We go to a wonderful church here in southern AZ and there’s a women’s Bible study that I have been attending when possible. It’s full of some pretty amazing women who love the Lord and have a real desire to get to know Him better.
Currently, we are going through this book in which the author is challenging what I call the “ticket to heaven” mentality that seems to have seized churches and believers in many places. This author claims that “we have subtly and deceptively minimized the magnitude of what it means to follow him.” It often seems like people can say “the prayer” and then go on and live basically the same way, or with perhaps just a bit more effort being put into eliminating some “vices.” But I struggle with this a bit because as I study Paul’s letters to the churches, it seems evident there is more to believing the gospel than just a guarantee that you’ll be admitted past the pearly gates. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that being a follower of Christ requires any more than trusting in what he has done – it very clearly does not – but I am challenging what “following Christ” has begun to look like in many of our churches.
It appears that in the context of our culture where religious freedom is a given, the simplicity of converting to Christianity has become the focus and churches have largely started preaching the palatable “God loves you” and “just pray this prayer and you’ll go to heaven” messages. What seems to be missing at the forefront of our American “gospel” is the utter darkness and depravity that the world is in without Christ and the fact that in order to make passionate disciples, people need to be brought to the realization of their helpless and hopeless state first in order for God’s love to mean what it’s truly supposed to mean. We forget that the gospel should be a stumbling block to some and foolishness to others; there is no way to communicate the truth of Scripture without being offensive to those who are in darkness. The gospel should be convicting, not convincing.
I bring this up because if there is not an understanding of utter helplessness before a person “prays the prayer” then a great disservice has been done to their understanding of what it means to be a follower of Christ. And this is part of what I think is ailing our churches. A believer is not just someone who is saved from hell, but someone who is saved to Christ. And living as one belonging to Christ does not simply mean we become “do-gooders,” it means we live in understanding that we have undeservingly become children of the Creator, placed back in a renewed relationship with a Holy God as a result of his sacrificial initiative. As believers, our lives should reflect an immeasurable gratitude for our adoption into the heavenly Kingdom. A gratitude that manifests itself in a believer being willing to stand up for what’s right, face persecution, and act in a manner that the world simply cannot behave because it is missing the truth and grace of the gospel. For when we lack a right understanding of where we were without Christ, it is difficult to grasp the significance of what it means to be in Christ and just how much that should set us apart from the world around us.
What I’m realizing is that the only “simple” part of the gospel is the fact that Christ paid the price and the only thing we can do is say “I believe.” That’s HUGE and if we truly grasp the magnitude of what that means then that’s where the simplicity ends in my mind. Saying “I believe” is not merely a subscription to a set of ideas, it’s the beginning of a lifelong journey – or rather struggle – to discover what it means to be “crucified with Christ so that it’s no longer I who live, but the Son of God who lives in me.” To live like that, my friends, is a daily battle that I would never call simple or easy.