spoken of in Romans:

Rom 8:28  And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
Rom 8:29  For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

This, however, is not automatic but contingent on whether we trust God in our suffering. If Christ, who was perfect, was called to **trust his Father in his suffering, how much more are we? The more we do, the more we gain both now but possibly more so in eternity.

We are told that "eye has not yet seen or ear yet heard..." what exactly that gain will look like. We are also told in 2Co 4:17, "... this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison..." Hope for " ...an eternal weight of glory..." is the primary hope given ***for our suffering. It is our future reward. When we truly trust God, it alone is enough.

The challenge is we must accept this eternal benefit by faith. To use an analogy from Tim Keller, the promises of God are not a video explanation of why we suffer but an audio one. It is one we have heard and must believe but have not actually seen yet with our own eyes or fully experienced firsthand. Through promises -- audio -- we are given an idea as to why we suffer and what our gain is but not the complete experience - video - i.e. not yet by first-hand observation or participation. Why? Because God is seeking to stretch our faith now so we might experience more of Him later.

Once we are in eternity with God, faith will no longer be necessary as it is now. Love will be primary. Until then, faith is essential. "The just shall live by faith." To gain from the struggles of this life we must believe God is good and in control when it appears He is not and we see no present gain. For now, it is our believing when not seeing that God is looking to increase in us.

Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." - John 20:29 It is more blessed to believe when we do not see than to be blessed because we do.

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*In a very significant way this is a curious response in a post-modern era. Asking this question suggests there is meaning and purpose behind our suffering when there are no grounds for asking in postmodern thinking. The fact that we even ask, illustrates how mankind cannot get away from being in God's image experientially even though he may deny this intellectually i.e. we must have meaning. We were designed for it.

** Heb 5:8  "Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered." Christ went from untested to tested obedience. Suffering is not necessarily caused by something we did wrong - though that is often the case. Christ did nothing wrong but suffered and gained by it never the less.

***We don't appreciate what someone else goes through until we go through something similar. The more we comprehend the full extent of Christ's suffering through our own, the more we see what Christ went through for us and the more our love for Him and trust in Him grows.