A Christian, but not a Disciple?

Dallas Willard tells the following story:

A lady came to a pastor who had been emphasizing discipleship and said, "I just want to be a Christian. I don't want to be a disciple. I like my life the way it is. I believe that Jesus died for my sins, and I want to be with him when I die. Why do I have to be a disciple?" (Renovation of the Heart, pg. 245)

Though I have never been asked this question quite so bluntly, I have been asked questions like this many times as a pastor. Ironically, this question is asked by people who have been part of a church for years as well as people who have yet to make Jesus Savior and Lord.

I have a pretty definitive answer, but I don't want to spoil it for you just yet. I want you to think about it and respond first.

Can you be a Christian without being a disciple?

Is this an important question or just another act of religious trivia?

If you were the pastor, how would you answer her question?

Eternity - Make Sense of that One!

This week I am preaching on eternity - an eternal Jesus actually - taken from Matthew 25:1-13.

Every time I think about eternity, the subject seems so vast. The best analogy I can think of is the ocean and it's vastness. Can anyone really describe the ocean? Can anyone really tell us how many gallons of water it contains? Of course not - it's so unfathomable. But that doesn't make it any less real!

That is what eternity is like for me. I know a bunch of the theological explanations about eternity and I accept them, but that still doesn't mean I understand the concept. Eternity is forever, totally void of our understanding of time and space. History, current events, future planning - none of that really makes sense when you really try to focus on eternity.

When I was a kid I remember wanting to know if my favorite foods would be in heaven - lots of pizza and cheeseburgers, but definitely no tuna casserole or lima beans. I remember thinking that a perpetual worship service sounded kind of boring. Who would really want to be in church forever? That is how I thought as a boy.

Now, as I sit here as a 32 year old man trying to contemplate eternity, I think I have at least a more mature perspective. However, the whole notion still seems too vast to fully grasp.

So here is what I believe:

1. Eternal life is real - and I'm living a taste of it now!

2. Depending on the life we choose, we will take one of two eternal paths - what the bible calls Heaven and Hell.

3. The offer has been made to every person to embrace the man Jesus as Son of God, Savior of sins, Lord of life. Doing that grants one entry into the eternal kind of life I am living now.

4. Somehow, in ways I don't fully understand, aspects of that eternal life - peace, joy, deliverance from sin, transformation into Christlikeness, hope, etc. - are already taking shape in me. Indeed, as the days and weeks go by I can see it taking shape more and more.

5. The eternal kind of life I hope for in Heaven is so much different and greater that it simply blows my mind to try and define it.

6. Sadly, the hellish alternative is just as impossible to fully grasp in all its terrible consequences . . . and I am thankful Jesus has kept me from that experience. And I pray that my life will be used by Him to keep others from that experience as well.

When you think of eternity, how do you come to terms with the enormity of it all?

Confrontation Jesus Style

In John 8:1-11 Jesus confronts a woman caught in adultery, but not like the crowds expect or want Him too. Instead of stones, he refuses to condemn her and offers her a way to sin no more.

In John 4:1-26 Jesus confronts a woman at a town well who has been ostracized by her community because of her sexual past and current lifestyle. He offers her living water.

When asked why He ate with tax collectors and sinners, Jesus responded, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." (Luke 5:32)

Jesus' harshest confrontations came against the religious leaders of the day (Matthew 23).

Paul and other New Testament writers repeatedly admonish Christians to carry each others burdens or to speak truth in love, etc., but that is always directed from one Christian to another.

So, if we want to be faithful followers of Jesus, how do we confront sin and confront others who are living in sin? What is the best way? What should be the goal? Are there times when it is not appropriate to confront? Are there different standards for confrontation between Christians and non-Christians? Why do we find this whole practice so difficult?

The Making of a Saint

How is a saint made? I'm not talking about the canonization of saints in the Roman Catholic Church. That's another topic for another day. I'm talking about the simple biblical definition of a saint. A saint is anyone who is transformed by Jesus Christ They no longer have the status of a sinner separated from God and hostile to His ways, but are reconciled to God, having their sins forgiven and a new heart to please God and follow His ways. That means a saint is anyone who lives in a state of salvation through Jesus, in a state of grace with the penalty of sin removed.

So, here is the question for us. What makes a good saint? Is a good saint someone whose life is more moral than someone else's or is that the issue at all?

In Luke 7:36-50 Jesus is eating in the home of a religious man (a Pharisee) and that man is astounded when a sinful woman enters the house and cleans Jesus' feet. He thinks Jesus should have nothing to do with her, but Jesus tells a short parable to illustrate why the woman is valuable and why her gift ultimately makes her a saint. He says that two men with debts they could not pay had them canceled. Then he asked the religious man which one would be more appreciative. The religious man replied correctly that it would be the one with the bigger debt that was canceled. Later, the story is concluded by Jesus forgiving the woman's sin and saying of her, "her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little."

The woman and the religious man both had a debt of sin that they could never hope to repay. Jesus came to earth to cancel those debts of sin. The issue was that only the sinful woman seemed to appreciate that so only she became a saint - at least as far as we know from Luke's account.

Which brings us back to my question: What makes a good saint and how much does it have to do with my level of morality? In that regard, are there good saints and bad saints or are there just sinners (people far from God) or saints (people saved through Christ)?

Dallas Willard writes:

The greatest saints are not those who need less grace, but those who consume the most grace, who indeed are most in need of grace - those who are saturated by grace in every dimension of their being. Grace to them is like breath. (Renovation of the Heart, Pg. 93-94)

So, how do you see it? What makes a good saint and is it measured by one's moral standing or some other measurement? Depending upon how we answer this determines how we see the issue of spiritual formation and maturity. Is my pursuit as a saint of God simply to manage sin and morality better or to take on the character and countenance of Jesus? Unfortunately, you can do the former without giving any attention to the latter and in so doing, you might be missing the whole point.

So, what makes a good saint?

Lost and Found

Dallas Willard writes:

We're not lost because we are going to wind up in the wrong place. We are going to wind up in the wrong place because we are lost . . . Hell is not an "oops!" or a slip. One does not miss heaven by a hair, but by constant effort to avoid and escape God. (Renovation of the Heart, pg. 55 & 59)

Growing up I understood the term "lost" to be almost strictly about someone who was a sinner bound for Hell, period. Now that I am older, I think I have come to see this with a little more depth and insight. This whole spiritual journey is not simply about Heaven and Hell. The final destination is of vital importance, don't get me wrong. But that doesn't mean its the only thing that is important.

When we treat the spiritual journey as only about Heaven and Hell I think we miss something. We sell discipleship in Christ short. We are to become like Christ. We are to know and follow His commands. We are to embrace His values and make them our own. We are to be so infused with the power of the Holy Spirit that we begin to experience eternity right now!

Willard goes on to make this point:

Spiritual formation is not something that may, or may not, be added to the gift of eternal life as an option. Rather, it is the path that the eternal kind of life "from above" naturally takes. It is the path one must be on if his or hers is to be an eternal kind of life. (pg. 59)

I embrace Christ and am found in Him. In that embrace I take on His character and His values. His teachings and commands become my chosen pattern for life. When I stray from Christ's path I am convicted of that sin and return because life isn't right apart from Christ's path. That is what it means to live life "found in Christ." That is the life that leads to Heaven, but Heaven always remains the End and life begins now, not then.

Last week we talked about confession, the first step to dealing with sin. I think understanding the true nature of being lost or found is wrapped up in that subject too. I cannot truly confess apart from understanding how I am lost and in need of being found.

How does this resonate with your life story? Where do you connect with this concept?

Is confession a big deal?

For the past several weeks we have been talking about sin, where it comes from and what it looks like in our lives. I wonder if we could spend some time now talking about what it really takes to be free from sin, how we can move out from being so weighed down by sin.

Sin is very heavy. When he was carrying sin, David said his "bones wasted away," his "strength was sapped" and God's "hand was heavy" upon him (Psalm 32:1-4). No one really wants to live this way. In fact, I believe that the longer one persists in some sinful pattern the only way they can survive is to become calloused to it. But even then there is a heaviness because one cannot survive like that forever. So how do you become free?

The first step is confession and this step cannot be avoided or sidestepped.

Greg Ogden writes:

When we measure our lives against God's moral perfection, we begin to see how contaminated our hearts are. In Greek, confess means "to agree with." In confessing to God we are agreeing with God about what he sees. By making confession a regular part of our conversation with the Lord we are giving him permission to show us our lives through his eyes.

Two important biblical references are:

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. – 1 John 1:9

Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. – James 5:16

It all begins with confession, making clear to God and others what the truth is about ourselves and seeing ourselves through his eyes. That confession leads to repentance, forgiveness and real transformation and victory. But it all starts with confession.

So here is a question for us to think about: Is confession just something between me and God or should there be a time for confession between me and another person? How do I know when its right to confess to another person and when its just something that can stay between me and God? What do you think?

Clearing Up a Misunderstanding

When St. Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) tried to explain the existence of God in a philosophical way, known as the "ontological argument," he described his approach as "faith seeking understanding." In other words he made clear from the beginning that his fundamental belief was in God, in God's nature as revealed in Scripture and then seen throughout his life as a follower of Jesus. His quest to understand God began with Scriptural faith and then he used other means like logic, personal experience, etc. to further understand who God was and what He was about.

I find Anselm to be quite interesting and humble. He recognized that he wasn't the center of the universe, God was. He understood that he didn't know everything, but God did. He was convinced that a quest for truth began and ended with faith in the sovereignty of God. I firmly believe the same thing.

I hope to always remain humble and teachable, fully submitting my mind, heart and will to the Word of God as I have come to understand it. By faith, I believe that God reveals truth through His Word to all people, including me. However, I know that my quest to know truth and live in the truth of Christ is not and never will be over on this side of heaven. In other words, God still has much to teach me.

A few weeks ago, on January 8th, I posted an entry entitled "Preaching to Yourself Everyday." Someone recently sent me a note indicating their great concern for my spiritual state based on that article, finding it "very disconcerting." I believe I have been misunderstood. So, I beg your indulgence to set the record straight.

My intention in that article was to make clear how important and meaningful it has been for me recently to understand at a greater level the power of the Gospel in my life. I recognize now more than I ever have how much I need the grace and mercy of Jesus, not just to save my soul for heaven, but also to transform my body, my heart and my mind while I am still on earth. I am so thankful for this power from the Holy Spirit and depend on it completely. It is my only hope.

I can't imagine how anyone who is really pursuing truth and life in Christ doesn't regularly come to terms with how often their own life doesn't measure up to Jesus' standard. To me, anything other than living up to Jesus' standard is sin, plain and simple. Sin isn't just doing something that is bad, but also failing to do something that is good (see the blog post on January 15th entitled "What Sin? What Grace!" for more clarification). With that measure of faith, seeking greater understanding in God's Word, I have humbly come to the conclusion that I still have areas in my life that need further transformation in the Gospel.

I would love to dialogue more about this. It is so important that we come to a clear and biblical understanding of sin or we won't be able to appreciate the significance of salvation or why it's even necessary. So please let the dialogue begin. Like Anselm, from the vantage-point of faith, let's seek understanding together.