If there’s one thing in this life I’m exceptionally good at, it’s getting things wrong. That used to be debilitating. Even the thought of making a mistake, of being anything but perfect, stirred up a swirling tornado of anxiety. It started deep in my belly and eventually worked its way out of my body until it touched everyone around me. When people say there’s freedom in surrendering your life to Jesus, it’s not just a catchy one-liner. It’s the cold, hard, miraculous truth.
Even just a month ago, I thought I had some things about my walk with Christ figured out. It’s funny how God slowly opens my eyes to new things and flips them on their head. I could never handle it all at once. Even these small slivers are hard to swallow sometimes. Way back in April, when COVID was really raging, I sat in the Murray living room and heard this from Dustin:
“There’s no good inside me except for Jesus.”
What I heard was: there’s no good inside me. Period. The hard-hitting, harsh kind of period. That’s it, no way to fix it. I wrote that quote down on the back page of my notebook, for some unknown reason, and only stumbled upon it as I’ve filled those final pages. It’s been the reminder I needed to show me how important this walk with Christ truly is and how desperately I need Jesus every single day.
I recently watched American Gospel: Christ Alone on Netflix, and it was very eye opening to how being good is a foundation of American christianity. They touched on the idea of moralistic therapeutic deism and that really struck me hard. It’s a “style” of religion, if you will, that operates on these 5 basic principles as presented by John D. Ferrer:
1) A God exists who created and orders the world and watches over human life on earth.
2) God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.
3) The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
4) God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when he is needed to resolve a problem.
5) Good people go to heaven when they die.
That sounds about how I used to view christianity. The movie describes this type of relationship with God as being similar to that of a genie: just rub the lamp when you need him and if you’ve been “good” you’ll get what you need from him. Yikes, that sounds like a pretty parasitic relationship.
Really nothing about those 5 points comes from the Bible, God’s living word, our instruction manual for becoming more like Jesus. Yet, that’s what we hear every day.
“Treat yo-self. You deserve it.” “Follow your heart.” “Go with what you feel.”
All of those worldly ideas are rooted in deception and can easily lead us away from the purpose God has for our life. God doesn’t want to punish us, he wants goodness and happiness for us, but that doesn’t come without pain and suffering. That’s part of the package. Don’t all people experience pain and suffering in their life? So why not do it with an all-knowing God at your side?
It seems like a simple concept, but it’s only recently been something I’ve whole-heartedly embraced. I had to literally come and die at the cross, to lay down control of my life, and repent for my sins. It was born out of an aching emptiness that couldn’t be satisfied by the world. I gave it the ol’ college try before arriving at this juncture: good deeds without God will get you the approval of the world, but doing the Good work of Jesus with God in your life is kingdom work and ultimately freedom. I don’t know about you, but working for a kingdom sounds a lot more satisfying than working for a world full of harsh critics.
I’m no theologian, and I’m only an infant in my Christian life, but I hope something here resonates with you. Writing is
therapeutic for me. It helps me process things thoroughly. And sometimes the words pour out onto the keyboard, and other times I really have to work hard to straighten out my ideas. But I always learn something in the process and that’s why I feel lead to share these thoughts here. I’ll get things wrong in here, but that’s part of the learning process. I’m learning to love the process, in suffering and in triumph, it’s all for the glory of God and doing kingdom work.
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