The above image shows my recent lament on Facebook after hearing from yet another former believer who has been destroyed by the man-centered pop-psychological mantra of many American churches. Why do churches jump on this pop-psychology bandwagon? It doesn’t end well – it simply creates more self-absorbed people.

Whether we pity ourselves, esteem ourselves, or rip on ourselves under the guise of humility, the problem is still the same: we are focusing on ourselves! A quick sampling of the titles of best-selling Christian books reveals this problem:

• Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living At Your Full Potential
• The Purpose-Driven Life
• The Me I Want To Be
• It’s Your Time: Activate Your Faith, Achieve Your Dreams, and Increase in God’s Favor
• Finding Your Spiritual Gifts
• Become a Better You: 7 Keys to Improving Your Life Every Day
• Look Great, Feel Great
• The Dream Giver: Following Your God-Given Destiny
• How to Succeed At Being Yourself

And the list goes on and on… Now don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of Christian books calling us to die to ourselves and to live for Christ – but unfortunately very few of them are best-sellers, and thus many of them aren’t even stocked at my local Christian bookstore. The books above really aren’t even Christian (in most cases), they are simply self-help/motivational literature. Yet that is what most “Christians” read and live by.

What’s gone wrong in Christianity? Has Satan so infiltrated the pulpits across America that the Gospel has been reduced to finding our purpose in life? Does anyone live a radical life for Jesus anymore?

I’ll close with a quote from Tim Keller:

“The Bible’s purpose is not so much to show you how to live a good life. The Bible’s purpose is to show you how God’s grace breaks into your life against your will and saves you from the sin and brokenness otherwise you would never be able to overcome… religion is ‘if you obey, then you will be accepted’. But the Gospel is, ‘if you are absolutely accepted, and sure you’re accepted, only then will you ever begin to obey’. Those are two utterly different things. Every page of the Bible shows the difference.”

Related posts:

1. Weekly Wisdom
2. Every Life Has a Story… What’s Yours?
3. Where did the New Testament come from? Part 3

I’ve been reading Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins We Tolerate by Jerry Bridges lately, and the first sin he discusses is that of ungodliness. Bridges begins by pointing out that pride is not the root of all sin, as is often taught. Pride may be the trunk from which all other branches of sin grow, but the root beneath that trunk is ungodliness. Bridges defines ungodliness as “living one’s everyday life with little or no thought of God, or of God’s will, or of God’s glory, or of one’s dependence on God.”

Bridges makes it clear that someone can appear to be a very good person, they can go to church every Sunday and live a morally upright life – and they can still be ungodly. I think this sin is a major epidemic in the Christian church, even in my own life. Bridges makes this point in a profound way by relating this to most Christians’ prayer lives. He points out that even for those who do pray (unfortunately many do not), most prayers are human-centered, not God-centered.

He goes on to share a story about a young man who waited over 16 hours outside a store for a new gaming system to be released. He questions how many Christians would be just as earnest to seek God’s face.

This begs us to ask the question, “How ungodly am I?” We need to be honest about the sin of ungodliness in our lives and admit that we do not place God at the center of our thoughts, words, and deeds as we should. We too often live our lives as if God is a part of our life, which is a problem. God cannot merely be a part of our lives, He must be our entire lives. He IS our life.

But take heart, for “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6). Jesus died for ungodly people like you and me. Let us walk forth in godliness, centering our every thought, word, and deed on Christ as we learn to walk in His Spirit.

Related posts:

1. Christophobia

It seems that Christophobia is rampant these days. Nothing causes such a stir as two simple words: “Jesus Christ.” Have you ever noticed that if a chaplain closes a prayer “in Jesus’ name,” it makes headlines, but if a religious leader prays to Allah, Benevolent Spirit, Jehovah, etc. no one bats an eye? Why is it that when people hit their thumb with a hammer they yell “JESUS CHRIST!” They don’t yell “BUDDHA” or “ALLAH!” It just doesn’t happen very often. It makes one wonder….

The folks who seem to fear the most when the politically incorrect name of Jesus is invoked are Christians. That’s the ironic part. I know lots of Christians who almost cringe at the mention of Jesus’ name in so-called “secular” realms.

And we seem to excuse this behavior. We seem to empathize when people hide their affiliation with Christ for job security, or to maintain a “normal” social image. Aside from DC Talk, no one wants to be labeled a “Jesus freak.”

[Jesus said,] “If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels” (Luke 9:26).

I sometimes wonder if those who fear the name of Jesus really understand the profoundness of the Gospel. I wonder if they really know the depths of His love.

Sometimes they are unable to know the depths of His love because they do not know the depths of their sin. If your sin is small, then your Savior will also be small. But when we recognize how depraved we really are, we can only exclaim with St. Paul,

“I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16).

“Everyone” includes you and me. Everyone includes your coworkers, the media, your students, your teachers, your boss, your family, your friends, and your neighbors. How can we pray for the Gospel to be spread when we are ashamed of it? Political correctness is part of our (fallen) culture. We are called to remain “aliens and strangers in the world” (1 Peter 2:11), to be in the world but not of it (John 17:13-18). At times this will involve breaking cultural taboos. Even if it costs us our jobs or our very lives.

“For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it” (Mark 8:35).

But take heart, we have a great and loving God. Be thankful.

“For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God, who has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. And of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher. That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day.

What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.” (1 Timothy 1:7-14).

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1. God is the Gospel
2. Marriage is Hard Work
3. Life is not about us!

I think there ought to be a club in which preachers and journalists could come together and have the sentimentalism of the one matched with the cynicism of the other. That ought to bring them pretty close to the truth. ~Reinhold Niebuhr

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3. Weekly Wisdom

I have lots of photos on my computer. It’s a tradition for me to regularly look at a photo of my wife if I am separated from her for a period of time (often due to work-related travel).

We all have lots of customs and traditions. Even those who claim to be innovative and spontaneous are often quite predictable and repetitive. It’s human nature to establish traditions. Some traditions are good and some are bad. Some just are – they are neutral. Jesus scolds the teachers of the law for breaking the command of God for the sake of their traditions in Matthew 15:3 and Mark 7:9, yet at the same time we have the disciples’ following the apostles’ teachings and several specific practices (which we carry on to this day) in Acts 2:42. So not all traditions are bad, so long as they don’t go against God’s Word nor interfere with His will for our lives.

People cherish their traditions. I had some teammates in high school basketball that had their own pre-game “rituals.” I’m not so sure that they helped, but they valued them nonetheless. Sometimes our traditions are harmful. If it’s a family tradition to get trashed on New Years Eve, then a recovering alcoholic probably should not attend this family function (or anyone for that matter). Church folks love their traditions. We’ve got a traditional calendar, traditional colors, traditional music, traditional service formats, etc. For some, these traditions really help them connect to Christ and they point them towards Him. This Advent, for instance, the anticipation of Christ’s Second Coming is rekindled for some as they think about His First Coming as a baby in a manger. Or they simply enjoy remembering Christ’s humble beginnings and thanking Him for His Incarnation (becoming a man). For others, these holidays reek of paganism and materialistic consumerism and they can’t see past the Santa Clauses and Christmas trees to focus on the Child swaddled in cloths and lying in a manger. But who is right?

Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. ~Colossians 2:16-17, ESV

The answer is that both of them are right. So long as each is focused on Christ, not on being superior because they do or don’t celebrate a particular tradition or holiday. Our traditions are merely shadows of the spiritual realities which will later be fully realized, but they only find their true meaning in Christ.

Let’s go back to my tradition of cherishing a photo of my wife. If I am deployed to war, I will take a picture of my wife with me. Throughout my deployment, I will cherish that photo and devote daily attention to it. But once I return home safely, I will see my wife face to face and the photo will lose its importance in my life. Now I will have the real thing. Our traditions work the same way. They are like the photographs that we have now until Christ returns at His Second Advent. We cherish them now, but they will be fully realized in Christ, and thus no longer needed. Don’t forget to look past the traditions to their greater fulfillment in Jesus Christ this Christmas season.

H/T to Charles Blanco and the LSB

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A man asked a minister whether or not we are saved by works or by faith, to which the minister replied, “neither, we are saved by Christ.” Here’s a few words from Oswald Chambers speaking to this:

I am not saved by believing— I simply realize I am saved by believing. And it is not repentance that saves me— repentance is only the sign that I realize what God has done through Christ Jesus. The danger here is putting the emphasis on the effect, instead of on the cause. Is it my obedience, consecration, and dedication that make me right with God? It is never that! I am made right with God because, prior to all of that, Christ died. When I turn to God and by belief accept what God reveals, the miraculous atonement by the Cross of Christ instantly places me into a right relationship with God. And as a result of the supernatural miracle of God’s grace I stand justified, not because I am sorry for my sin, or because I have repented, but because of what Jesus has done. The Spirit of God brings justification with a shattering, radiant light, and I know that I am saved, even though I don’t know how it was accomplished.

So we are saved neither by works nor faith – we are saved by Jesus Christ.

H/T JOLLYBLOGGER

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I read a great post the other day on Samantha Krieger’s blog entitled “Marriage: Built to Last.” I wrote a comment that essentially became a post, so I wanted to share it.

“Marriage is hard work.” Wow, is it. Tiffany and I just celebrated three years of marriage and while it is rewarding, it has not been without some HARD work. My biggest advice to newlyweds or those considering marriage: communication skills. Yeah, yeah, everyone says that. Blah blah blah. I didn’t listen, either. Men and women truly do communicate in drastically different ways. It’s fine once you begin to learn how to speak and understand the other partner’s language, but it takes time, trial and error.

And I certainly had to come to grip with how imperfect I am. Marriage takes you to the next step of adult maturity: learning to think in terms of “we” not “I.” I think this comes a little easier for women, but I could be wrong. For me it is still a struggle. Marriage is not two separate lives becoming one in a 50/50 relationship, like everyone says. It’s two lives re-orienting on one journey, side by side, giving everything: 100/100.

But most importantly, it teaches us about Jesus. Jesus didn’t use marriage as an analogy for no reason. The Church is His bride, a slightly more comfortable image for women perhaps, but something about which both genders have a lot to learn. Jesus has “put His Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come” (2 Corinthians 1:22).

“And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:13-14).

This is the imagery I’ve had on my mind most recently: the Holy Spirit is our engagement ring. He has sealed us in Christ as His bride-to-be, proposing to us on the cross through our baptism. As we learn to love another human being in all of her imperfection, we see how Christ can love us. It’s humbling.

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. . . . This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband” (Ephesians 5:25-28, 33).

The Church, His Bride, is presented to Him through the Holy Spirit, having been cleansed “by the washing with water through the word” (baptism) and given the most radiant wedding dress in all creation. What a glorious marriage feast it will be!

Meanwhile we receive a small foretaste of the feast to come, daily lessons of learning to love unconditionally. And learning to receive unconditional love. Both can be painful, and both take work. And submission. Submit to Christ, He has given everything for you. Although free, it was not cheap.

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The early church was persecuted heavily, particularly under the reign of Nero (who fed Christians to the lions in the Coliseum). How must have early followers preached to attract so many new followers to the faith in such a difficult time? Why would anyone come to faith in Christ when it meant almost certain death? Perhaps they knew of a hope that we only hint at these days. One thing is for sure, they didn’t preach the American Gospel which is summed up in the words on the bottom of this picture!

So what is the Gospel? Let’s allow the apostle Paul to answer that question (from 1 Corinthians 15):

Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. Whether, then, it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.

The Gospel is not a set of belief statements. It is not a magic formula nor a rite. It is not a sales pitch or presentation. It’s not a new standard of moral conduct. It’s not even a paradigm shift. The Gospel is a person. Gospel means “good news,” and the news is the person and work of Jesus Christ. As John Piper has profoundly pointed out, God is the Gospel!

If you would like to know more about the Gospel, be sure to visit my page on the subject. This page is always available as a link from the very top of any page on this blog.

I saw this photo at JollyBlogger.

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It’s no big secret that the gospel of American Christianity is really no Gospel at all — see my recent post entitled American Jesus: A Manifesto for more on that. But this is much more significant than just the presentation of “Decision Theology” and other Pelagian ideals, it involves a complete removal of Christ from the message, a Christless Christianity. I recently read some excerpts from Michael Horton’s book Christless Christianity at Truth Matters. It says:

“Where everything is measured by our happiness rather than by God’s holiness, the sense of our being sinners becomes secondary, if not offensive. If we are good people who have lost our way but with the proper instructions and motivation can become a better person, we need only a life coach, not a redeemer. We can still give our assent to a high view of Christ and the centrality of his person and work, but in actual practice we are being distracted from “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith” (Heb. 12:2). A lot of the things that distract us from Christ these days are even good things. In order to push us off point, all that Satan has to do is throw several spiritual fads, moral and political crusades, and other “relevance” operations into our field of vision. Focusing the conversation on us—our desires, needs, feelings, experience, activity, and aspirations— energizes us. At last, now we’re talking about something practical and relevant.” (pg 15-16)

“…I am not arguing in this book that we have arrived at Christless Christianity but that we are well on our way. There need not be explicit abandonment of any key Christian teaching, just a series of subtle distortions and not-so-subtle distractions. Even good things can cause us to look away from Christ and to take the gospel for granted as something we needed for conversion but which now can be safely assumed and put in the background. Center stage, however, is someone or something else…So much of what I am calling “Christless Christianity” is not profound enough to constitute heresy. Like the easy-listening Muzak that plays ubiquitously in the background in other shopping venues, the message of American Christianity has simply become trivial, sentimental, affirming, and irrelevant.” (pg 20)

“If the message the church proclaims makes sense without conversion, if it does not offend even lifelong believers from time to time so that they too need to die more to themselves and live more to Christ, then it is not the gospel. When Christ is talked about, a lot of things can happen, none of which necessarily have any lasting impact. When Christ is proclaimed in his saving office, the church becomes a theater of death and resurrection.” (pg 141)

These are some great thoughts! As I’ve said before, when we remove the offense of the Gospel, we have no gospel at all. If sin is a generic condition everyone has, and we never internalize it and begin to examine specific sins we commit, then perhaps we don’t have a real savior. No real sin, no real savior! Horton says it well.

Paul McCain, author of the Cyberbrethren blog, wrote a post today entitled the same thing. In it he writes:

The crisis in Christianity is not liberal v. conservative, not whether the Bible is, or is not, inspired, and is not who is “missional” and who is not. The crisis in Christianity is constant and a long-standing one. It is the crisis over the question of the supremacy and centrality of the proclamation of the message of Christ: the righteous, innocent Savior of all mankind.

The great crisis in Christianity is that in many quarters and places, pulpits and homes, the Gospel is an afterthought, an aside, something for conversion, a cliche, a Shibboleth, quickly mouthed in order to permit something other to be said, proclaimed, advanced and promoted, and usually that “something” is nothing but law, driving the sinner not to Christ, but to his feelings, emotions, personal opinions—turning a person right back into himself. . . .

. . . Over the years I’ve come to realize that is is precisely a Christ-less Christianity and a No-Good-News Gospel that is truly at the heart of every crisis, challenge and problem facing the Christian Church. We are at war against sin, death and the devil, and without the actual good news of Jesus Christ, we may as well be using sticks and stones against the principalities and powers of this age, whose only goal is to crush and destroy our faith, and the Christian Church. We forget that with “might of ours” we can not prevail and soon will be undone. . . .

. . . Bloodless Christianity is the crisis. When the blood of Christ is not splashed about, all over people, when our pastors preach and when our teachers teach and when our parents parent: there is where to look for the source of the crisis in modern Christianity. [emphasis mine]

Well said. Will the church of 2009 take strides towards re-focusing on Jesus, or will it give us “more of the same?” Only time will tell. . . .

For an in depth treatment of America’s “Christless Christianity,” be sure to see my post American Jesus: A Manifesto.

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I read in the paper today that a Powerball ticket sold at a local shop for the Wednesday draw is worth $800,000 — but the winner has yet to claim the earnings. That’s pretty crazy. Someone is walking around with no idea that they have a ticket worth $800,000. The prize rightfully belongs to this individual, he or she simple hasn’t claimed it.

I wonder why it hasn’t been claimed? Perhaps this person has no clue they are the winner. Maybe they purchased the ticket as a gag gift for a friend, who had no intentions of checking the numbers. Maybe, just maybe, they lost the ticket! But all speculations aside, there is a powerful analogy to be drawn here.

Claiming the Prize
Far too many Christians live defeated lives because they don’t know who they are in Christ — they don’t understand their true identity as a child of the Most High God. That’s one of the reasons the Truth Sheets are available at 390days.com. We provide these truth sheets as a service to you for understanding how you are accepted, significant, and secure in Christ. If you haven’t already, be sure to check them out!

If you see yourself as a helpless victim of Satan’s schemes, you’ll probably continue to be a victim and live in bondage. But if you realize that you are a dearly loved and accepted child of God, you have a much better chance of living like one. Even though Jesus said we would live abundant lives now (John 10:10), too many of us go on living like eternal life is merely something we get when we physically die. In reality, we receive eternal life the moment we are born again! Much more than just forgiveness of your sins occurs when you enter into a relationship with Jesus — you become a new creation!

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:17, NIV)

The New Testament refers to the person you were before you received Christ as your old self (old man). At salvation your old self died (Romans 6:6) and your new self was united with Christ and came to life (Galatians 2:20)! This chart helps make some sense with how we are now identified with Christ. You are identified with Him:

For more Scripture passages regarding your identity in Christ, be sure to print out a Truth Sheet and read through it.

Dead to Sin, Alive to God

Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:11, NIV)

Your behavior doesn’t determine your belief about yourself. Your belief about yourself determines your behavior. It is true whether or not you believe it, even if it doesn’t feel true. You might even be wondering, “What experience must I have in order for this to be true?” The only necessary experience is that of Christ on the cross, which has already happened; and the only way to appropriate that truth is to believe it. I’m not talking about positive thinking or pop-psychology here. I’m explaining the simple fact that every Scripture in the Truth Sheet is already true of you once you become a follower of Christ, even if you don’t believe it or aren’t yet aware of it. Just like the unclaimed lottery ticket, the value is not absent, simply unrealized. As long as we fail to realize who we are in Christ, we are bound to remain in bondage to Satan’s schemes.

Click here to customize your very own Truth Sheet so that you can begin to daily reflect on your identity in Christ. This is totally free and simple! Your name is only asked in order to provide you with a customized form, it is not electronically stored nor used for any purpose other than personalizing the page. It is my prayer that all believers begin to appropriate the truths of scripture in their daily lives and walk in freedom by the power of the Spirit!

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