The Gap
Chris Kratzer speaking at The Grace Place, Shelby NC.
Tag: faith (Page 11 of 12)
There is so much in life that can entice our mind into negative levels of thinking. In fact, we often fill in the blanks of our experiences and circumstances with the worst possible conclusions we could imagine, or at least negative ones. When we wonder about what other people are thinking, we predominantly fill in the blanks with a dark conclusion. When we envision the outcomes of challenges we face, we imagine the worst. And, when it comes to relationships, we often assume a less than positive discernment of motives or explanation for behaviors. Unfortunately, most of us tend to gravitate to the negative in our thinking.
“Paranoia, it will destroy ya!” -The Kinks
In basic terms, paranoia deals with strong fears of doom, harm, or destruction based on perceived realities, many of which are unlikely, uncontrollable, and/or completely imagined or exaggerated for one reason or another. To be honest, we all dabble in a bit of paranoia from time to time, believing that perceived or exaggerated realities (imagined or otherwise) are seeking to harm us.
Unfortunately, many people have developed a kind of God paranoia. Deep down, though we believe God love us, there is a part of Him we are not sure we can trust. Sometimes He is pursuing our good, but if we take a wrong turn, we fear He may just start pursuing our harm. Or, at least, withhold His favor, presence, and blessing. In fact, when things start going wrong or falling a part in our lives we start to wonder, “maybe God is evening the score, maybe He is punishing me?” How many times have you wondered that? Unfortunately, segments of Christianity and “Church” have not helped, but rather have pimped out a false Gospel that has brainwashed populations of Christians with a kind of “God Paranoia.”
The true Gospel, however is in fact designed to give us “Reverse God Paranoia.” Instead of fearfully believing God may, at times, be out to keep us from too much good, or even bring us punishment, we rather should believe and assume that God is always out to bless and prosper our lives. God isn’t looking for reasons to sabotage, punish, or press us down, but rather for every opportunity He can find to bless, promote, and free us. Any belief or assumption that God is punishing you is an exaggeration of an aspect of God that doesn’t even exist. God is love, that is His core essence and nature. Everything from Him comes from and is love. Does He correct? Yes. Redirect? Yes. Convict the unbeliever of their disbelief or false belief? Yes. Punish? No. Sin brings it’s own penalty, not God.
I love what Ray Edwards declares…
“I am a reverse paranoid. I believe a Force I cannot control is out to do me good.” -Ray Edwards
You have heard me say over and over again, “Right believing leads to right living” Well, let me add this, “Right believing leads to REAL living.”
The REALity is, God wakes up each day or your life with a “Ways To Bless _(your name)_” list He has been working on all night to create. He is your greatest friend, supporter, coach, provider, and encourager. When you rest in a belief of the complete goodness of God for your life, the door is opened for God to abundantly bless the socks off of you. Always assume that He is on your side, because He is, even if it doesn’t seem that way in the moment. God is always in a good mood. Whether you like it or not, He loves you and is feverishly working every angle to overflow your cup with moonshine concentration levels of His intoxicating goodness, favor, and blessing for your life. Never again perceive God to be punishing you, maliciously holding you back, or pulling out the rug.
Drink in the goodness of God and develop a healthy case of Reverse God Paranoia.
As one of my friends on facebook posted, “Where has the summer gone?” Yup, the new school year is upon us. And, if you are like me and most parents, this is a super stressful time for the whole family. Supplies to buy, schedules to arrange, clothes to try on, orientations to attend, doctors appointments to schedule, and then to top it off, there is a ton of “change” to manage. “Will I make new friends?” “Wow, I am not sure I am ready for them to be growing up, and so fast” “Mom, I need to have _________, if I don’t I will be a nerd, and I just might hate your guts forever”
You know the routine, and could surely fill in your own back-to-school experiences. To be sure, it’s not easy reality to manage, anxiety levels are high, stress is growing, and the reality of change is not an easy pill to swallow. So, how can we all manage this time of the year in ways that are sync with God?
Here are a few tips on riding the back-to-school wave with Grace.
1) Stay cool.
And by that I mean, don’t let this time of the year erode your sense of peace. In times of stress, it’s easy to get into a tailspin of short tempers, stress, and anxiety, often majoring in the minors, and minoring in the majors. Try to keep you perspective and rest in the reality that God is at work and will surely guide and provide your way through this stressful time. Your attitude towards “back-to-school” will set the temperature in your family for how everyone else handles it. If you are calm, cool, and collected, chances are that will help minimize the overall stress level for the rest of the family. Remember, you are already perfect in Christ, you don’t have to perform perfectly nor does everything have to come together perfectly. Don’t miss the forest from the trees. Enjoy this time, even the stress of it, one day, you will be wishing you could have these days back again.
2) Keep communication lines open and active.
“Back-to-school” is an important time to go above the call of duty to make sure everyone is talking, expressing, and communicating feelings and needs. Making sure to initiate conversations among family members will be critical. Repeatedly asking questions like, “So, how are you feeling about all this?” “Hey, is there anything we are forgetting?” “So, how are you handling things?” will be valuable tools before, during, and after the “back-to-school” whirlwind. So many negative situations can be prevented or diffused from becoming a problem if communication lines are open and active.
3) Speak out your faith for the new school year.
In addition to praying together, I think it’s incredibly valuable to speak out statements of faith over the “back-to-school” experience. When you and your family speak and hear declarations of faith, it releases God to work and uplifts everyone who hears them. Statements like, “I believe this new year is going to be full of blessings and wonderful surprises from God” “Lord, I thank you that you have gifted my children with great minds that will excel in learning this year.”Jesus, I thank you in advance for working all things out for our good and your glory, covering my children with your protection and purposes” will have a supernatural effect on the “back-to-school” atmosphere of your family. Asking your children, “What are you believing God for this new year in school?” is a great way to get things started.
4) Don’t get over-scheduled
There is a great temptation among American families to be over-scheduled with activities. And this is the time of the year when that destructive ball gets set into motion. Your value and worth as a parent and family is not in how many activities you are doing each week. You can have an after school event or activity scheduled for every day of the week for your children and completely miss out on the true essence and experience of family at the same time. One of the worst mistakes we can make as parents is to raise performance-driven children who base their identities on the amount and level of their extra-curricular accomplishments. Soccer, ballet, dance, football etc. are all great things for our children, as long as they are managed well. Nothing can be more important than to teach our children how to prioritize their lives, placing faith, family, play, rest, and school at the top of the list. Everyone has a plan for your children’s lives. Coaches, programs, sports, etc. are all craving the unrestrained and unrestricted time and commitment of your children. And trust me, they will take it all if you let them. The question is, “Are you going to teach your children when to say “yes” and when to say “no” to all the things soliciting their time, in ways that keep the main things in life the main thing?”
So, what would you add to this list?
For some time, I believed that my role in the Christian life was to make sure that I was somehow producing fruit in my life. For sure, when your fellow Christian fruit inspector comes along on their high horse to discern whether you are growing as a Christian, you don’t want to disappoint. Will they see joy, peace, self-control…? I better get to work and produce some fruit, or the “Faithful Christian” card kept in my wallet might get revoked.
Yet, the harder I tried to have peace, the more peace alluded me. The more I tried to create joy and love, the less joyful and loving I found myself to be. And even when I had moments that it seemed like fruit was growing on the vine, it didn’t last very long or go very far.
Why? Because I discovered a profound truth, you can’t produce fruit in your life. And, the moments when you can seem to fabricate them in your life, they come and go because you have to be the one to pull the strings. It’s not fruit you have produced, it’s a phony religious facade.
Only God can produce and sustain fruit in your life, and that, only by your faith. It’s believing that produces fruit, not work, striving, and trying. You already have all the fruits of the Spirit the moment you put your faith and trust in Jesus for salvation. Faith is what actualizes and manifests those fruits in your life.
God produces fruit, we bear fruit. We can only share fruit, we cannot create it.
And even better, God is so gracious to allow us the freedom to bear the fruit He produces in ways that we love, enjoy, and find purpose.
The harder you try to have fruit in your life, the less you will have. The more you trust that Jesus has already supplied every fruit and growth needed in your life, that He has already recreated you having every spiritual blessing, the more God’s fruits will flow through your life. Jesus is your sanctification, not your performance skills.
Faith in who you already are in Christ is what enables you to live up to who you have become. Let God produce the fruit, you live to bear them.
Rest in faith that He who began a good work in you will see it through to its fullest potential. Stop striving, start believing and resting in His performance in your life, not yours.
Fruit or facade? That depends on whose performance you are trusting, yours or His.
The “Parable of the Talents” in the Bible has long been interpreted with a leaning towards the basic idea that if you serve God more, He will serve you more. Give God more, and He will give more of Himself to you. If you don’t, you will have a lacking life and may be in jeopardy of losing your salvation. It’s the kind of interpretation that has given many a Christian a performance-based view of the Christian life.
Yet, if we don’t let the Bible interpret the Bible in its “context”, we can make a “con” out of the “text.”
The parables of Jesus were used to help people glean revelation from God about the Kingdom of God and how God works. The are highly symbolic and deliberately so. They are meant to draw the listener/reader in to the revealing whispers of the Spirit as one meditates on God’s Word.
This parable is given in its original context to a Jewish, legalistic audience. This is a key understanding in discerning God’s revelation through this parable. The Jews were followers of the Law, and saw personal performance as their means to God and the things of God. Jesus, being the manifestation of Grace, came to fulfill the law and establish a new covenant solely based on His performance on the cross and His gift of righteousness to all who believe.
The Parable of the Talents is commonly referred to as the “Parable of the Bags of Gold.” This too, is an important contextual issue in discerning the Spirit’s revelation of truth through this parable. The talents given in the parable were gold.
It is commonly known that “gold” in the Bible is a symbol of the righteousness of Christ. As a gift, it symbolizes God giving His best, His son Jesus Christ. Indeed, gold is a symbol of the Grace of God in Christ Jesus, providing us righteousness through His performance (death and resurrection) on the cross, received through faith. Like gold, it is a pure gift of pure righteousness for those who believe. Jesus paid the price we couldn’t pay so we could receive a gift we could never deserve. It is this Grace of God that saves us, sustains us, and sanctifies us.
Now for the parable. (Matthew 25:14-30)
14 “Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. 15 To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. 16 The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more. 17 So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more. 18 But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.
19 “After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them.20 The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more.’
21 “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’
22 “The man with two bags of gold also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two bags of gold; see, I have gained two more.’
23 “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’
24 “Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. 25 So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’
26 “His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? 27 Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.
28 “‘So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags. 29 For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. 30 And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
In basic terms, the parable portrays Jesus, the master, giving His most precious gift, the righteousness of His son Jesus Christ symbolized by gold talents. The Grace of God in Christ Jesus is given to all, but what we do with God’s grace matters deeply to God. The parable is dealing with the stewardship of God’s unmerited Grace and favor through Jesus Christ, not personal talents.
Why 5, 2, and 1? The number 5 is symbolic of Grace, the number two symbolic of Jesus and dualism, and 1 represents God.
The people who are living a 1-talent life view God and living for God in a very legalistic way as symbolized in the parable. They know God as creator, but not Jesus as Lord and Savior. They have buried the revelation of Grace through Jesus Christ, desiring rather a life based on their performance and merit. They have chosen religion (or the absence of) over regeneration and relationship with Christ. Because they have no faith in God’s Grace in Christ, the have no reward, but rather loss. What they now have available to them in Christ, able to be received through faith, will one day have an expiration date upon Christ’s return, and in that sense, be taken away from them because they refused unto the end to receive it.
The people who are living a 2-talent life believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, but live a life mixing together Jesus and their own performance as the bases of their worth, value, and favor from God. What they may call a “balance” or “dance” between God and their performance, God calls a mixture of two covenants. By their living and how they teach others to live, one can tell they don’t truly believe that the same Grace that saved them also sustains and sanctifies them. It’s obvious that we are all designed in Christ Jesus for upright, godly living, and to fulfill and serve a purpose here on earth. 2-talent people however, believe the best method to this goal is to mix their efforts and God’s together. They see the Christian life as “Jesus and me” instead of “Jesus as me.” Thus, the foundation of their life and living is a little bit them and a little bit Jesus. Yet, God’s method to the goal of holiness and faithfulness is Grace. It’s His performance “as us” in this world. We are the righteousness of Christ, co-laborers, having every spiritual blessing. In the Bible, Paul declared that “in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete” (Colossians 2:9-10). We lack nothing. Jesus Christ possesses all of God. We possess all of Jesus Christ. He possesses all who believe. It’s a complete union. There is no division between us. It is not just Christ in your life, it is Christ “as” your life. This is the foundation from which Paul concluded, 13 [Not in your own strength] for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you [energizing and creating in you the power and desire], both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight. (Philippians 2:13, AMP) The foundation for obedience and service is faith, not self-effort nor performance. Your Christian life is a 100% you and 100% Jesus. Not 50% of each. Neither is it a 50% your performance and 50% His. It’s 100% Jesus’ performance in, through, and “as” you. You don’t need more of Jesus or more closeness with Jesus, you have all of Him and are as close as you can get, you need only believe it to receive it. Faith is the currency of heaven, not your faithfulness. It is clear that this 2-talent person had at least a faith to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and because so, his faith was rewarded.
The people who are living a 5-talent life have received God’s Grace and are living solely from God’s Grace. There is no mixture of covenants. It’s all grace upon grace, not grace with a mixture of Law (performance based rules). There is no balance or dance, there is only being “as He is so are we in this world.” (1 John 4:17) Because they have received the pure Gospel of God’s grace through faith, they don’t sin more, they sin far less. Their identity in Christ (complete, whole, forgiven etc.) shapes their performance in life, not the other way around. It is right believing that leads to right living. These are people who have taken all of God’s Grace and live all by Grace, and give all through Grace. For them, as they labor to rest in Grace (Hebrews 4:11), there is no striving or trying to their Christian life, there is only believing and trusting. Theirs is an obedience of faith (Romans 1:5) that leads them to act on the promptings of the Holy Spirit with true power and multiplying effectiveness for the Kingdom. They don’t have to serve, love, sacrifice, etc. they “get” to. It’s not a work, but an act of love from a foundation of rest. It is in and through this foundation of faith that God is able to bless and multiply. The multiplying mathematics of the Kindgom is “grace upon grace” not “grace upon performance” or “grace upon law.” All received and manifested through faith.
The only two places in scripture where it is recorded by the Holy Spirit that Jesus became angry were situations where Grace was not given (and thus obviously not received). God is super serious about what we do with His pure Gospel of Grace, and the Parables of the Talents is one place where Jesus communicates this seriousness through parable.
For sure, don’t refuse Grace and live a 1 talent life. Yet, don’t mix Grace and live a 2 talent life. Receive, live, give, and rest in the fulness of the Gospel of God’s grace and live a 5 talent life!
Let me be clear as a glass of Veen bottled water, I am a firm believer in God’s desire for us to take care of our bodies, and eating well is a vital aspect of doing such!
There is growing evidence that many physical and emotional problems can be traced back to nutrition at some level or another. My wife and I and our 4 children have removed most process foods from our diet and are very health conscious about what we eat. I have been known to juice two to three times a day and declare with firm conviction the benefits of doing so. So, as you read further, you can refrain from sending me emails declaring my ignorance or resistance to nutritional health and the biblical admonitions to live a healthy lifestyle. Furthermore, in a church/christian culture ladened with diet-caused obesity, I am very encouraged to see more Christians moving towards healthier eating lifestyles. We as Christians are so quick to point out sins like homosexuality in our culture, all while we stuff our overweight bodies after Sunday service at the church of Golden Corral. Christians who don’t eat responsibly with health in mind are moving away from the Grace of God that teaches us to live rightly, just as much as any other.
However, anything can become an idol, work, legalist standard, religion, or self-righteous ritual, including nutritional health.
The word salvation (sozo) in the New Testament actually refers to the redemption/salvation of the whole person (physically, emotionally, and spiritually). Salvation is not just about getting out of hell and into heaven, it’s about the healing of the entire person, including their bodies. God has provided the supply to our every need, through His son Jesus. Every impact of sin on our life was remedied on the cross, as Jesus bore it all on our behalf. Faith is what applies the entirety of the work of Jesus on cross into our lives and living.
Yet, until we enjoy a new heaven and new earth upon the second coming of Christ, the truth is, as organic and anti-processed as you might like to become, the Garden of Eden is not available to us. Everything of creation on earth is still yet tainted with sin. Even the best of what creation has to offer is fallen. Are there some foods that are better than others? Absolutely! Should we be consuming those better foods rather than the junk that is popularly offered? Absolutely! But nutritional health cannot save you, increase the favor of God on your life, nor make you more of a genuine Christian than another person. Oops, I think I hear few bubbles bursting.
Creation cannot redeem us nor sanctify us, only trusting in the Creator can. In fact, there can even be more clinical connection between stress and disease than there is to nutrition and disease. I would venture to say that some people are so stressed out about their nutritional life that any benefit they might enjoy from eating well is eclipsed by it. They have turned nutrition into a religion, even to the point of posturing themselves as a more faithful breed of Christian. Look at me and what I eat, now that’s what a real-deal Christian does!
Satan is always looking for things to entice the believer to look (and to get others to look) at their own performance for their legitimacy with God and their Christian living. For some, Satan has successfully dangled “nutrition” on a string swinging back and forth in front of their eyes, putting them in a trance of legalistic, nutritional rule keeping. Think I am exaggerating? If you haven’t already, it won’t be long until you run into a Christian who has become a nutritional Nazi, not out of a healthy, humble expression of their own freedom in Christ, but with a desire to project their freedom into yours with a sure sense that if you aren’t living like them, you aren’t as good as them. There is a whole new brand of Christian emerging that will not only thumb the Bible over your head, but a grocery list as well.
Nothing in creation can be your redemption nor salvation supply, only the Creator. We are saved by Grace, not by gluten-free. And perhaps more importantly, we are to live by Grace from Grace, with the freedom to be gluten-free or not. Our identity in Christ is to Christ, not to what we eat or don’t eat. We are not what we eat, nor how we appear, we are what we believe and receive through faith. Jesus makes us who we are, not our diets.
It is more important to believe right than to eat right. The first gives birth to the second. It is more important to rest in Jesus and trust Him to be our every supply, (spiritually, emotionally, and physically) than it is to put your trust in nutrition for your health, value, legitimacy, and identity. Food does not save you nor sanctify you, faith in Jesus, the true Bread of Life does. What would it do to gain the world’s best nutritional offerings and forfeit your soul, rest, and trust in God’s supply for your life? Does God work through the wisdom of nutrition and better eating to benefit, bless, and even give physical healing in our lives? You bet. The same is true with medicine. But the Christian should never work to God from the wisdom of nutrition. God uses Christ to save us and sanctify us, not His creation.
Let’s not give up on faith and chase after the allure of a religion of food. Eat well, be health minded, exercise, but trust in Jesus more. Worship Jesus, not nutrition.
The Spirit makes it clear that as time goes on, some are going to give up on the faith and chase after demonic illusions put forth by professional liars. These liars have lied so well and for so long that they’ve lost their capacity for truth. They will tell you not to get married. They’ll tell you not to eat this or that food—perfectly good food God created to be eaten heartily and with thanksgiving by believers who know better! Everything God created is good, and to be received with thanks. Nothing is to be sneered at and thrown out. God’s Word and our prayers make every item in creation holy. 1 Timothy 4:1-5 (The Message)
I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, 7 which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed. -Galatians 1: 6-9
Grace is not a message, it’s not a theology, it’s not an idea, nor fad, it’s the Gospel. If you don’t subscribe to the pure, complete, and full Grace of God in Jesus Christ, you don’t subscribe to the Gospel. There is not another Gospel, there is only One. There is not one Gospel that saves you, and then another one that sustains and sanctifies you. There is not another Gospel where “God does His part but you must do your part.”
There is only one Gospel, “God does everything, because you can’t, you only need believe.” It’s all Grace, or it’s not the Gospel. When Jesus declared “it is finished,” there was no mixture. He didn’t say, “It is finished… but.” At the cross of Jesus, life under the Law (religious rules you have to perform to please and access God) ended once and for all, life under Grace (Jesus’ performance on the cross which when believed, makes us new, right, pleasing, and seated with Christ at the right hand of God a part from our performance) began. The Gospel is not a little bit of Grace and a little bit of Law mixed together. It’s a all Grace or it’s not the Gospel.
We are no longer to live an “obedience of trying and striving” to follow the rules, but rather we are to live an “obedience of faith,” clinging on to the loveliness of Jesus and His performance, not our own. For the Gospel of Jesus Christ is all about Jesus, not about us. The Law presupposed there is something you can do, the Gospel presupposes there is nothing you can do, but Someone you can believe who did it all, and does it all on your behalf!
There is no Gospel that brings you to Jesus from His Grace only to summon you into a life of striving to please God and merit His favor once you have become saved. There is no Gospel that makes you (as a believer) into a twisted, two natured person; one part evil, and one part divine who never knows who he or she really is from one day to the next, nor has the assurance of their true identity in Christ, and is simply left to fight an inner battle Jesus already won. There is no Gospel that sets you on a course of sin-consciousness where you must repeatedly ask God to forgive you even though He has already done so. There is no Gospel that burdens you with performance-driven talks and steps for you to achieve to increase your reputation with God and His desire to bless your life, only to leave you secretly feeling like a hypocrite because you know you can never do everything all the time to be seen as a true, genuine faithful follower of Jesus. There is no Gospel that is soft on sin when Jesus gave all of Himself to defeat it. There is no Gospel that is hard on sinners when Jesus gave all of Himself for them. There is no Gospel that makes the Church into a legalist club for Christians with a cross on top filled with self-righteous believers who take inner pleasure on raising the sins of others as being more serious than their own. There is no Gospel that treats the Church, it’s purpose, and leadership as a man-centered, performance-dependent venture, or a chasing of the ego’s pursuit to take some part of the credit and glory for the building of the Kindgom. There is no Gospel that sets the believer onto a discipleship series of steps, rituals, and religious activities that appease God, turn His frown upside down, and give you smiley faces on God’s divine chalkboard. There is no Gospel like any of this.
It’s all Jesus, all Him, all Grace, all His performance, all His work, all His faithfulness, all His mercy, favor, and blessing, received through faith alone, or it’s not the Gospel. If it’s any other version, it’s a perversion.
In the Bible passage above, Paul identifies the true perverts of the world. Not sex offenders, not homosexuals, not child porn viewers, as evil and terrible as they are. No, rather, he speaks of Christians who turn away from or turn the Gospel of God’s Grace in Jesus Christ into another Gospel that is, in fact, not a Gospel. At this point, you should either say, “Amen!” or “Ouch!”
The only documented places in scripture where Jesus gets mad or the Spirit is grieved is when Grace is not extended. Not rules, condemnation, religious activities, performance steps, or obedience speeches. Paul echoes God’s heart and view on the matter as he declares that those who turn the Gospel of Grace into any other version should be “accursed.”
Right believing leads to right living. You can’t live the Gospel day to day into you believe it all the way. An obedience problem is at heart an identity problem. You will never know who you truly are until you believe in the true Gospel of Jesus Christ. Faith is what pleases God, not your performance. Faith is what makes His performance become your performance. Faith is the root, obedience is the fruit. We walk by faith, not by sight, or might.
Are you a Christian pervert? Repent (change your mind) and believe in the Gospel.
I learned early on in ministry that activity does not necessarily equate to accomplishment. You can be busy doing lots of things all while getting absolutely nowhere of value.
The same is true in the Christian life, we can find ourselves spending a lot of time doing spiritual-looking activities yet accomplishing very little of Kingdom worth, internally within ourselves and externally. Unfortunately, the same Grace that saved us is often not seen as the same Grace that sustains and grows us. Somehow we have come to believe the idea that at the very least, a bit of the flesh is necessary to somehow improve our lives. So, we work, strive, and try to perform our way to a better life.
Yet, if you are like many Christians, you are secretly frustrated. Though you might never give it a public voice, your inner thoughts are haunted by the conclusion that all these spiritual gymnastics you have been doing and performing aren’t improving one thing. You are tired, exhausted, and wonder deep down, “what’s wrong with me?” I am doing my best only to still be stressed.
The truth is, what releases God’s activity in and through your life is your faith, not your striving. In fact, the same efforts we think that our progressing God’s work in us can be the very same ones that are blocking it.
Yet, at the same time, we can have tons of faith within us, but we aren’t we releasing that faith to work on our behalf. We can become like loaded guns, we have a lot of faith ready to go, but it’s not being released. So, what releases our faith? Most Christians would answer with something like… “my obedience,” “my efforts,” or “my faithfulness.” But those are all centered on our performance, they are types of “work.” And unfortunately, they are activities (as important as they are) that don’t accomplish much.
For God, ironically, “speaking” is His work. In Genesis chapter 1, God creates the entire world into being through speaking, not doing. What works for God is what God wants to work for us. Speaking is a release of our faith that accomplishing more than our efforts ever could. In fact, that which is His work (speaking), is really not work.
Under the new Covenant of Grace (brought through Jesus), speaking is the new doing. Why is this? Because under the new Covenant, believers are Kings and Priests.
And have made us kings and priests to our God; And we shall reign on the earth. Revelation 5:10
Slaves and servants don’t speak much, and if they do, it’s always in response to their circumstances. Yet, by the way we speak and don’t speak as Christians, you would think we were still slaves. “I am not good enough,” “This is impossible,” “Things will never work out,” “I am a failure.” And then we wonder why we aren’t reigning in life.
However, we as Christians are not slaves and servants, we are Kings and Priests unto God. Kings and Priests us words to alter circumstances and change their future, not merely respond to it. Indeed, speaking is the new doing. In the Kingdom system of life, what you speak is what you get, not in contradiction to God’s will but in the flow of His favor. Speaking is the secret weapon of our faith, not doing.
Never underestimate the power speaking out loud. The most important proclamation your faith needs to hear is your own. It’s one thing to have faith within your thoughts, but speaking is what releases that faith. Change your self talk and start speaking words of faith verbally out loud, and watch your life change. No, I am not talking about sharing your faith, I am talking about confessing the Word and the promises of God, along with your words of faith, audibly to yourself. It’s not work, it’s releasing your faith to work.
Can we say, “Game changer?”
Life is tough, not by God’s design nor doing, but because we live in a broken world. Yet, God’s grace, favor, power, and provisions are sufficient to enable us to overcome tough times through our faith in Him. In fact, it just takes a little faith correctly placed in the expanse of God to provide us a sense of peace and assurance that nothing can topple.
Now the question you may be asking is, “But how? My circumstances seem so huge and my faith so tiny.”
Here are some things that are working for me…
1) Trust in the power of faith.
When we are met with the reality of tough circumstances, it’s easy for us to go into “I need to do something” mode. No doubt, there may be actions that are required of us to move forward through tough times, but always first from a foundation of faith.
Unfortunately, we don’t often respond to adversity from a foundation of faith, but from a foundation of doing. Think about all the “steps” you have been taught on what you need to “do” to get past tough times. Steps that are often directed at doing something about your circumstances.
The deepest question God has for you regarding your circumstances is, “What are you going to believe about them?” Satan’s question for you regarding your circumstances is, “What are you going to do about them?” Why? Because “doing” doesn’t please God and can actually block His work in your circumstances. Faith, however, pleases God and releases Him to work on your behalf in the face of your circumstances.
Have you ever noticed, the more you try to overcome your circumstances, the more you become entrenched in them. You become stressed, worried, panicked and restless. Yet, the more you believe beyond your circumstances, the more you overcome them, all while carrying a sense of peace, assurance, and calm. Faith takes you to a place of overcoming through your tough times that your doing could never take you. Our natural impulses tell us, “when the going gets tough, the tough get going.” But God teaches, “when the going gets tough, the tough rest in belief.”
2) Look past what you see.
Faith means we don’t look to our circumstances (however real they are) for our sense of what our reality truly is. In essence, we walk by faith and not by sight. It’s not about denying an existing reality, but focusing on a deeper, truer, more important heavenly reality. The facts don’t always tell us the truth. Could the facts be that you have just been betrayed by your spouse and your marriage is in jeopardy? Could the facts be that you have developed diabetes? Could the facts be that you are in a difficult financial situation that seems impossible to get beyond? Yes, yes, and yes. But that is not the truth about you, your present, nor your future.
For the truth, we must set our eyes on the truth of who we are, and what are heavenly reality is. In fact, the Bible says, “As He (Jesus) is, so are we in this world” Our earthly reality is defined by our heavenly reality, not merely by what we can see. The facts are overshadowed by the truth. As Jesus is in heaven, we are in this world, even when everything we see says it isn’t so. This world is not your home, nor the reality of who you are.
For example…
The facts may be… you are divorced and lonely, or in dead end job that you hate, or struggling with an addiction, or dealing with a past of failure, guilt and shame, or suffering from a health problem.
But the truth is… in Christ (as a believer), you are perfectly loved and lovable, adored by your Heavenly father, and capable and worthy of healthy relationships. You lack no blessing in your life, with so much to give and offer to make a difference in this world. You are secure, whole, and complete in Him. In Christ, there is nothing wrong or lacking with you. You are His son (or daughter). You are positioned at the right hand of God seated with Christ. Every addiction, temptation, and struggle is below your feet. In Christ, there is no more condemnation over your life, no punishment, guilt, or shame. You are a new creation, the old is gone, the new is in. It is no longer your nature to sin, and sin no longer defines you nor your future. Your body is completely healthy and whole, with strength and vitality. As He is, so are you in this world!
In fact, as you place your faith in the truth about who you are in Christ and your reality in Him, it becomes a part of the facts of your life. Through faith, addictions are overcome, relationships restored and new ones discovered, lives riddled with guilt and shame are given freedom, sickness and diseases are healed, insecurities rendered powerless, and on and on and on! Praise Jesus!
Belief (not doing) is the currency of heaven, it’s how your reality there becomes a reality here. All your striving, doing, and performing ironically do nothing but steal, kill and destroy your peace, rest, and provisions as they take the focus off of Jesus and place it on you.
3) Focus on Jesus
Satan uses tough times to distract our eyes off Jesus, who we are in Him, and what we have in Him. Satan wants us on a roller coaster of doing, instead of a steady course of believing. When you know you are perfectly loved by Jesus and the truth of who you are and your standing with Christ, Satan is disarmed. When you are spinning your wheels trying to muscle your way through your challenges, Satan is empowered.
Satan loves to use legitimate worries to sow seeds of unrest in your life. Why? because to rest is to believe. To rest in His grace, control, work, and purpose for your life are hallmarks of faith.
In Psalm 23, God invites us to sit at a table in the presence of our enemies. Imagine that, in the face of your toughest times, Jesus has the nerve to say, “Come, sit down.” “What do you mean, sit down? Don’t you see what is going on? Sitting down is the last thing I need to be doing!”
What Jesus knows is that if we don’t sit down in faith at the table and focus on Jesus instead of our circumstances, we will be overcome. His invitation is for our protection. The realty is, in tough times, there is much less to do, but everything to believe. The table Jesus sets is filled with things to believe in… His nature, His character, His Grace, His work, His power, His forgiveness.
Focus on Jesus, He is your deepest, most true reality. No matter what the facts are in your life, that’s the Truth! As you rest in Him, He will show you what to do or not to do.
You need only, believe!
Most of us who are people of faith would probably never think nor consider the idea that our Christian lives could in fact become, “evil.” Most of us try to live in such a way that moves past the temptations of darkness and its work in this world.
Yet, when we look at how God defines evil, we may discover the sobering reality that the very thing we purpose to avoid is the very thing our Christian life has in fact become… evil.
The word used for “evil” in the New Testament is poneros. Every time the word “evil” appears in the New Testament, “poneros” is used. When we think of evil or people who are evil, our minds gravitate to dark visions of things that are bad or carnal. Yet, the idea that “evil” is simply an immoral, malicious, or devilish type reality is highly misleading, and quite frankly, a spiritual copout.
In Paul’s letter to the Hebrews, we see a reference to a person having an “evil heart…”
Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. -Hebrews 3:12
What does a person with an evil heart look like? What are the hallmarks of their living?
The answer could very well send you into a tailspin of shock.
The word “poneros,” actually means… full of labors.
Being “full of labors” is the idea of living to make things happen out of self-effort, a kind of internal striving to produce something good or worthy out of your life. It’s the performance-driven mentality that looks to one’s abilities for a better future or the procurement of success. It’s the busy-with-things-to-do-and-become mindset. It’s the heart that concludes… my identity, worth, and closeness with God are intrinsically tied to my achievement, skill, and performance. One may never say it that way, but so many of us are living that way. Self-promotion, self-improvement, self-actualization. “Seven steps to success,” “Become all you can be,” “Take your life to the next level.” It’s the Christian with their spiritual to-do lists of tasks, rules, and rituals used to feel like peace with God and affirmation of self is theirs for the taking. It’s the foundation of the religious spirit that is so prevalent in many a Church and Christian in our western culture today. Call it what you will… “best practices,” “excellence,” “changing the world,” “radical Christianity,” “faithfulness,” “vision,” “discipleship,” “spiritual maturity,” “leadership,” or “obedience.” When it’s done out of spirit of labor, God calls it… “evil.”
Oh snap.
In the opening lines of the book of Genesis, God rested on the seventh day of His creative work. Better yet, He set that day apart as being Holy. Why? Because God associates holiness with resting.
By resting, I’m not talking about doing nothing or having zero responsibilities, rather about living from an internal foundation of trust and faith that believes God’s finished work on the cross is enough for every aspect of your life. Your value, your worth, your merit, your entire essence. It’s a posture, a state of emotional and spiritual centering that relies on God’s work, favor, and provision completely above our own. It’s the realization that our part is to realize we really have no part, only to believe. His performance defines us, not ours.
Simply put, to believe is to rest. To labor… is evil.
In fact, the only labor that fits in the Christian life is to work hard at… resting…
Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief. –Hebrews 4:11
Sadly, we have become a people full of labors. We say we believe, yet we worry. We say we trust, yet we strive and push to move things forward in our life. Leveraging relationships here, working angles there. We talk about forgiveness and being forgiven, yet we live in fear, guilt and shame. Racing to do more good than bad and somehow right our wrongs. We speak of Grace, yet we mix it with rules, regulations, rituals, conditions, and obligations. We proclaim the work of God in the past and present, but we rely on our efforts for the future, nonetheless.
We are full of labors, not rest. Goals not gratitudes. Striving and trying, not trusting. Performing, achieving, pushing, promoting, and stressing, not believing.
Consider Job in the Bible.
What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me. I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil.” -Job 3:25-26
Fear is built out of unrest. And where there is unrest, turmoil is just around the corner. Where did this stressful existence of turmoil come from, for Job?
When a period of feasting had run its course, Job would make arrangements for them to be purified. Early in the morning he would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them, thinking, “Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.” This was Job’s regular custom. -Job 1:5
Are you kidding me? Do you see it? Job is laboring day in and day out, doing something spiritual in hopes of protecting his children from an imagined reality with God that he fears. Let’s all try to get our heads around this. It was a spiritual pursuit that began his downward spiral into a state of turmoil and further unrest. He feared for his children, but instead of believing and trusting, he decided to labor his way through it as an attempt to take control of the situation and make things right.
Oh snap.
Ironically, as Christians, it is often spiritual looking things that we are doing that bring us into a further state of unrest, stress, and ultimate disbelief. Why? Because we are not living from a foundation of faith, but of fear, selfishness, and insecurity. Our spiritual song-and-dance maybe be fooling everyone else and even ourselves, but God is not fooled.
It’s evil.
Just look around at how many over scheduled, burnt-out, stressed, worrying, performance-driven, self-righteous, self-promoting, guilt-ridden, judgmental, religiously-spirited Christians there are. And this is what we hold up as the model, the goal, the essence of our faith walk.
For Job, something so spiritual looking was actually so ladened with evil. And dare I say, this is what is happening throughout American Christianity today. Our Christian lives have become, evil.
The holiest, most spiritual thing you can ever do is to rest in faith.
Your greatest responsibility is to rest in faith, believing the work of God in and through your life has already been accomplished on the cross. You are already a success. You are already whole. You are already faithful. You are are already complete. You, were one and done on the cross.
As you believe, and only as you believe, watch it all flow from you. Like rivers, quenching a dry land.
When we we rest, and only when we rest, the true work of God gets released through us.
This, is the way of Jesus.
To believe is to rest, to labor… is evil.
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