There needs to be a balance between a healthy faith life and keeping things rooted in reality.
The fact is, as we have already established
beyond any doubt, that we are all sinners saved by graced – nothing more than spiritual ragamuffins. And we should never lose sight of that. Because the moment we do, we put ourselves beyond grace (God’s unconditional favour), and that is a dangerous place to be in. The grace of God not only saves us from being eternally lost, but it also sustains us;
Ø It keeps us in relationship with God
Ø It gives us strength and wisdom for daily living
Ø It offers ongoing cleansing from sin and guilt
Ø It is the alpha and the omega of our faith
Ø It is the one thing that sets Christianity apart from every other faith.
When we abandon grace, we get into deadly legalism, which will ruin an authentic relationship with God. Stephen Aterburn says that, “When all you do is jump through hoops to try to get to God, it is easier to either give up or get weird trying to earn God’s favour.” The church today is littered with both.
Rebecca’s dad died when she was very young. Her mom struggled to keep food on the table, and had to work two jobs. When Rebecca was fourteen she started working too, to keep the family going. Her mom was a woman of faith, who trusted God to provide for her family. She prayed, and regularly attended church. Rebecca went to church with her mom, but it was something she did out of routine and respect for her mom. Somehow she couldn’t relate to the message that was preached at church. The pastor consistently preached a message that said when you became a Christian, there wouldn’t be any more problems. Life would become easy, and life would be full of miracles that took care of all needs. Faith in Christ was presented as an insurance policy against pain in the present. So Rebecca started to wonder, If God is so loving, and if he really cares so much, why isn’t He helping us? If there really is a God, why does He allow my mother to struggle so much?
Because the message didn’t match her real life experience, she abandoned the church and God and started looking to anything that would bring relief. It started with alcohol, then drugs, then sex, until she contracted an incurable disease.
Rebecca’s story is a common one. The expectation of an easy life has caused more people to run from church and God than any other wrong belief.
The message that accepting Christ causes all problems to vanish is not a balanced faith message. Faith in God didn’t help James who was killed with a sword by Herod, or John who was beheaded by Herod, or the missionary Jim Elliot who was killed by Auca Indians in Ecuador, or Cassie Bernall who was shot in the Columbine School massacre after she said, “Yes, I believe.”
Psalm 23:4 - Even if I go through the deepest darkness, I will not be afraid, Lord, for you are with me.
That’s the expression of a healthy and real faith. Not only that God’s presence will go with us, but that there will also be some dark, deadly shadowed places in our lives. They exist in my life and they exist in your life. Just this week I was comforting a family who had lost a loved one through a heart attack at the age of 35. The brother, tears running down his cheeks, said to me, “I just don’t understand why this stuff happens. Four years ago I buried my child, and now I’m going to bury my brother.” Indeed, we don’t understand why. But these things are a reality of our lives. A healthy faith gets us through these dark times. An unhealthy faith believes these things don’t happen to God’s children.
Look what else David wrote;
Psalm 40:12 - I am surrounded by many troubles - too many to count! My sins have caught up with me, and I can no longer see; they are more than the hairs of my head, and I have lost my courage.
That is a healthy expression of faith. Because it’s true. It’s real. It’s the way things are and David never had a problem saying it like it was. A healthy faith helps us embrace who we are, what we are, and where we are.
The issue is this (once again): We are sinners, fallen people, who live by grace 100% of the time. We have to embrace this fact. We have to embrace the fact that we are nothing more than ragamuffins. That’s the way it is. That’s the black and white of it. That is reality. And we must either deny our vulnerability or deal with it.
Discomfort is very real. Conflict is very real. Pain is very real. Disappointment is very real. An unhealthy faith will deny this dark side, and that creates an even greater conflict within us, that causes us to question our faith, our acceptance by God, and sometimes even our salvation! But in reality we all thrash around in slimy pits from time to time.
David said;
Psalm 103:13-14 - The LORD is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate…For he understands how weak we are; he knows we are only dust.
I know of some people who teach that a Christian can reach a level of spirituality where he no longer sins. Now that’s not only unbiblical, it’s just plain unrealistic. Reality means understanding and accepting the truth about who and what I am. John couldn’t have said it simpler;
1 John 1:8-10 - If we say we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and refusing to accept the truth. If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts.
Look carefully at what he’s saying: If we choose a path of self-deception and so doing deny what is obviously truth, we are actually calling God a liar! And when we do that we cut ourselves off from the grace of God – which is the very air by which we live.
The final kind of unhealthy/unreal faith I want to discuss is the concept that God causes EVERYTHING to happen. I can’t tell you how many times, next to the open gave of a loved one times I’ve heard people say, “God did this for a reason. I don’t know why He chose my loved one, but I guess He knows what He’s doing, and at least one day we’ll understand why.”
I need you to know that is an UNHEALTHY faith. Pain has enough problems of its own, without people having to try and figure out why God singled them out to inflict pain on their lives. It is true that God WILL USE every problem and pain to achieve good things in our lives, but God does not CAUSE bad things to happen. The problem with thinking that God is the author of pain is it causes people to see God as schizophrenic. Good to His children one day, but a grim joker who hurts them the next. Deep down this causes insecurity in people’s faith, and subconsciously at least they never know whether they can really trust God.
A good healthy faith accepts that pain and problems are simply part of the fallen world in which we live, and that not one of us are exempt. But when I get real about it, I am in a position to allow my pain to draw me closer to God. Pain does not become a barrier, but a bridge to God.
The fact is, as we have already established
beyond any doubt, that we are all sinners saved by graced – nothing more than spiritual ragamuffins. And we should never lose sight of that. Because the moment we do, we put ourselves beyond grace (God’s unconditional favour), and that is a dangerous place to be in. The grace of God not only saves us from being eternally lost, but it also sustains us;Ø It keeps us in relationship with God
Ø It gives us strength and wisdom for daily living
Ø It offers ongoing cleansing from sin and guilt
Ø It is the alpha and the omega of our faith
Ø It is the one thing that sets Christianity apart from every other faith.
When we abandon grace, we get into deadly legalism, which will ruin an authentic relationship with God. Stephen Aterburn says that, “When all you do is jump through hoops to try to get to God, it is easier to either give up or get weird trying to earn God’s favour.” The church today is littered with both.
Rebecca’s dad died when she was very young. Her mom struggled to keep food on the table, and had to work two jobs. When Rebecca was fourteen she started working too, to keep the family going. Her mom was a woman of faith, who trusted God to provide for her family. She prayed, and regularly attended church. Rebecca went to church with her mom, but it was something she did out of routine and respect for her mom. Somehow she couldn’t relate to the message that was preached at church. The pastor consistently preached a message that said when you became a Christian, there wouldn’t be any more problems. Life would become easy, and life would be full of miracles that took care of all needs. Faith in Christ was presented as an insurance policy against pain in the present. So Rebecca started to wonder, If God is so loving, and if he really cares so much, why isn’t He helping us? If there really is a God, why does He allow my mother to struggle so much?
Because the message didn’t match her real life experience, she abandoned the church and God and started looking to anything that would bring relief. It started with alcohol, then drugs, then sex, until she contracted an incurable disease.
Rebecca’s story is a common one. The expectation of an easy life has caused more people to run from church and God than any other wrong belief.
The message that accepting Christ causes all problems to vanish is not a balanced faith message. Faith in God didn’t help James who was killed with a sword by Herod, or John who was beheaded by Herod, or the missionary Jim Elliot who was killed by Auca Indians in Ecuador, or Cassie Bernall who was shot in the Columbine School massacre after she said, “Yes, I believe.”
Psalm 23:4 - Even if I go through the deepest darkness, I will not be afraid, Lord, for you are with me.
That’s the expression of a healthy and real faith. Not only that God’s presence will go with us, but that there will also be some dark, deadly shadowed places in our lives. They exist in my life and they exist in your life. Just this week I was comforting a family who had lost a loved one through a heart attack at the age of 35. The brother, tears running down his cheeks, said to me, “I just don’t understand why this stuff happens. Four years ago I buried my child, and now I’m going to bury my brother.” Indeed, we don’t understand why. But these things are a reality of our lives. A healthy faith gets us through these dark times. An unhealthy faith believes these things don’t happen to God’s children.Look what else David wrote;
Psalm 40:12 - I am surrounded by many troubles - too many to count! My sins have caught up with me, and I can no longer see; they are more than the hairs of my head, and I have lost my courage.
That is a healthy expression of faith. Because it’s true. It’s real. It’s the way things are and David never had a problem saying it like it was. A healthy faith helps us embrace who we are, what we are, and where we are.
The issue is this (once again): We are sinners, fallen people, who live by grace 100% of the time. We have to embrace this fact. We have to embrace the fact that we are nothing more than ragamuffins. That’s the way it is. That’s the black and white of it. That is reality. And we must either deny our vulnerability or deal with it.
Discomfort is very real. Conflict is very real. Pain is very real. Disappointment is very real. An unhealthy faith will deny this dark side, and that creates an even greater conflict within us, that causes us to question our faith, our acceptance by God, and sometimes even our salvation! But in reality we all thrash around in slimy pits from time to time.
David said;
Psalm 103:13-14 - The LORD is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate…For he understands how weak we are; he knows we are only dust.
I know of some people who teach that a Christian can reach a level of spirituality where he no longer sins. Now that’s not only unbiblical, it’s just plain unrealistic. Reality means understanding and accepting the truth about who and what I am. John couldn’t have said it simpler;
1 John 1:8-10 - If we say we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and refusing to accept the truth. If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts.
Look carefully at what he’s saying: If we choose a path of self-deception and so doing deny what is obviously truth, we are actually calling God a liar! And when we do that we cut ourselves off from the grace of God – which is the very air by which we live.
The final kind of unhealthy/unreal faith I want to discuss is the concept that God causes EVERYTHING to happen. I can’t tell you how many times, next to the open gave of a loved one times I’ve heard people say, “God did this for a reason. I don’t know why He chose my loved one, but I guess He knows what He’s doing, and at least one day we’ll understand why.”
I need you to know that is an UNHEALTHY faith. Pain has enough problems of its own, without people having to try and figure out why God singled them out to inflict pain on their lives. It is true that God WILL USE every problem and pain to achieve good things in our lives, but God does not CAUSE bad things to happen. The problem with thinking that God is the author of pain is it causes people to see God as schizophrenic. Good to His children one day, but a grim joker who hurts them the next. Deep down this causes insecurity in people’s faith, and subconsciously at least they never know whether they can really trust God.
A good healthy faith accepts that pain and problems are simply part of the fallen world in which we live, and that not one of us are exempt. But when I get real about it, I am in a position to allow my pain to draw me closer to God. Pain does not become a barrier, but a bridge to God.
John 16:33 - “The world will make you suffer. But be brave! I have defeated the world!"
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment