July 11, 2013
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IF YOU CAN'T BEAT 'EM, CHOKE 'EM!
“Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession.... Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”
~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer
I know there are those who probably have a difficult time with me saying, "There are some people I want to kill." Dietrich Bonhoeffer said it much better than I ever could have:
“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”
It's still the same thing I said, and it is no less offensive. God in the flesh says, "Come to me and die." It is that simple, but the problem is we don't like to die. There is only one reason people who come to Christ, sit in the church for decades and never change. If you come to Christ and don't change then the problem is you, the "old sin nature" hasn't died.
When I came to Christ nearly a quarter century ago God soon brought me to the place of decision. During an especially brutal time of sexual temptation, instead of simply giving in I cried out to God. The response was immediate: "Are you going to go on trusting your feelings, or are you going to trust God's word?" God called me, in no uncertain terms, to die to my way of thinking being and doing. I had always followed my feelings, but for the first time in my life I was called to completely refuse what my feelings dictated. Rejecting my own feelings was among the most painful, disorienting, and lonely experiences of my life. It was truly a death. I'd never go back to the way I was before Christ, but it was a terrifying experience. It didn't take very long before I enjoyed the great benefits of putting an end to the hold my feelings had over me. Was it worth it? The worth was beside the point. God demanded the death of my flesh nature. God gives us no choice, but you'd never know it from the state of the Church.
People hear the invitation to receive Christ, they raise a hand, walk an aisle, and a date is set for their baptism. For the next couple of decades they sit Sunday after Sunday in the church, but nothing ever changes inside them. I'm not talking about something I don't personally understand, God confronted me with the truth, and when he did I chose the right answer. If I had chosen to continue following my feelings, nothing in me would have changed. Basically I'd have been a religious gay person.
The call of Jesus is the call to die. Not just a call to death, but a call to new life given by the Holy Spirit. The call of Jesus is to die to what we have been and a call to the resurrection life of Jesus. God never calls us to die in exchange for something worthless. The problem is first we have to experience death, trusting God that there is something beyond and better than what we lose in death. The death never gets any easier to endure, but the results of trusting God is a fantastic payoff. But again the payoff is a moot point. God's call is to die, regardless of the payoff which comes. Obedience is the expected response to God's call.
Somehow we've lost our way, and death has been replaced with good intentions. "I'd like to be a good person." But nothing we can do makes us good. We become not good, but religious. The most dangerous person in the world is not a gay activist, a serial killer, or a bad president. The most dangerous person in the world is an unregenerate person who has become religious.
"But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: 2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, 4 traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power."
The only good human is a dead human, made born again by God. It is where we must always start. A healthy "flesh" nature with religion is a form of godliness, but denies God's power. Death, far from being a terrible state, is the only safe haven.
"God grant that I may always die, that I may always know the resurrection power in Christ."