Accept Acceptance

The other day I ran across an interesting definition of faith:

Faith is "the courage to accept acceptance." - Paul Tillich

That definition is pretty simple and, in fact, too simple I think. It needs a little more context. We are not talking about acceptance from just any source, whether human or supernatural. The acceptance we are talking about comes from God.

The standard Gospel presentation goes like this:

• I am a sinner and sin separates me from God.
• The spiritual price for my sin is death and there is no way for me to change this dynamic on my own power.
• Jesus' sacrificial death on the cross paid the price for my sin. By grace He offers to forgive all my sin, erasing its eternal consequences.
• I receive this grace by faith, trusting that Jesus did what He said and that I am now at peace with God.
• I then pledge my life to follow Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit that now lives inside me.

That makes me a Christian - a follower of Jesus.

Now back to the faith definition. The "courage to accept acceptance" means that I have to REALLY trust God, that this Gospel thing is for real, that this salvation I am claiming is for real, that this change He is working in me is for real.

If I don't REALLY trust it doesn't make God and His Gospel less real, but it does make it NOT present in me. But if I do REALLY trust, then it is real for me too, despite all my failures and shortcomings and even though I am not as good as the other guy. It's real because I can have the courage to accept my own acceptance from God.

But in the midst of all this, be honest with yourself and with God. Remember the line that the scared father gave Jesus while asking Him to help His son. He said, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24)

I love that line . . . I have used it many times!

What do you think?

Seeing the life of salvation from another angle

Rob Bell, in his book Velvet Elvis, says this:

God is retelling each of our stories in Jesus. All of the bad parts and the ugly parts and the parts we want to pretend never happened are redeemed. They seemed pointless and they were painful at the time, but God retells our story and they become the moments when God's grace is most on display. We find ourselves asking, am I really forgiven for that? The fact that we are loved and accepted and forgiven in spite of everything we have done is simply too good to be true. Our choice becomes this: We can trust his retelling of the story, or we can trust our telling of the story. It is a choice we make every day about the reality we are going to live in.

And this reality extends beyond this life.

Heaven is full of forgiven people.

Hell is full of forgiven people.

Heaven is full of people God loves, whom Jesus died for.

Hell is full of people God loves, whom Jesus died for.

The difference is how we choose to live, which story we choose to live in, which version of reality we trust.

Ours or God's

When we choose God's vision of who we are, we are living as God made us to live. We are living in the flow of how we are going to live forever. This is the life of heaven, here and now. And as we live this life, in harmony with God's intentions for us, the life of heaven becomes more and more present in our lives. Heaven comes to earth. (Pg. 146-147)

I have been wresting with this idea for several days now. It's a powerful one. To me, it maintains the universal offering of Jesus' grace and forgiveness to all, while making clear that there are many that choose not to accept it. The offering doesn't cease to be universal even if some say NO.

To me this is a better way to explain the Gospel to someone who either knows nothing of Jesus Christ or - even better - someone who has a warped view of Him.

What do you think?

What does it mean to be spiritually mature?

I recently read an article put out by the organization run by pollster George Barna. (Click here for the whole article http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/12-faithspirituality/264-many-churchgoers-and-faith-leaders-struggle-to-define-spiritual-maturity) The article was on the mixed and differing definitions of spiritual maturity.

When I read this line I either wanted to cry or scream:

One of the widely embraced notions about spiritual health is that it means “trying hard to follow the rules described in the Bible” – 81% of self-identified Christians endorsed this statement, and a majority agreed strongly (53%). Even among those individuals defined by their belief that salvation is not earned through “good works,” four out of five born again Christians concurred that spiritual maturity is “trying hard to follow the rules.”

I think this is one of the greatest pitfalls affecting church people today and PREVENTING them from actually growing in Christ and becoming spiritually mature. We have made maturity into a measurement about rules and, in the process, we have greatly missed the point. To be honest, I think our stressing of "the rules" is what keeps many people from entering the church in the first place, what causes many to leave and what keeps far too many active church people hiding in the shadows hoping people won't really figure them out.

Would someone show me where "following the rules" is stated as a biblical command or even a Christian virtue? I dare say we won't be able to find it.

We will find significant biblical basis for devoting our lives to God, to obeying Him and following Jesus Christ. But that is NOT the same as "following the rules."

No one can "follow the rules." That is why we need a Savior. That is why we are doomed without God's grace. That is why we must depend on God's forgiving love.

Remember that "God is love," that "while we were sinners Christ died for us," that "we love because He first loved us." Our devotion and obedience is a response to God's love that we have received.

Jesus said that the measurement of spiritual maturity was to love God and our neighbor. Paul wrote to the Galatians that we are to "Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ." (Gal. 6:2).

That means spiritual maturity is not about knowledge or about following the rules, but about a growth - receiving and offering - in love. That is the only rule that matters and the rule that makes everything else fall into place.

How do you see it?

A good part of plan A

“We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.” – 2 Corinthians 5:20

This single verse of scripture makes it pretty clear that I am called to be a representative of Jesus Christ. All of us are the vessels that God makes His appeal through.

I have heard it said many times that God's plan for reaching the world is through the Church, His people. And there is no plan B. Now that is a great line upon which to build a sermon, but if we are plan A, how are we doing - or better - HOW AM I DOING?

I don't ask this to load up a bunch of guilt or to display a sense of defeat, but to honestly bring a realistic assessment of myself and challenge me to go to the next level.

With that in mind, I know three things that Jesus always did and - if I am going to be a good ambassador - I need to grow in doing:

1. Jesus had a radical acceptance for all kinds of people.
2. Jesus showed what God was really like.
3. Jesus gave up Himself in order to serve others.

This means I can never write people off, that I need to show people God's character through my own warts and that the best way to draw people to God is through serving others. It also frees me from being "the change agent." I am called to be the ambassador, the representative, and not the changer. I DON'T CHANGE ANYONE! GOD DOES!

That means being a good part of God's plan A means reflecting or representing Jesus more and more and better and better.

How does this make sense to you?