In Brennan Manning's seminal work, "The Ragamuffin Gospel", he opens by declaring that something is radically wrong in the Church. Sadly, it's just as wrong now as it was then, if not moreso.
"Though lip service is paid to the gospel of grace, many Christians live as if it is only personal discipline and self-denial that will mold the perfect me. The emphasis is on what I do rather than on what God is doing."
We see this thought pattern exemplified in Church services and Christian social media daily throught things such as:
Steps to walk in God's blessing
Your reason determines your reward
If you want to live healed and prosperous you must talk the way that God talks
You have to give Jesus access to your dirt before He grants you access to your destiny
Reasons your confessions aren't working
And this is just a sampling of things I've seen recently.
If there's one thread you can see there it's this: across a multitude of topics, the onus is on YOU; what you have to do, what you're not doing, how you need to position yourself to receive from God, and more.
Now, don't get me wrong, I believe we have a response to God and His goodness, I believe in speaking the Word and giving, and more. But the difference is, I don't believe that I'm the determining factor in what I do and don't receive.You see, I'm just bold enough to believe that when God said He desires to be good to me that He meant it.
This parallels with Brennan Manning again, "Our culture has made the word grace impossible to understand. We resonate to slogans such as: 'There's no free lunch.' 'You get what you deserve.' 'You want money? Work for it.' 'You want love?' 'Earn it.' 'You want mercy? Show you deserve it.' 'Do unto others before they do it unto you.' 'Watch out for welfare lines, the shiftless street people, free hot dogs at school, affluent students with federal loans; it's a con game.' 'By all means give others what they deserve, but not a penny more.'"
I hope it's abundantly clear, but such a focus is entirely devoid of a true understanding of God's goodness. Rather than developing a Christian worldview where I'm solely dependent on Jesus and Him alone, we've largely adopted an American worldview in which we think that we qualify to receive based on our works and at the end of the day we'll just paint a Jesus veneer over it.
To quote American icon Betty Boop, "No, no, no, a thousand times no!"
We serve a God who doesn't respond to us because we're good, but a God who loves us because He's God.
Think of the two thieves on the cross with Jesus - according to Luke's Gospel, the one mocked Him while the other rebuked the first for mocking Jesus and then asked to be remembered when Jesus comes into His kingdom.
If Jesus was like us it's not to difficult to imagine a version where He tells the repentant thief, "No, I'm sorry, you didn't live a good enough life. You could have served God all of these years instead of ending up here." In other words, do not pass go, do not collect $200.
Instead we see from Jesus a response that puts our thoughts on love, mercy, and forgiveness to shame. He tells him, "Today you will be with me in Paradise." (Luke 23:33-45)
In other words, the man cried out for mercy and he received mercy. Not mercy based on his ability to measure up or how good he had been, but simply pure, unqualified mercy.
Paul talks about this same phenomenon in Romans 4 when looking at Abraham's life.
He tells us that Abraham wasn't justified by his works but by believing God because if he was justified by his works it wouldn't be God's grace at work, it would just be him receiving the just wages owed to him.
Somehow we've lost this mentality in the Church today. We think that there has to be reasons to bless people, the only way to get ahead is to work harder than everyone else, and it's your effort and your effort alone which has put you and keeps you in right standing with God. We ask questions like, "Am I doing enough for God?" instead of resting in the fact that God has already done so now I qualify to receive His goodness, to receive His favor, to receive His blessing.
Friends, I'm sounding the alarm bell. It's time to move beyond simple lip service to the gospel and to the grace of God. It's time to move beyond Christian sounding platitudes that focus on what we need to do rather than receiving what God has for us.
It's time to bring it back to the basics. Grace: free, unmerited favor. Mercy: God has the power to punish us but has chosen to show compassion and forgiveness instead.
I don't have to work to achieve it. I don't have to earn it. No matter how hard I try, I couldn't earn it anyway. All I "have" to do is receive the gift that has been given to me.
If you want to confess something today, try saying this: I will never again try to earn God's favor. I will never again work for God to manifest His goodness towards me. I rest and receive God's goodness towards me simply because He loves me and He is good.
Once your confidence is built on that, it's easier to receive from God because you recognize His favor and blessing toward you isn't based on you at all: It's all based on Him.
By Grace,
Dave