Let’s Just Cut the Crap!
Listen to: Let’s Just Cut the Crap!
I’m sick of traditions. I’m tired of the rituals, the denominational doctrines, and the self-righteous attitudes of Christians, particularly here in the Bible Belt. It’s powerless, worthless, and condemning.
It seems like everywhere I look there is such an apathy, no one wants to speak out, or stand up for anything for fear of looking weird or fanatical. Christians that just want to fit in, and live peacefully, and comfortably. But we were created for so much more! Our traditions, “the way we’ve always done it”, imposes a purposeless, lifeless, burden on those who need God’s love.
We see in Matthew 11, Jesus offering the Jewish people relief from the traditions and doctrines of the Pharisees. Starting in verse 28 He says:
“Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart; and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
A while back I ran across the song by Matthew West called ‘The Motions’. In it he says, “I don’t want go through the motions, I don’t want to go one more day, without your all consuming passion inside of me, I don’t want to spend my whole life asking, What if I had given everything, instead of going through the motions?”. Those words and that challenge has stayed with me for months. There is so much more to our relationship with Jesus Christ than just going through the motions.
Church isn’t a country club where we go to hang out with people we know, then pay our “dues”, and go home. It’s a place where we go to encourage and help each other in our walk with the Lord. And yet so many times we put on that plastic smile, and tell everyone that everything is great in our life, when in fact it’s not.
Instead the church body needlessly lives in private pain, and private struggles thinking we’re the only ones going through it. I’ve seen this more times than I can count, and it makes me sick. We will never have true fellowship, until we, you and I, let down the walls that surround us.
In place of vulnerability and healing, we settle for a complacent selfish doctrine, a doctrine of “Bless me God!” I get so tired of hearing people constantly touting how God will bless us. If we fast, if we have enough faith, if we speak it out, if we can find a scripture to claim, if we tithe, if we pray, if we serve, God will bless us. And while this is true, the focus is oftentimes wrong. We don’t tithe, fast, pray, serve, or believe, just because God will bless us, but rather we do these things out of obedience, and enjoy the blessings as something more along the lines of a fringe benefit! We weren’t created to live out our lives asking God to bless us in our endeavors. We were created to serve God and fulfill His purpose for us. That’s the only place that real fulfillment comes. It won’t come from jobs, money, marriage, power, or even speaking in tongues, answered prayers, or healing. True fulfillment in life will only come from obeying God out of our love for Him.
Luke 10:17-20 The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!” 18 He said to them, “I saw Satan having fallen like lightning from heaven. 19 Behold, I give you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy. Nothing will in any way hurt you. 20 Nevertheless, don’t rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
In this passage Jesus tells His disciples that while they could indeed cast out demons, and perform miracles, that their focus was in the wrong place. So many times we are reminded throughout Scripture that our actions are always judged by the intents of our heart.
So what is holding us back from following Christ with reckless abandon? That isn’t something that I can answer for anyone, except myself. But it is a question that each one of us must face honestly. Is it our dreams, our fears, our greed, or our selfishness? There is nothing holding us back, except ourselves.
We must come to a place where each one of us truly grasps how wildly God loves us, and how desparately He wants to be the center focus of our lives. When you see yourself the way God sees you, it completely changes everything you thought you knew, and every limitation that you have believed about yourself shows itself as nothing more than blatant lies from the devil.
I wrote a short blog post a while back where I talked about what the Lord has been teaching me about who I am, and I want to repost a small part of it, because I think it applies here.
Everyone has an opinion about who I am. Some think of me as a scientist, some as a horticulturalist, some as a “tech guy”, some as just an all around geek. Some think I’m really quiet, some think I talk to much, some think I’m anti-social, some think I’m really friendly. Some think I’m abrasive, some think I’m caring. Everyone has an opinion about who I am.
So who am I?
I’m a child of God. Period. What I can accomplish, how far I can go, who I can touch, what defines my success and failures all revolve around one factor. What does God say I can do? If He tells me I can do it, hell itself can’t stop me. If He tells me I can’t, there’s no point in trying. I am only as smart and capable as God says I am able to be.
Not much of a limit, huh?
Why does this matter? It matters because I see people day after day living in a box of their own construction, defining their own limits, or worse living within the limits their friends and families impose on them. Every day these people limit their creativity, their talents, and their personalities to fit within their notions of what they can do.
What a shame!
You don’t speak in public because you are scared of what people will think. You don’t cry, share, hurt, or love, because no one expects you to. You live in a defeat of your own making, because you don’t really believe that through God, you really can do all things.
There is no better time than now to take a risk, and tell your friends and co-workers about how the Lord is transforming your life. Remember, it’s not the pastor or missionaries job to tell the world about Jesus. It’s your’s, and it’s mine. God never intended for his offer of life to be distributed only by those with a seminary degree, and knowledge of the Greek or Hebrew. Throughout Scripture He tells us that He desired every person to be his witnesses. This is true even in the Old Testament. He told Moses in Exodus 19, starting in verse 3:
Moses went up to God, and Yahweh called to him out of the mountain, saying, “This is what you shall tell the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel: 4 ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings, and brought you to myself. 5 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice, and keep my covenant, then you shall be my own possession from among all peoples; for all the earth is mine; 6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation.’
Here He is not just talking to the priests, but to the entire nation, that He wanted them to be a kingdom of priests to the rest of the world. If that is the call that He gave to the Jewish people, then how much more is our responsibility, now that the veil is torn and each one of us have a direct relationship with God?
It boggles my mind how those who claim to love the Lord, care so little about those around them that are literally dying for the hope we claim to have. And for some it is not only a lack of concern but an outright judgement of unbelievers for making sinful choices. As if they ought to know better! Is it so difficult to realize that the only reason that people turn to drugs, sex, money, and power, is that they are searching for the joy and peace that only God offers? The joy we claim to have.
I remember several times during college when I would go to Chi Alpha straight from work, where I worked with several non-believers. And as I would be enjoying the worship and the Word, experiencing the incredible goodness of God, I’d be reduced to tears, as I was reminded that the joy that I was experiencing was a joy that my colleagues had never experienced, and would have given anything to have, if they only knew that it was real.
To sum it all up, the status quo for Christians is just not good enough, it’s not what God had in mind for his sons and daughters. But rather than just look at the problem, it is up to each and every one of us to search our soul before God, and see what He call us to do to change the status quo in our lives.
You see, I’m not just here to complain about the things in church that I don’t like, or promote my particular opinions about how we ought to behave. Rather, I want you to grasp just how intensely important it is to put ourselves aside, and seek with reckless abandon the purpose and identity that God has for each of us. Because once you grasp that, and understand just how passionately God loves you, no one on earth will be able to shut you up. It will be in the words of Jeremiah, as a fire shut up in your bones that you cannot contain it, and like Peter, you can’t help but speak of the things which you have seen and heard. and like John you’ll want everyone to know about your encounter with the Christ, so that their joy may be full, and your fellowship complete.