Our Biggest Problem

For 10 years I've been telling people the biggest problem in the Church is that we don't understand the Gospel. Today I found a bigger one.

Yes, it’s a huge problem that Christians don’t understand the basic message of Jesus, and yes, it does affect the way you understand everything else about Jesus and the Christian life, but there is something even more foundational than that.

My little epiphany came yesterday as, once more, I had a surreal conversation with a Christian who maintained that we are incapable of being like Jesus. 

Don’t get me wrong, I have had hundreds of conversations with people like this over the years. But maybe this was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

With my recent change in office location, my drive home lately is about an hour long. That gave me plenty of time to think about this conversation, and soon enough I started to realize the real depth of this problem within modern American Christianity.

We don’t believe that Jesus is alive in us. Worse yet, Jesus probably isn’t actually living through the vast majority of us.

We have no concept or expectation that Christ is living within. Therefore, we repeat verses like “Christ in you, the hope of glory” and “Abide in me and I will abide in you”  and dozens like this, but we have absolutely no experience that any of this is an actual reality.

Now, if you have a church full of Christians who never take their faith beyond the book, or the idea stage, just imagine how lifeless and empty that church – and those Christians – will be.

This is why we have Christians who are hateful, angry, distracted by nationalism, moved by politics, competitive, selfish, frazzled, anxious, depressed and bored with their church, their faith, and even with Jesus.

I’m not suggesting that Christians can’t be depressed, or angry, etc., but when someone says a prayer to escape hell and then attends a weekly meeting out of fear and obligation, there’s little reason to be surprised when that person isn’t experiencing the indwelling spirit of Christ or putting his unsearchable riches on display for people to marvel at.

Jesus came to give us life, and that more abundantly. He promised that if we would find ourselves in him, that he and the Father would come and make their home in us.[Jn 14:23] And once they do that, our transformation of character begins.

Not that we’re perfect. Not that we don’t blow it. Not that we don’t need to be reminded over and over again to seek first the Kingdom and to take up our cross daily. But there is the expectation that those who are in Christ have become new creatures with a new heart and the mind of Christ. There is the reality of the character of Christ being formed in us as we submit to Him and seek His face.

So, while the Christian church suffers for not knowing what the Gospel is all about, they suffer more by not experiencing the transformational power of the Gospel in their actual lives.

A Christian who is walking daily in the reality of the indwelling presence of Jesus won’t need any more information about the Gospel, because they are already immersed in the living actuality of Jesus.

Christians who are filled with the Spirit of God are marked by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, meekness and self-control. Those are the kinds of people you want to be around. They’re the sorts of people who inspire questions like, “Why do you have so much hope in your heart?” Our doctrines don’t inspire questions like that. Our theology doesn’t waft the aroma of Christ into the nostrils of the unbelieving around us.

As Madeleine L’Engle put it:

“We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.”

I have spent many years studying apologetics. I know that stuff backwards and forwards. But once I realized that I had never once argued anyone into the arms of Jesus I quit. Instead, I found that there is no apologetic like a life that reflects the character of Christ.

I’ll be honest, I think it’s possible to know all of this in your head and still not get it in your heart – or practice it in your daily life. That’s the piece I am only beginning to explore right now.

But isn’t this the key element that’s missing in our own lives? (Not to mention in the church, or in our world).

The reality of the living Christ within is where our faith rises or falls. Either Jesus is alive inside of us right now, or our faith is dead.

The good news is that Jesus is waiting to meet you where you are. He is longing to awaken your heart – and mine – to the reality of his holy presence.

His promise is that He will never leave you, nor forsake you. His name is “Emmanuel” which means ‘God with us’.

How can we keep him at arm’s length? How can we reduce him to an image or a concept?

 Read the Bible all you want. Until you have the living spirit of God within, you'll never know Christ and the power of his resurrection.

Knowing things about Jesus is not the same as knowing him.

Knowing theology is not how you draw nearer to Jesus.

Get on your knees. Ask him to reveal himself to you.

Wait on him. Listen for his voice.

He freely gives his Spirit to anyone who asks.

-kg

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"I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." - Jesus [John 15:5]

"The world does not need Christianity. The world needs Christ". - Kat Huff

Learning To Be Loved

My friend Thomas Nixon once said something that I will never forget. He said that his house church family came together to discover how to love God and how to love one another. I remember nodding as he said that, not realizing that he was about to add something so intuitive and yet so unexpected to my mind at the time. He went on to say that they also came together to learn how to be loved by God, and how to be loved by one another.

The simplicity of that statement stunned me a bit. Of course, I thought, if you’re in a room full of people who are committed to loving everyone else, you’ll have to accommodate them by allowing them to actually love you. And if you’re honestly trying to learn how to love God, you’ll have to actually begin by learning how to let God love you.

The questions that began to whisper through my heart as I pondered my friend’s words were relentless. “How can I receive love from others like this?”, “What’s holding me back from receiving God’s love in my own heart?”, and most profoundly, “How could I possibly have missed such a simple truth?”

That conversation was years ago now. I’m still trying to answer those questions in my heart. If anything, those whispers have crescendoed into roars like a waterfall in my ears. “How do I learn to be loved?”

I have to admit, this is something I struggle with. Yes, I know in my mind that Jesus loves me, and I have experienced the love of God in my life many times before, but I’m learning lately that I have yet to really learn how to fully receive God’s love the way He intends for me to.

Why is it hard for me to accept God’s amazing love? I think it's partly because I struggle with pride. One of the ways I try to manage my pride is to avoid anything that is about "me" or tends to exalt my ego in any way. Somehow the idea of embracing the notion that Jesus is totally in love with me feels like a threat to my meager humility. It’s almost as if receiving His love would fill me with pride somehow. I don't know how to fully explain it, but it’s there.

At the same time, I am also constantly aware that I do not deserve His love, so to fully embrace His outrageous love for me is like denying that I am wretched, sinful, and unlovable.

So, because of my love for myself, and my hatred of myself, I am kept from fully receiving the exquisite love of God. I am boxed in on both sides by selfish pride and by awareness of my own sin. How can I receive the awesome love of a Holy God when I am too in love with myself, or too ashamed of my own unworthiness to let Him love me?

Intellectually, of course, I know all the answers for this. If I were counseling someone else I would know exactly which verses to quote, what illustrations to use to counter these ideas, but in practice, in my own heart, these do not erase the reality of my struggle.

I’ve preached sermons on this topic, I’ve memorized verses on the love of God, I know in my mind that all of these thoughts and attitudes are foolish and unnecessary, but none of that changes the fact: A large portion of my heart is still untouched by the love of God.

If you’re in the same boat with me then we are the people that Paul the Apostle is praying for in Ephesians chapter 3 when he says:

“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” (v. 17-19)

What Paul says is that our ability to be “rooted and established in love” can only be accomplished if we receive “power” from God to do so. God’s power must be unleashed upon us to enable us to “know this love that surpasses knowledge”.

I love that Paul uses that phrase to describe the love of God - “love that surpasses knowledge” because what he’s emphasizing to us is that the love of God isn’t accessible via language, or teaching, or intelligence, or any other form of human knowledge. How could you possibly know something that surpasses knowledge? Even if you had all the knowledge in the Universe you would still not be capable of knowing this astounding love of God. Why? Because the love of God surpasses knowledge. It cannot be found in this way. It is too large for any human brain to grasp. Only the human heart can ever hope to receive it, and only then if it is apprehended by the impulse of God’s might power working in us.

My prayer for myself, and for you as well if you find yourself in this same place, is exactly what Paul says here. I pray that we might all have power to grasp how infinitely wide and eternally high and endlessly deep is the transformational love of Christ Jesus, our Lord.

True, there may be barriers in my own heart that I know must be broken down before I can finally receive His amazing love. But, it's good to know that Jesus has His sights set on destroying these barriers. Only He can do this work in my heart. I long for Him to crash through those two strongholds of mind and heart. I can't wait for that day to come.

-kg