Without a doubt, it is apparent that the times we live in right now are more than exciting ones. These past couple of years, I could clearly observe a major shift taking place within the church on a global scale. Over these past two decades I have seen and talked to people, who, once on fire for Jesus, for the gospel, and for radical decisions, eventually and gradually started slipping into assuming color of their surrounding - blending into the crowd instead of setting themselves apart. A kind of lethargy and sobriety, if you want to call it that, that has become the new normal - as if life is being sucked out of them. But why? Why would one, after experiencing a romantic encounter with Jesus, a life-altering turning point, or a 'safe' church environment with biblical truth being taught and received (most likely on a weekly basis), lose interest and passion for and even resist what they once learned is the "truth that sets them free"?*
Although people have plainly been living in the context of THE "life-giving" message, how is it possible that the fruit that we have seen growing are - to a great degree - not the ones we would and should expect. Taken into account the law of nature - in this case, the law of cause and effect (an apple seed produces apples; a pear seed produces pears, and so on), all of this doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
So were did it 'all' go wrong?
Since I was equally one of those 'Christians' (a term that I will replace later on in my entries), who fit the aforementioned criteria, after having hit rock bottom several times - which I will touch on in the following post - I was virtually forced to take notice and question what was going on there. It just didn't add up. And then, one day, it suddenly did! It was one sentence that I heard as part of a message from a guy called Chris Blackeby, who, in four simple words, signified the foundational issue at hand:
"Do good, get good"
This pointed remark reflected precisely what was engraved on my heart, and on those of so many other (former) believers. And in that moment it felt like that inner (very dark) curtain that had been covering my mind and spiritual understanding, respectively over these past decades slowly started to open up.
As part of that message, entitled "Living from Heaven" Chris clarifies the destructive dynamic of these four words - fuelled by the engine of what he calls religion - that had cut its way through people's understanding of who God is, namely: a rewarder of good deeds.
So just like with any other restrictive system we have been faced with from early childhood onwards, most churches (across various denominations), and their portrayal of God as a hard task master has consequently twisted people's understanding of identity; of who they are in Christ at its core. Instead of being discipled into an understanding of identity through relationship - through heart to heart connection - according to John 15:15, church-goers were driven into, what I would like to call, 'spiritual activism' to gain acceptance and earn points and rank well in heaven, respectively. In other words the portrayal of God as being someone who rewards outward (= visible) actions taken, or deeds accomplished. In the believer's awareness that he/ she is completely dependent on this God, as the one who also - according to scripture, and yes, as equally conveyed in Sundays' sermons - provides, who heals, who is our maker and father and so on and so forth, these opposing frameworks have led many in the body of Christ to become stuck in a loop of ambivalence and exhaustion...not outwardly, but inwardly first. A heart failure, so to speak.
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