Grief and Misery vs. Grace and Mercy

As some of you may have noticed, it's been a while since I've posted anything to this blog. Many probably thought I had abandoned the blog. Well, not really. Something called "life" got in the way. My wife discovered she had cancer, and 7 years later she succumbed.

That's not the entire reason, though, why I paused. We had started going to a church that sounded great. They taught "expositionally" (verse-by-verse) through the Bible, with a topical flavor to it. People wanted to be there to learn, not just to perform. People were coming in from all around, sick and tired of the meaningless ritual and hungry for God's Word.

Two things happened, though. The first was with me. I got lazy. In my previous church, I knew I wasn't going to be blessed by the beautiful music or the responsive reading or the "sermonettes for Christian-ettes." I sensed God wanted me there to feel like I belonged, and to show some of them what life in Christ was really about. That's life, 24/7, not just on Sunday morning. (I don't want to mention why I felt ashamed to attend church board meetings.)

In this new place, I was being fed. I didn't have to do as much heavy-lifting. It was all truth straight from Scripture. Wasn't it?

Something changed, though. Encouragement for growing in Christ became a focus on "doing life right." That turned into "obeying the commands of the Lord." Now, don't think I'm trying to dismiss the Ten Commandments or anything. I won't even say that calling baptism a "command from the Lord" was incorrect. They missed a vital point, though: what about those who couldn't obey every single precise command they pronounced? Were they shown grace and mercy publicly?

Nope.

Instead, the vibe tended to be towards making them feel guilty for "disobeying the Lord."

It got worse. The senior pastor at one time, in one service (the one that didn't get recorded, of course), pronounced that married couples who didn't raise children -- either their own or adoptees -- were disobeying God's command! After service I asked him about this, and he sounded like he was desperately trying to back-pedal, with comments like "oh, it's a personal issue when you do this" and so forth. He never said he was mistaken, though.

I understand, or at least I've been told, that some people feel like they can "get away with disobeying," like little children hiding. I also know that I never depended on that, because it never worked for me. (I'd get blamed for stuff I didn't do anyhow, so what's the difference?) If adults really are that immature, then I suppose an emphasis on "accountability" and the like makes some sense.

God still loves us, though! Check out Romans 8:31-39. John 3:16-21. We still sin, yet Jesus took the death those sins cause and nailed them with His own body on the cross! Yes, sins still have earthly consequences. Yes, we should experience some grief and misery as the Holy Spirit convicts (but doesn't condemn) us. That shouldn't be the overriding emphasis from the pulpit, though! We all need grace and mercy, not guilt and misery!

Like I said above, if you feel no guilt and misery, the problem isn't the disobedience. The problem is your personal, one-on-one relationship with God. Encouragement to get that business settled is a good thing. I hope this little paragraph serves as that encouragement. But there's still hope.

Because of my upbringing, I beat myself up too much, according to my mother and my late wife, over little things. I don't believe for a moment that I'm going to get away with anything in the sight of God. I let myself get beat up over "willful disobedience," about not having children, about missing several other commands.

I had lost faith that God still accepted me.

I got lost in the grief and misery, never seeing the grace and mercy.

"Giving an account"

OK, maybe it’s just me, but years ago I recall someone teaching on Romans 14:12 and getting seriously scared about God. No, I’m not talking about the fear of the Lord that’s the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 1:7; 15:33). I’m talking about getting so scared of what He will do when we first meet “eye to eye” in Heaven that I obsess about every little thing here on Earth.

In case you haven’t already looked at the verse using the little popups, it reads in the ESV:

So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.

Add to that Matthew 12:36, which reads:

I tell you, on that day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak.

Mix well with tons of legalism, and you get one paranoid Christian!

Once again, though, chopping up the Bible into little bits and trying to piece them back together into what I call “Scripture Slaw” produces an inaccurate representation of God’s truth. Take a look at all of Romans 14 to get the context, as well as more of Matthew 12.

Consider †his: giving an account of what we did doesn’t remove God’s view of our lives as though we lived Jesus’ life.

We have no condemnation in Christ (Romans 8:1). Even though we still sin, God’s grace reigns. (That’s not a license to sin, though, as Paul addresses elsewhere in Romans, 1 Corinthians, and other letters.) The judgement those in Christ go through won’t include a stern-face God shaking His finger at us like naughty children, demanding we squirm as we try to given an excuse for the inexcusable, as we are shown our failures when our best wasn’t “good enough.”

This particular fear was something I have had for decades, I just recently realized. I don’t recall what false teaching I heard early in my days in Christ that supported this thought, but it has partially paralyzed me spiritually until recently.

Normally a “good blogger” would ask a question to engage comments from the readers at this point. All I’m going to do this time, though, is ask you simply to consider what I’ve said, and ask that you pass it on to those who might be stuck in the same trap as I’ve been. Also pray for them, and for me, for continued freedom from this paralysis of fear. Thank you.

Personal Responsibility

Recently I talked a bit about the current trend towards having an "accountability partner." I took a rather negative view of the whole thing.

This time I want to deal with something else: responsibility.

For me, being "held accountable" and being "responsible" for an action or attitude has never been a positive thing. In my past either one was always used as a bludgeon to shame me into not being "good enough." (For somebody from New England, especially New York City, I've noticed that's considered "encouragement." To a depressed child who never really felt good about himself anyhow, though, "do better" always seemed to come out as "your best isn't good enough." But that's still another topic of another post.)

I suppose other people have taken that same outlook on the term, because today the word "responsibility" only applies to someone else, never to oneself. Each one of us is a "victim" of something that wasn't our choice. It could be childhood abuse. It could be chemical imbalances. It could be drugs, alcohol, or tobacco taken by mothers during pregnancy.

Even some Christians have an "out" in the theology of John Calvin, who supported the notion of the "elect." To simplify the whole package now referred to as Calvinism, God pre-chose certain people to come to Him, and others He did not. Those He chose were predestined to be conformed into the image of His Son. They were also called, justified, and glorified. Those who weren't chosen … well, I guess they don't get in on the offer.

The sticky part of that whole concept is that there is Biblical support for it. What I wrote up there is essentially a paraphrase of Romans 8:29-30, though I suggest you check out the surrounding text. (In fact, it dovetails into a tricky little bit of Romans 8:28, where it talks about all things working together for those who are called according to His purpose.)

So how can God be fair if He not only knows ahead of time who will and who won't turn to Him, but chooses them? Well, that's where the counterpoint to Calvinism, called Arminianism after Jacobus Arminius, comes in. Arminius stressed the aspect of free will. After all, God wouldn't be "fair" without it. Well, that didn't set well with some folks, so John Wesley took a stab at trying to unite the two concepts. Chuck Smith, founder of Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, CA, in his book Calvary Chapel Distinctives, admits that the Bible teaches both, and that he cannot unravel the paradox, so he teaches predestination when the text shows that, and he teaches free will when the text goes that way.

Consider †his: God holds us responsible for our choice to accept the free gift of His Son's sacrifice for our sins, even though He knows already whether we will or not.

I refuse to accept the sum total of Calvin's, Arminius', or Wesley's treatment of the whole thing. I won't accept any of those labels (which is yet another topic to come). I do know this, though: none of us will be able to use predestination as an excuse to bypass God's justice. John 3:18 says that we are all already condemned if we have not accepted the free gift of God's grace. That's predestined, if you like. Is it our choice? Let's be honest. Yes, we choose to sin. Yes, we're under a curse on a cursed planet in a cursed universe. Jesus showed that we're without excuse, because He, though not born under the curse, lived a sinless life. God promises us a way to escape any temptation (1 Corinthians 10:13), even when the temptation is caused by chemical imbalances, childhood abuse, genetics, or whatever.

We still choose to sin.

We are still responsible for that choice.

We are still responsible for the choice we make about Jesus' sacrifice in our place.

What choices are you going to make today?

Gone On The Account[ability]

Something that seems to be popular in churches today is the idea of "accountability." As far as I can tell, the idea is that people "open up" to someone they can "trust," confessing their faults either voluntarily or when asked by one's "accountability partner." The word on the street is that this helps keep you on the right track.

10 years after being first exposed to this idea, I have to say one thing: huh?

I guess one example of this was when a friend who went to the same church we did (the same one that introduced to me the concept of "accountability" being a good thing) asked me, "where are you serving now?" The idea was that I needed to be "serving God" somewhere in that church.

Hold the phone!

Consider This: we are accountable to God, first and foremost! Anybody who doesn't realize that needs to discuss some things with their "accountability partner" and/or pastor. Yes, we are to encourage one another. Too many "accountability partners," though, take a heavy-handed "tough love" approach. That's just fine IF that's what you need.

For somebody like me, it doesn't work. Usually I'm already so wrapped up in guilt over the slightest thing, I don't need somebody to come down hard on me. It would be like trying to heal a man's crippled legs by beating them so hard with a stick that you cause further injury. (Never mind that at least one false teacher in the news a couple of years ago did just that.)

In his book, 52 Lies Heard in Church Every Sunday (And Why the Truth is So Much Better), Steve McVey puts it quite nicely. He says:

The common idea of an accountability partner is a cheap counterfeit of an authentic relationship based on trust and encouragement, and it actually gets in the way of our developing that kind of relationship. We do need each other. God has built us so that we are not meant to live out our lives alone. … [T]he accountability partner movement comes across more like the secret police. It's simply Pharisaism in modern dress.

Harsh? Yep. True? Too often so. In the example I gave above, my well-meaning friend didn't know that I was one of about 8 people writing a daily devotional that got posted on our church's web site. When the devotional team first met, we agreed that only our initials would appear below our devotionals. This would allow people to know who "transcribed" what the Spirit gave us without "risking" being prideful over what was written. (That in itself may have been heavy-handed for some, but it seemed right to the group at the time.) I also did several other things outside the church, including this blog (though not as frequently as I try to do now).

In my past being "accountable" for something meant little more than you took the blame when something went wrong, and got told how you should've done it better when nothing went wrong. There was nothing positive about "accountability" or its close cousin, "responsibility." (How "responsibility" led me to a power-dive away from any hope in Christ needs to be another blog post that, honestly, I'm still discovering.) There was no trust or hope in being "held accountable" for something, only guilt and shame.

Those of us with that negative background probably aren't helped by an "accountability partner."

McVey points out something that I need to echo here. Some people, even those with a negative view of accountability, do need accountability partners! People who have a hard time overcoming an addiction, say to online pornography or offline alcohol, may need somebody to help distract them & steer them away from such things. People who don't realize that "God is watching" may think they can get away with stuff. For them, an accountability relationship might be a good thing until they are set free from that addiction. That accountability relationship, though, needs to help them overcome that addcition, though, not merely keep them out of trouble!

The "proof" text of accountability relationships tends to be Ecclesiastes 4:12 and its reference to a "cord of three strands." Context, however, shows that Solomon merely notes that a man left alone, perhaps by following vanity to the point that he has driven off his family & friends, is significantly weaker than one with family and/or friends. We do need each other.

That doesn't mean, though, we need a personal "police officer" around 24/7 to make sure we do the right thing.

This touches on an issue of personal responsibility and "getting out of punishment," but I'll leave that for another post.

Has "accountability" truly worked out for you? Has lack of "accountability" caused a failure? Do you find "accountability" to be a blessing or a curse?

God's Timing, His Grace, and What Comes In-Between

When I first started this blog, I didn't want it to be about me. I wanted it to be about God. I wanted it to be about what I would discover in His Word.

Something got in the way, though, and only recently have I discovered what it has been.

Shortly after that I started reading a book by Anne Jackson, Permission to Speak Freely. The book's official release was yesterday, August 31, 2010, but I've had a copy, courtesy of Amazon.com, since around the 18th of August. This book has hit me square at the core of my being in so many ways and for so many reasons. I have said on Facebook and Twitter that it's required reading for every Christian.

But that's not why I'm writing this.

There's a couple of chapters in the book on the Prodigal Son. It relates to Anne's overall story, of course, but one paragraph just burst through every sense I have. I need to share it here:

Sometimes we've been churches that preach a grace up front for those who aren't Christians and grace at the end for those who follow the rules and are "good Christians," but we've tragically neglected the people in between. The truth is that none of us, even on our best, "holiest" days—the days we don't cuss or look at porn or yell at our spouse or at the idiot who cut us off in traffic—even our best days aren't holy enough to be looked at by God.

That's why there's the Cross. And that's why we all need it for both our brokenness and our righteousness.

I cannot express how close to home this is to me. For the past 4 years I've lived in fear that, even though I'd be in Heaven, that I had failed in so many "responsibilities" and "obligations" in life that I'd be the one who was saved "as if through fire" (1 Corinthians 3:11-15). I imagined myself as being the "bum in Heaven." I'd be clean, but where others had great mansions or rooms, I'd have a little shack at the bottom of the hill.

You see, I've blown many of the "responsibilities" I'd been told God imposes on us. I'm not a father, and according to a former pastor and Dennis Rainey, that's not God's will. My wife and I are under heavy debt, which is a bad thing. I could go on, but you get the idea. "Responsibilities" to me were negative things, not positive.

Well, I'm through that now, thanks to a wonderful friend who is closer than a brother to me. As Anne also points out in her book, sometimes the transfer from head to heart doesn't happen right away, and there's nothing we can do to force it. It took my friend to finish that transfer.

But why did it take almost 4 years to get this?

Consider †his: God is never late (2 Peter 3:9), but He can be "slow" by our standards. (See this link to a humerous but heavy article by James Watkins for some further insight.) His timing is perfect. That means that the 4 years it took me to comprehend the truth about His grace in my failures was for a reason! His grace is always sufficient for our failures and our transgressions ... even our open acts of rebellion at times (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). I was covered by His grace all the time! And now, after 4 years of numerous changes, trials, difficulties, discoveries, and finally healing, I can start to share some of this with my Facebook friends and here.

An immediate healing wouldn't have served His purpose, just like the man born blind in the Gospels had to remain blind for an untold number of years before he would be healed by Jesus (John 9:1-41). Even after his healing it was rough, but his faith was secure.

Why does God take His time? Because He knows better! No, that won't be enough for us at times, but that's OK; His grace is sufficient for that, too.