No Religion Just Jesus - Part 1

A Healthy faith has to be based in reality! Unfortunately, most Christians are caught up in a system that is far removed from reality, and is by definition unhealthy.

Morpheus, in the movie “The Matrix” said, “What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad.”

Every person alive has a vacuum that needs to be filled by God. In our search to have it filled, we have been sold a style of Christianity/religion, which at best, is a very poor substitute for the genuine article – the grace of God. Somehow the church in general today is more interested in looking good than being a place for sick people. Now because the church places a huge emphasis on looking good, people are silently discouraged from ever revealing the true state of their hearts. Consequently people are and remain sick in their hearts. Marriages are screwed up, depression is rampant, and we struggle with secret sins. We can never admit any of this stuff, because “it doesn’t make the church look good.”

David said in Psalm 23:4, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” That is the expression and expectation of a healthy faith. Not only that God is with us, but that there are some dark, deadly shadowed places in this old world of ours. The valley of the shadow of death exists in our lives! I have seen it and so have you. It exists because we live in a fallen world. A healthy faith, that is honest about these valleys and the condition of our hearts, will get you through the dark times. An unhealthy faith pretends the valleys don’t even exist!

The same David also wrote in Psalm 40:12, “For troubles without number surround me; my sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see. They are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart fails within me.”

In many churches today that would be considered a bad and negative statement. And would probably result in a sharp rebuke. Confessions like that don’t make churches look good.

So what!?

Jesus categorically stated; "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

In my book, David's confession was the expression of a healthy faith. It was the start to the healing of his hearts condition (which wasn’t pretty). In the same Psalm he says, “He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and the mire; He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.”

You can only get well when you can admit to God and to yourself that all is not well! Then God can start the process of placing you on a rock and giving you a firm place to stand. But as long as we stay caught up in the show of religion – looking good – we fool ourselves. A friend of mine commented on my post last week and referred to it as “cosmetic Christianity.”
A healthy faith embraces who we are, what we are and where we are. Then it trusts a good, loving, God of grace, to involve himself in my frail humanity, and to fix what I am unable to fix.

Last Sunday, a member of our church stood up during testimony time, and started by saying “I have had a sh*t week!”

Ok, probably not the best language, nevertheless, a delight to my ears. Not because I encourage bad language, but because I’m starting to see men and women get real with themselves, God and each other. You see, the black and white of the issue is that we must either deny our vulnerability or deal with it.

So, my friends, embrace the fact that you are a person who must live by grace through faith every day of your life. Remind yourself that God already knows the condition of your heart, so you might as well get real with him and yourself.

I’m kind of fed up with religion that looks so impressive on the outside, but leaves people sick and weary on the inside. So if you’re feeling disillusioned today because you’ve been sold a form of faith that is actually quite empty, you’re not alone! Your pain is shared by many who have to try to somehow reconcile tragedy and reality with “look good” religion. Your disappointments with God only increase your pain.

Please allow Jesus to use your pain, failures and even sin, to bring you closer to himself. They are NOT a barrier to God. They are in fact a bridge!

John 16:33 – “I have told you all this so that you will have peace of heart and mind. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows; but cheer up, for I have overcome the world.”