Losing My Religion

To all people who ever thought or said that I have become "religious," this ones for you...

I can be a selfish person. My natural inclination is for comfort, control, security, acceptance and momentary pleasure. I struggle with low self confidence one day and pride another; and in addition, I can be too bold with my opinion in one conversation and not say a thing to share with someone about Jesus in another. I daily demonstrate to the One who created me that I not only know better than him, but I value and want to follow after his creation more than him. It is not overstating the case to say that my heart motives, left to doing things my own way, are desperately wicked. I often spend time with God and give of my time,talents and money, when/if it is convenient for me. I can get angry and sarcastic when things don't go my way, like a child throwing a tantrum, and tend to medicate my fears and emotional pain with food. All this now and, no doubt, more issues will come in the future, yet I am neither discontent, nor the least bit discouraged or depressed. Why? I am a Christian and I know I do not struggle through these issues alone.

I find it fascinating how in a world that celebrates freedom of expression and glorifies tolerance, when one professes that they have become a Bible-believing Christian, the reactions can be filled with such an overwhelming abundance of stereotypes, assumptions and overall prejudice (coupled with a hint of eye rolling). Though I am not denying the fact that the Bible promises me I can count on adverse reactions in following Jesus, I would also attribute this attitude to a presupposed feeling of judgment aimed on them, and even more so, a long list of people they know who have called themselves "Christians" and personified all said negative stereotypes, assumptions and prejudices. I totally get that.

Pastor Matt Chandler, humorously says it well in his commentary about Luke 6:22: "People read: “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man!” That's going to be an important little line there, because some of you are just pompous jerks and people hate you because you're a pompous jerk, not because of Jesus—because you're an arrogant, graceless soul, and that's why people hate you. Now I know you like to use this verse as a “They hate me because I love the Lord.” No, they hate you because you're a jerk."

So let's get those people out of the way.."Nominal Christians" (Christians only in name, but not reality) the ones who by their misguided actions and words misrepresent who Jesus is in countless ways and some who even go to Westboro Baptist style extremes and act a fool picketing soldier's funerals with "GOD HATES FAGS" signs. If you haven't noticed, there is no shortage of people calling themselves "Christians" we see on TV and in movies with a backwoods, unintelligent, close-minded and mean spirited mentality; or, more often, we all know those who profess to be a "Christian", but have no other evidence that there has been any spiritual transformation having occurred in their life nor anything that sets them apart as different than any other person.

Just look at any controversy involving a Christian or Christian topic that makes the news, such as the current one of Pastor Rob Bell writing a book called LOVE WINS (that denies that there is a Hell and says everyone is eventually going to Heaven). This is when all the prominent news media gather up all of their "Christian" pundits to weigh in. For those of us who know Jesus and see the distinct difference between Religion and The Gospel, this is such a frustrating cringefest (so very hard to watch) as we feel in no way represented by these people who seem not to be acquainted with the God of the Bible, but only God who wants to bash us over the head with his oppressive book of rules!!

Here is some keen insight into what the distinctions are between the life of a "religious" person and a Gospel-centered Christian. And, if by chance, you don't know what I am meaning by The Gospel, I think it will be explained well enough to you by reading this portion of an article written by author and Pastor Tim Keller:

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Religion vs. The Gospel

RELIGION: I obey-therefore I’m accepted.
THE GOSPEL: I’m accepted-therefore I obey.

RELIGION: Motivation is based on fear and insecurity.
THE GOSPEL: Motivation is based on grateful joy.

RELIGION: I obey God in order to get things from God.
THE GOSPEL: I obey God to get to God-to delight and resemble Him.

RELIGION: When circumstances in my life go wrong, I am angry at God or my self, since I believe, like Job’s friends that anyone who is good deserves a comfortable life.
THE GOSPEL: When circumstances in my life go wrong, I struggle but I know all my punishment fell on Jesus and that while he may allow this for my training, he will exercise his Fatherly love within my trial.

RELIGION: When I am criticized I am furious or devastated because it is critical that I think of myself as a ‘good person’. Threats to that self-image must be destroyed at all costs.
THE GOSPEL: When I am criticized I struggle, but it is not critical for me to think of myself as a ‘good person.’ My identity is not built on my record or my performance but on God’s love for me in Christ. I can take criticism.

RELIGION: My prayer life consists largely of petition and it only heats up when I am in a time of need. My main purpose in prayer is control of the environment.
THE GOSPEL: My prayer life consists of generous stretches of praise and adoration. My main purpose is fellowship with Him.

RELIGION: My self-view swings between two poles. If and when I am living up to my standards, I feel confident, but then I am prone to be proud and unsympathetic to failing people. If and when I am not living up to standards, I feel insecure and inadequate. I’m not confident. I feel like a failure.
THE GOSPEL: My self-view is not based on a view of my self as a moral achiever. In Christ I am “simul iustus et peccator”—simultaneously sinful and yet accepted in Christ. I am so bad he had to die for me and I am so loved he was glad to die for me. This leads me to deeper and deeper humility and confidence at the same time. Neither swaggering nor sniveling.

RELIGION: My identity and self-worth are based mainly on how hard I work. Or how moral I am, and so I must look down on those I perceive as lazy or immoral. I disdain and feel superior to ‘the other.’
THE GOSPEL: My identity and self-worth are centered on the one who died for His enemies, who was excluded from the city for me. I am saved by sheer grace. So I can’t look down on those who believe or practice something different from me. Only by grace I am what I am. I’ve no inner need to win arguments.

RELIGION: Since I look to my own pedigree or performance for my spiritual acceptability, my heart manufactures idols. It may be my talents, my moral record, my personal discipline, my social status, etc. I absolutely have to have them so they serve as my main hope, meaning, happiness, security, and significance, whatever I may say I believe about God.
THE GOSPEL: I have many good things in my life—family, work, spiritual disciplines, etc. But none of these good things are ultimate things to me. None of them are things I absolutely have to have, so there is a limit to how much anxiety, bitterness, and despondency they can inflict on me when they are threatened and lost.
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Granted, Christians ARE going to be offensive to some no matter what-even if they are people who are genuine in their faith, belief, love and joy for Jesus and for other people. The claims of Christianity are not in any way the ooey gooey, touchy feely spiritual buffet from which you can choose what you want and what you don't. I like the way C.S. Lewis puts it: “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.” I would say that, in my own life, I grew up with the perspective of the RELIGION side as my understanding of God and then only began to comprehend THE GOSPEL side of the coin as I became a Christian in college..it is quite the never-ending process though!!

In wrapping these thoughts up, there are two more areas regarding the perception of Christians I'd like to dive into a bit in this particular discussion. There are just so many directions that I could wander off to, and I always know there are parts I am going to mistakenly leave out or not convey clearly enough-but I am trying hard to keep on topic. I must say, too, that this blog post is kind of like that cathartic conversation you imagine in your head and sooo wish you could have said this or shared that...with so many people, but know that the reality is that you may never get to!

The first is how Christians are often dismissed as being a group of religious hypocrites.

It is no surprise that I am going to borrow from Matt Chandler once more on the oh-so-common question about Christians: Why are there so many hypocrites? (Hey, if someone says it better than you, 'tis a no brainer to use their verbiage, right?!! ;))

"So if you’re talking about Jesus, one of the things that always comes out is how they know people who go to church who are no better than them and they’re just hypocrites. I honestly don’t think that’s real difficult to address. I always want to go one of two angles:

1-I almost always want to go, “That’s because most people who go to church aren’t actually Christians.” That tends to be the one I want to play. If you’ve got history here, you know that I don’t think you’re automatically saved. I think when you were seven-years-old, you went to RA camp where they did a scary skit about hell, I terrified you and so you repeated prayer, and despite that fact that you’re not in your twenties or thirties and have no love for Jesus Christ and have had no transformation in how you live your life, you bank your eternal soul on your fear when you were seven at RA camp converting you to Jesus Christ. So what I want to say is that I don’t think most people who go to church actually really love
the Lord or have any intention of following Him whatsoever. I think they go to church because it’s some sort of socio-cultural idea here in the South that this is what we do. They think they’re Christians because their parents were, they think they’re Christians because they’re Texans, they think they’re Christians because they’re Americans and they think they’re Christians because their parents dragged them to church for as far back as they can remember. It does not mean that they are. Someone saying that they’re a Christian doesn’t mean that they are one.

2-So although I don’t do that one the most, I tend to take it more to the positive. I just try to go, “Yeah, they really are hypocrites. I pastor a church. They are a screwy bunch of hypocrites. How insane is it that God loves and serves and pursues that screwy bunch of mess-ups. He loves them and forgives them and continues to lavish grace upon them.” So I don’t think the hypocrisy argument really is
solid enough to last."

A Gospel-centered Christian does not view the hypocritical route as a viable road to take. A route where you go head first purposely continuing in sin because you can just ask the magic genie in the sky to forgive you. This is an altogether incorrect view of God and grace, in general. However, Gospel-centered Christians are the ones pleading with God in their daily struggles with sin to help them turn away that they might be submitting every area to a loving God for their joy and with gratitude. Bringing me to my second point..

To a Gospel-centered Christian, the Bible is God-breathed, living and active, without error, and the ultimate authority above our opinions on whatever comes our way in life. It is a love letter to us centered on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and God's pursuit of our hearts. Reconciliation, redemption, restoration...

To someone who is not a Christian, or Nominal Christian, it might be considered: a holy book of suggestions, a storybook, a book of rules or good morals/family values, or to some, maybe it has no meaning at all. God then is whoever each person says he is and it is up to each individual to set the set of standards by which they live their lives. It might be another religion, it might be Oprah style self-help by seeking to love yourself and make your own self whole through self discovery, it could be a mixture of whatever serves one's purposes at the moment.

Whatever the case, some verses shed light on why it is this way:

1 Corinthians 2:14 (NIV) "The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit."

Ezekiel 36:26 (ESV) "And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh."

Ephesians 2:4-5,7-9 "But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing;it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast."

I have heard it said that people are afraid to be transparent and honest about their struggles, lest their "Christianity" be questioned by their group of friends, office, family, etc. Isn't it such a relief then to all of us who are constantly learning and perpetually making mistakes, that God does not love some future version of us-but who we are (junk and all) right this second!! There is no room for being anything but humble living in this realization of our desperate need for God. It is only fitting that our response would be one of gratitude and worship to what he has done for us...and hope that everyone we know and love would come to see this..but back to the the point..

So, whatever is meant when it is said to me that I have become so "religious," I have to take it with a grain of salt that this is most likely not meant to come off like a four letter word or an insult. It may mean that someone disagrees with the claims of Christianity, it may be an indicator of an inaccurate view of who I am and what I am about...who knows..but regardless these were just a few things I felt needed to be said. No matter the cause, feeling judged and misunderstood is never my idea of a good time! But hey, no one ever said this life would be easy.

As is predictable if you know me at all, I will leave you with a song. If you have not noticed, this is the third blog post with a song name for a title that I thought fit the topic appropriately. Love music, love to write, love people (whether I agree with them or not).

"Give me words, I'll misuse them
Obligations, I'll misplace them
Cuz all religion ever made of me
Was just a sinner with a stone tied to my feet
It never set me free."
Jason Gray "More Like Falling in Love"

Listen by: highlighting, right clicking "Copy" & then pasting this to your web browser..

http://listen.grooveshark.com/s/More+Like+Falling+In+Love/2BiHkT?src=5