God Is A Liar - An Emily Rant For My So Called Christian Friends

It is very popular right now to say that you are a Christian. However, just saying that isn’t enough to let you win the contest. You have to add the proper caveats. You have to affirm that Jesus was all about love and peace and forgiveness. You have tell how you aren’t the kind of Christian who judges anyone and that we all have our individual paths to follow in this journey of faith. You have clarify that you do not take the Bible literally or that you are not foolish enough to believe the decrees of an archaic book addresses the social issues of our age. And if you really want to take first place, you have to say it with a bit of scorn for those who do.

Now, I am going say few things that are not all that popular, things that will make me appear foolish to my more sophisticated and enlightened brothers and sister, things that won’t win me any ribbons at that politically correct pageant of faith, and I am going to say them without apology or concern for winning any congeniality prizes.

The god worshipped by those who add all those proper caveats is not the God of the Bible. No matter how much we want to believe it, it simply cannot be true. Somewhere along the way we have bought into the lie that God is all about our happiness and personal fulfillment. We have defined him as the God of Love, Peace, and Joy and cannot imagine him as anything bigger or greater than a God who adheres to our definitions of what love, peace, and joy are supposed to be.

The thing is when we start serving a God that we have defined, even if that definition is based on our favorite Bible verses, we really aren’t serving him. We are serving ourselves. When we start saying that the things I like and the things that make me feel good are the only things he wants us to have, we aren’t let him be Lord.

Like it or not, God isn’t all that concerned with the things you like or even the things that make you feel good, because believe it or not your hurt feelings aren’t the highest thing on his list of priorities. They only rate number one on your list which might be a reason to ask, who are you really serving? God or the god of your emotions?

But, but, but, someone is whining, Jesus was all rainbows and butterflies. He love, peace, and harmony. He wants me to be happy and find personal fulfillment in how he created me.

Uhm, no. He wasn’t and he didn’t, at least not at the cost of truth. He even told us that – I mean, he literally spoke the words telling us that this is a false idea. And we would know that if we ever read anything other than Christian motivational poster and internet memes. Consider these verses: (And while you’re at it, you might want to flip on over to chapter 10, because he gets even more hardcore in that passage.)

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man to if gains the whole world and loses his life? Or what shall a man give in return for his life?” Matthew 16: 24-26

Do you see the words there? Deny yourself. Deny what you are, what you want, what you think is going to bring you joy – deny it. Take up your cross. This doesn’t mean go out and buy some gaudy necklace, or slapping some pious sticker on your car. A cross wasn’t a thing of beauty it was a torture device that ended in death, and you need to pick yours up, and follow him. And where did that path lead? To Golgotha, the hill of the skull, a mountain drenched in the blood, urine, and feces of those who died there. Does this sound like rainbows and butterflies to you?

Sure you can reach out and have your best life now. You can discover who you really and live that life to the fullest, but if you truly believe that Jesus is Lord then you have to accept that following that path means you will eventually lose everything you gain for yourself. Why? Because everything that owes its existence to flesh will die with the flesh, and this is why who you are must not be the creation of your inborn fleshly desires. The flesh cannot create the eternal, and the eternal owes nothing to efforts of the flesh. Paul put this way:

So then brothers we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. . .and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and coheirs with Christ provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. Romans 8:12-14,17

The problem is we have a lot people who are calling themselves Christian and never denying themselves one thing, never putting to death the deeds of the body so that they might live by the Spirit. And there are some of you who are reading this and shaking your heads yes, agreeing with all that I have said while pointing your finger at the other guy, and almost yelling, “I know who she is talking about!”

The truth is I am talking about us all, because each and every one of us has some area of our lives where we have ignored God’s command to eradicate certain behaviors or ideas. Some of us have reasoned our way around Scripture, citing science and progress as a vindication for ignoring his commands. Some of us have equated love with placating and appeasement, so that we can declare that a God of Love would never ask us to know the pain of trying to change who we are. Some of us have just dressed up our pet sin as a morality so that we can still enjoy a sense of smug superiority while being jerk to the rest of the world.

Look, trusting in God means trusting in everything he said. If we start picking and choosing which of his words we are willing to believe or cast aside based on our delicate sensibilities, we are doing nothing more than calling God a liar. We are saying that I am smarter, wiser, and more loving than God ever was – and if knowing that does not cause you to tremble, you need to check your faith because it is not what you say it is and you are not who you say you are.

The child of a true King does not dishonor him before the world, the child of a great King does not try invalidate his Father’s words, and the child who truly loves his Father will not betray that love through persistent disobedience, even if you supposedly have a great excuse. So tell the world that you like some of the pretty bits of his book, tell them how there are some great moral and ethical teachings to be found in the Christian faith, explain why you have a certain fondness for our ideas, but if you are not actively working to follow his demands to deny yourself, to put to death the deeds of the body, stop lying to yourself and the rest of the world.

And, yes, he is the God of Love but a love so big, so grand, that it compels us to become more than we were so that we might receive it and live it. Who we are, as we are, will never be big enough to do that, and that is why demands so much, and yet so little, from us.

Photo via PhotoPin

Am I My Brother's Keeper? Or Who Are You To Judge?

In a world full of bubble eyed figurines, pastel paintings of idyllic fields of sheep, and soft smiling faces of Jesus, we have determined that our faith is as gentle as dewdrops and as sweet as cotton candy. Harshness should be rejected, judgement spurned, and truth speakers cast aside as blasphemers and heretics for neglecting that all important element of love that must never be manifest in words the world deems as judgmental or sanctimonious.

Critics of such actions are quick to pull out those verses that back their position, giving them the full weight of authority. “Judge not lest you be judged,” Matthew 7:1. “God is love,” 1 John 4:8 “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone,” John 8:7. And my all-time favorite, John 5:22, “The Father judges no one.” Now, if we stopped to actually read those passages in their full context we would quickly realize that the message has been sharply edited until only the pretty bits remain, and we do this because that is the way we like it. By abdicating any position of authority in another’s life, we can wash our hands of any responsibility we might bear in their actions. It’s a pretty sweet deal, and we aren’t the first ones to who tried to pass this ideology off with God.

The tradition began long ago, just outside the gates of Eden, when God asked Cain about his brother Able.  Cain never misses a beat, he flings back, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

We carry on the legacy of Cain in the phrases, “What they do with their own life does not affect me”, “It is not my business what anyone else does behind closed doors”, “It’s between them and God, none of my affair”, “I don’t have the right to judge anyone and neither do you”, and “What concern of it of yours how they live their lives?” Ok, sure we probably never killed someone and tried to cover it up – or have we? Oh, I don’t mean physically, but I think we can make a strong case for attempted spiritual homicide if we are brave enough to look at all those passages that rarely get quoted as we try to make God a little more palatable for those of us who can’t stand the bitter with the sweet.

We start with Jesus’ words in Matthew 18:15 through 20. (I will not be quoting the full passages here for the sake of brevity, but as always, grab your Bible and double check me!). In this passage, Jesus says, “And if he refuses to listen even to the Church, let him be to you as a Gentile or tax collector.” You know, those folks that good God-fearing people of his day shunned? Why in the world would Jesus advocate such a thing? I mean, that’s a little harsh, Jesus, don’t you think?

The truth is – it is harsh, but it harsh with a purpose. Paul gives us an example of why such brutality is necessary in our communities of faith in 1 Timothy 1:18-20 wherein he describes two people who he says he has “handed over to Satan so that they would learn not to blaspheme.” Or in 1 Corinthians where he says to “deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit might be saved on the day of the Lord.” It would be easy to close our eyes and hearts to such terrifying words, but if we are to honor the entirety of Scripture as God inspired, we must submit ourselves to these verses in unity with those of love. It is the tension that of love and discipline, mercy and accountability that makes our faith ring true.

It is not a question of either/or. It is a statement of both/and. It is learning to how to balance the demands of each teaching against the needs of individual situations. For instance, Paul writes:

I wrote you a letter not to associate with sexually immoral people – not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy or the swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of this world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler – not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church you are to judge? God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”
1 Corinthians 5:9-12

Both love and judgement is the right answer, depending on who you are dealing with those inside the church or those outside. Either one can also be wrong, again depending on who you are dealing with, but too often we get the prescription backwards – judging the world while failing to hold those who share our faith accountable.

Neither should we forget that judgement of our brothers and sisters is not eternal banishment. It is not something that we dole out and then celebrate because we took a stand against evil. Instead, it is something that should grieve our hearts and with the hope and anticipation of them being restored for to the body, as Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 2:5-11. Forgiveness and grace should be extended to all who repent and desire to return to fellowship.

In other words, we are our brothers’ keepers. We have an obligation to give and receive rebuke for those acts that the Bible teaches are not in keeping with our faith. Discipline was designed not to hurt but to heal, to break off pride, false entitlement, and faulty justifications for our actions. It was designed to help Christians to keep acting like Christians and not like those who have not experienced the life changing love of our Lord. It was empower us to stand against the temptations we might feel to slip into our old ways, and keep our witness pure.

We cannot uphold merely the easy passages as valid and authoritative while neglecting the passages we do not like. And if the command to love is valid, then we have to accept the command to correct as valid also, or leave our Bible open to the abuses of those who would use it for personal gain.

When we claim that another believer’s action are none of our concern are justifying our own laziness and cowardice. It is to allow the world’s ideas of tolerance to supersede and reign supreme over the dictates of our faith. It is to model our actions by Cain’s example, not that of our Lord and Saviour. It is to sacrifice purity for reputation and holiness for worldly prestige. Holding others accountable for their faithfulness to the dictates of the Scripture will not win anyone any popularity contests, but perhaps you shouldn’t claim to be a Christian if that is the true desire of your heart.

Photo via PhotoPin