'Side-effects' of the false gospel

What side-effects does a person living under the false 'gospel' experience?  Religious duty and the constant pressure to be more spiritual and sin less comes with long-term adverse consequences.    [By the way, a Christian doesn't sin less by becoming obsessed with sinning less.]

SIDE EFFECTS:

• Spiritual pressure to measure up to expectations.
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• Spiritual heaviness.
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• You suspect God, is in fact, not really pleased with you.


• You're constantly being asked by leadership to be more committed.


• Every message is about getting you to do something, or to stop doing something.


• The leadership is more concerned with managing people's sin than releasing a new life that is now within them.


• No one ever talks about the heart, and when they do, it is with suspicion -- even in the case of the believer.

What have you experienced when you've encountered a substitute "gospel?"


Comments

[Walker]

As I have shared in other places, I think there is almost a substitute gospel in the world & church that says life is to be found mostly through serving others in narrowly-defined ways, ways that would earn you community service hours or a scout badge, ways that make a quick 2-minute human interest story on the news. Everyone talks about the need to be "giving back" as if living the life God meant for you is "taking from" someone else. And it creates this uncomfortable moral equivalency between all do-gooders, in a sense saying that simply walking 3 full days for breast cancer, or raising money for pets of injured soldiers is equal to or better than being a joyful, involved fully-alive person for yourself and others in your life.

[Jim Robbins]

Thanks, Walker. Being a fully-alive person naturally lends itself to service and fruitfulness, as you point out. We've put the behavioral expectations [outward appearances] first, rather than understanding what it means to live 'fully-alive."

[j reyes]

There is a chapter in the book "The Shack" entitled "Verbs and other Freedoms" where the Author shows God explaining that He never meant us to live out of responsibility and expectations, but rather response and expectancy. The former keep you under the law and duty, the latter frees your heart to love.

[Jim Robbins]

@J. Reyes: Great way to put it. Somehow, the contemporary Church can quote, "We love because he first..." but limits the effect of that to our initial response, or 'getting saved." Why would God stop initiating after we're in the door, and flip the burden back onto us at that point? He wouldn't - yet that's the assumption of the false gospel.

Thanks for your insight.