GIG 193 - It's Not About Keeping the Rules

A recent Barna survey found that "most Christians equate spiritual maturity with following the rules." But if you've listened to this program for any amount of time, you know that we don't believe that the Christian life is about following the rules, and this week we talk about how to not let "Christian rules" rule your life.

We find it quite amazing that Christians continue clinging to laws, rules and commandments, when that's what God has set us free from! So we take some time to discuss how the Christian life isn't about doing things for God but rather about us being in Him, and Him in us. It's not about doing. It's about being. We take a look at how many people are actually being "compliant" by trying to follow God's laws - which anyone can do, whether filled with God's life or not. The key word there is "trying," and so we also discuss the difference between "trying" and simply "trusting."

gigcast.graceroots.org

Barna: "Most Christians equate spiritual maturity with following the rules."

In addition to the various Performance-Based Acceptance stories that were shared the other day, I came across a couple of other things that sadly put the emphasis on outward performance when it comes to "growing spiritually" or "spiritual maturity" (or really, life in Christ in general).

The other day I was listening to a Christian talk show that a good grace-man like me really shouldn't be listening to... hahaha... pardon the sarcastic irony. :) No need to mention the program itself, but the call was about a woman who had a 'roadblock' in her marriage. Her "problem" was that she was "growing spiritually" but her husband wasn't. Now I'm not oblivious at all to the desire of having our loved ones alongside us on our journey, and us with them on their journey. But I don't think that's what was being conveyed in this woman's story.

I got the impression that she was becoming more involved in the traditional outward aspects of "doing" the Christian life (" spiritual disciplines?") and he was not "growing" (so-called) at the same pace. Perhaps she was reading her Bible more, going to church more, praying more, being involved in activities more, showing more interest in the things of God, etc, etc. And gee golly, for some reason the husband was simply not as interested.

I then read a blog post called Spiritual Maturity, that links to these findings from the Barna Group. Highlighted on this blog post is this disturbing quote from Barna's findings: "Most Christians equate spiritual maturity with following the rules."

In the various Performance-Based Acceptance stories that were shared the other day, this seemed to be touched on quite a bit as well, in one form or another, including a quote from In Christ Alone's story. Speaking of the various denominations that she'd been a part of, she said, "It was just always about rules and ways to act and be and becoming holy somehow by doing this and that."

I'm sure you have thoughts on all this. What do you think? What I believe is that growing in maturity means that a person has truly understood the love and grace of God - not just in the mind but in the heart - and is "growing" in basking in it and appropriating it and in having Christ's life in them naturally expressing itself through love and grace towards others. How's that for a nutshell definition? :) So if a person is truly maturing in the Christ-life, would the stale lives of their loved ones be a "problem," or would it be an opportunity to share the love and grace of God all the more as Christ manifests His life all the more?

Rooted and Established in Grace

Some of my favorite reminders of being rooted and established in God's love and grace.

Heb 13:9 (NKJV)
Do not be carried about with various and strange doctrines. For it is good that the heart be established by grace, not with foods [read: laws] which have not profited those who have been occupied with them.

2 Peter 3:18 (KJV)
But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.

Col 2:6-7 (NKJV)
As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.

Col 2:7 (NLT)
Let your roots grow down into him and draw up nourishment from him, so you will grow in faith, strong and vigorous in the truth you were taught. Let your lives overflow with thanksgiving for all he has done.

Ps 92:12-15 (NKJV)
12 The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree,
He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
13 Those who are planted in the house of the LORD
Shall flourish in the courts of our God.
14 They shall still bear fruit in old age;
They shall be fresh and flourishing,
15 To declare that the LORD is upright;
He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.

Over-discipled?

Being and Growing
The other day I was reminded of a section in Jim Robbins' book Recover Your Good Heart that talks about how (in my own words) we're holy, righteous and complete in Christ, and yet at the same time we're growing in it day by day. A section in one of the chapters is How can it be both/and?

How can it be that in Christ we're perfected forever (Heb 10:14), we've become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus (2 Cor 5:21), we're holy (1 Cor 3:17), we're born again of incorruptible seed (1 Peter 1:23)... and so much more, all by the gift of God's grace, and yet all of this doesn't always show in our outward behavior (and even in our inward thoughts and attitudes). In other words, how can all of this have been an absolute transformation at the time when Christ came to be our life, but yet we're still in a process of being transformed?

Robbins' provides a helpful explanation:

"...I am always beginning with a firmly established holiness and wholeness within me. Further, I can only change as I rest - rest in God's unshakable favor for me. I therefore learn to live from a new purity in increasing measure while I live buoyed by his delight and already-accomplished work in me. I continue to be transformed into "ever-increasing glory." (2 Cor. 3:18) As I do this, I mature in the goodness that God has already given me. That goodness may be as yet not expressed, but nevertheless still present in me. Discipleship is the process by which I enjoy and continue to express an already-present holiness and wholeness within me." (bold emphasis mine)

Over-complicated Discipleship?
Isn't that really what discipleship is all about? Do you feel as I do that the church has over-complicated discipleship? Does "go and make disciples" really mean "go and get people to follow you?" Does it mean "get people to church every week, and involved in all kinds of church programs and activities?" Does it mean "get people into accountability groups?" Does it necessarily mean one person leads and another person follows? Is discipleship about becoming a "better" Christian and making sure we do all the things Jesus did? Is discipleship about learning all the do's and don'ts and how-to's of the Christian life and applying them as best we can?

To "disciple" simply means to teach. To be a disciple is to learn in such a way as to grow in maturity. As a disciple of Christ, I'm not trying to become more of something. I already am what I am, but I'm in a lifelong process of learning and maturing in who God has already made me to be. I don't believe discipleship is meant to be some tedious process by which I learn all the rules and get my act together more and more. Rather, I take Jesus' words to heart, "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light." (Matt 11:28-30)

Now there's a type of learning I can relate to! Why do we make it so hard, and so exhausting, monotonous and laborious, when it was never meant to be that way!

True Discipleship
Don't we really disciple one another? Sure, there are wonderful close-knit one-on-one relationships that form within the body of Christ, in which great discipleship takes place, but in the body don't we all teach one another and learn from one another? Aren't we all to build one another up in love and grace, and spur one another on toward expressing the love that is already in us and the good deeds that God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them?

Thoughts?

Related Post: The Starting Point

Quick growth isn't everyday life

I remember a time when my daughter Noelle was going through a slow time of physical growth. For a long time - it seemed like months and months - she would stand in front of me, and the top of her head was exactly as high as my belly button. We had a lot of fun joking around about that! But then before I knew it, time went by and one day she stood next to me and she was over an inch higher than my belly button! To me, this growth spurt was too sudden. Where'd my little girl go!

I've often talked of the growth process in the Christian life as "slow." Growing into maturity, as well as growing in maturity (the same difference between growing into an adult and growing as an adult) is by no means a fast process - and that's a good thing!

Of course, just as a child goes through various growth spurts on the way to adulthood, Christians also have their own growth spurts on their way to maturity (and again, in maturity as well). Those times are often fun and exciting, full of unexpected but welcomed revelations and sudden fulfillment of things we've been hoping and waiting for, as well as the lifting of the heavy weights of the illusions that we were living under that weren't really reality.

But yet isn't most of our growth slow? When we stand next to God, isn't it often months and months - and even longer much of the time - that we're staring straight into His belly button, wondering when we're ever going to grow that extra inch taller? Yes, we're impatient people! But God's never impatient. As I've grown in grace, I've shed my image of Him as someone who's in a hurry with us. I think we put the pressure of hurried growth on ourselves.

We remember some of the growth spurts that we've been through, with all of the awesome-ness that went along with it, and we wonder why it's not always like that. We think of how great it will be when we "finally" trust Him fully and absolutely with all that's in us, and we feel disappointed that we're not there now. We desperately want to grow into maturity - without realizing it can only come in a series of seasons, not instantaneously. We lack contentment in the Lord's work in us now - because it doesn't fit the illusion we've created!

Don't all little kids play "grown up" at some time or another. And don't all teenagers long for the "freedom" of adulthood. But what kid can truly live life as an adult? And as for teenagers - don't they really want the best of both worlds? They want to be adults but yet they want to remain childish. Again, adulthood - maturity - comes in God's well-planned and executed seasons. He's good with all that. :)

And as for the mature - when they're truly mature, isn't it that they realize that all they needed to be was a child?

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I know you've got loads and loads of time to read my past posts... LOL... but just in case you're interested, here are a few related posts.

Microwave Christianity
Slow-cooking together
Slow cooker or Microwave?
What's the Hurry?
Slow
What's the rush?

Waiting - Part 3

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, PATIENCE, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. - Galatians 5:22-23

"Lord, I pray for patience. And please give it to me NOW!" - Christian prayer

:)

I believe that as Christians, our spirits have been born again (1 Peter 1:23) - made into brand new creations (2 Cor 5:17). We've become partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). We've been joined together with God (1 Cor 6:17). Christ is in us (Col 1:27) and we are in Him (1 John 4:13). We are complete in Him (Col 2:10). He has perfected us forever (Heb 10:14). This is good news! It's the reality of who we are in Him, and it's all due to His loving kindness and grace. Again, I believe this is the truth about our spirits. "God... made us alive together with Christ... and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Eph 2:5-6).

I believe it's a different story with our souls. What I mean is, although our spirits have been made new creations and are complete and perfected, and have become partakers of the divine nature, there is still a daily sanctifying work of grace going on in our souls (our mind, our will, our emotions, etc). I can tell you for certain that my will does not always line up with that of the Spirit. My emotions do not always reflect the truth of who I have become spiritually in Christ. My thoughts vary from moment to moment. Put simply, one moment I can be thinking pure, holy thoughts and the next moment I can be lost in impure, ungodly thoughts. Happy one moment, sad the next. Trustful one moment, doubting the next. And so on.

But yet in this soul-life, through the daily, ongoing work of the Holy Spirit, I'm growing. And to get specifically to the topic of this post, this growing process isn't instantaneous! A lot of waiting is involved. Since we are joined with God spiritually and have become a partaker of His divine nature, our natural desire when we realize that in our souls (minds, wills, emotions) we're not patient with our spouse, our children, our parents, our friends, our coworkers, ourselves (or on a bigger scale the overall development of our own personal life stories), is to become more patient. And since we're impatient in learning patience, we wish God would simply snap His fingers and make us patient!

Of course it doesn't work that way. Patience, along with all the other fruit that comes out of an ongoing relationship with the Holy Spirit, takes time. It's not instantaneous. There's a process going on, and I think that most of the time we don't even understand all that God is doing in and through us to bear His fruit. I do believe there are times when we're given revelations and insight about what He's doing, and those are wonderful times, but we generally don't see the bigger picture. However, in all of this we've been given a gift that I believe can and should help to melt away all the doubt and uncertainty when we don't see. That gift is faith.

I wholeheartedly believe that faith truly is a gift, and not something that we can earn or muster up by ourselves, and yet there is yet a growing process involved in learning to walk in faith. To walk in faith is to know that there is a bigger picture, even though we can't see it. It's to know that God is at work in us, to will and to do according to His good pleasure (Phil 2:13), even when we don't sense what He is doing. There is a growing process involved in which you "let your roots grow down into him (Jesus) and draw up nourishment from him, so you will grow in faith, strong and vigorous in the truth you were taught" (Col 2:7 NLT).

Growth by its very nature is not quick or instantaneous, so it naturally involves patience ("long-suffering"). Patience involves waiting. Waiting expectantly requires faith. Faith requires believing what you don't see, but again it's a gift and it simply means that you are believing and trusting in the One through Whom all things were created - the One who is before all things and in Whom all things consist! (see Col 1:16-18). It's a well-placed trust, no?

Slow

Several different things today have reminded me of one of the major facets of "Grace Roots" that the Lord has revealed to me in the past few years. It has to do with becoming established in grace and growing in grace - and taking all the time in the world that is needed. In other words, not forcing growth, but becoming firmly and solidly established in the fertile soil of grace, and growing in grace over the period of a lifetime.

Some examples from today:

-I read at least two or three different blog posts today about resting (in Christ) and slowing down.

-My wife bought some tulips the other day, but they are still inside the house. (We've had a heck of a time getting consistently warm weather in April). My kids and I were looking at the tulips this morning, and we noticed how they looked a little different than they did yesterday morning, but not dramatically different.

-In my personal thinking today, my thoughts have progressed naturally to thinking about slow growth in the Christian life rather than striving to experience everything so quickly. At one point in my thinking, I came up to a stop sign. On the other side of the road was a driveway to a business with a sign that stuck out to me. It simply said, "Slow."

-Ha! I just got done writing the above examples and I went upstairs for a moment. My wife showed me some of my son's school work in which he was having some problems. On a certain reading comprehension test, he scored only 40%. (He got at least 80% on the other tests). On this particular test his teacher wrote the words, "Slow down." :)

We're in such a hurry these days. We're so focused on just getting things done or accomplished. We're so focused on the final product. We're so very results-oriented.

We're very focused on arriving, but we're not so thrilled with the journey. And yet the journey is the major part of the experience!

And so we live very dysfunctional and very dissatisfied Christian lives... and we may not even realize why. So many times I think it's because we don't see the worth in the day by day, moment by moment journey. We want God to do this now and we want God to show us that now, and while yearning for all these various miraculous 'manifestations' of God, we become less and less aware of His actual presence right now! We want miracles and we want fixes to our problems, and we want to experience victory in our Christian lives, and while those may not always be bad things to desire or to seek God about, our obsession with those things - even if they seem to be things of God - may actually be keeping us from enjoying His actual presence in the now!

Perhaps we haven't yet learned what the Apostle Paul had learned - to be content no matter what the situation. In today's "gospel," if we're hungry God will always make our stomachs full. If we're sick, God will always heal us. If we're naked, God will always clothe us. If we don't have much, we expect God to turn things around and make us plentiful.

But the secret Paul had learned went like this: "I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength." (Phil 4:11-13) (The Philippians had indeed sent aid to him, but as we read his account, it wasn't his need being met that he was concerned with. He was simply happy that his troubles had provided an opportunity for them to show their concern for him).

I've digressed a little bit here, but the point is that we're so focused on obvious signs of growth and obvious signs that God is providing for us, that we miss the simplicity that is in Christ and we miss the joy of being content no matter what our state and we miss the joy of knowing that no matter what our life's condition is in, we can do all things through CHRIST.

This gets me back to slow growth in the Christian life. Perhaps some of us are always seeking but rarely finding because we're looking for the wrong things. Perhaps we're wanting to grow in experiences and manifestations, when God really wants us to grow in knowing Him despite what we see or experience.

This type of growth is slow, that's for sure! But it's a wonderful growing experience, because it's a matter of getting our roots firmly established in Jesus Christ ("rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith" - Col 2:7). To be like the palm tree or the cedar of Lebanon mentioned in Psalm 92 (see third link below), it takes time.

In the past I've written on slow, deeply rooted growth several times. Here are a few links:

Slow cooker or Microwave (this post actually links to a few other things I've written on slow growth).

Grace Roots (this is one of my original posts in which I explained 'Grace Roots,' and how the Lord had been slowly revealing to me what it is about).

Established and growing in grace (four core verses).

Established and growing in grace

If I don't mention these Bible passages enough, I'm sorry. If I mention them too much... well that's just too bad!

Heb 13:9 (NKJV)
Do not be carried about with various and strange doctrines. For it is good that the heart be established by grace, not with foods [read: laws] which have not profited those who have been occupied with them.

2 Peter 3:18 (KJV)
But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.

Col 2:6-7 (NKJV)
As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.

Col 2:7 (NLT)
Let your roots grow down into him and draw up nourishment from him, so you will grow in faith, strong and vigorous in the truth you were taught. Let your lives overflow with thanksgiving for all he has done.

Ps 92:12-15 (NKJV)
12 The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree,
He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
13 Those who are planted in the house of the LORD
Shall flourish in the courts of our God.
14 They shall still bear fruit in old age;
They shall be fresh and flourishing,
15 To declare that the LORD is upright;
He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.