Sniffing out the gospel that will wear you out

About fifteen years ago, while I was  in grad school, I "attended a church" just off campus.  Without fail, I left that building each Sunday with the same sensation:  spiritual heaviness.  The unspoken message being delivered was, "You're simply not measuring up to expectations."  Without fail, that same experience has repeated itself in nearly every "church" experience, conference, retreat, or organized gathering of Christians since then.

 At the time, I had no words to articulate what was going on, but I now have a well-developed internal filter -- a warning flag, a nose for sniffing out false substitutes.  (After a while, your heart says, "No more!  This can't be all there is.")  At the center of what I experienced each Sunday was the effect of the partial gospel.  Sometimes it isn't the Gospel at all; and in any case, it is a "gospel" that will wear you out. 

This false substitute goes by several monikers:  "the religious spirit," "religious legalism," "the gospel of religious duty and shame," or "living under Law."  Whatever its name, it is not what Jesus came to offer.  All you have to do is look at its fruit:  defeated Christians, fleeting personal transformation, frenzied activity substituting for apprenticeship at Jesus' side, and a meager affect upon the culture we hope to transform.

So how does one develop this early warning system, that ability to sniff out false substitutes?  Well, how does your heart react in those situations?  Do you experience:

• Spiritual pressure to measure up to expectations.
• Spiritual heaviness.
• You suspect God, is in fact, not really pleased with you.
• You're constantly being asked by leadeship to be more committed.
• Every message is about getting you to do something, or to stop doing something.
• The leadeship 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?"

Two-faced grace

In many congregations and fellowships today, you'll hear a dual message:  "You're forgiven, even "redeemed," yet you remain largely a self-centered person who is bent on falling short."  

We bring hope to people through the message of forgiveness, then tell them they're going to need a lot of it because they just can't get it together.  It's a duplicitous, two-faced message. We're constantly flipping back and forth between the two masks:  hope and shame.

• Forgiven, but never spiritual enough.
• Redeemed, yet told the redemption has had little effect on your heart.
• "New creation," yet not in practical terms -- only as an ideal
• Grace, but not the grace that solves the real problem

We have missed the centerpiece of the Gospel:  that grace is more than forgiveness:  it is a restored heart.  Strong.  Holy.  Already. 

The human heart has always been the problem.  Jesus solved the problem by making an offer:  "I will give you my own heart.  Now."   Redemption means you have a pure heart ... now.

If grace does not involve the thorough restoration of a dis-eased heart, then we are Lazarus -- released from the tomb, yet forever tripping over our graveclothes;  unable to walk in freedom, hindered by those appetites that have always bound us.  Forgiveness alone will leave you crippled.

Grace must include the offer a new heart:  "I will give  you a new heart..."  (Ezekiel 36:26)  Without it, we are left with a discouraging distortion -- two-faced grace.

Stunted 'grace'

The form of 'grace' we have today is like an asthma patient who's given an inhaler to relieve their symptoms.  The patient is grateful for the new freedom in their lungs, but the inhaler never cures the asthma:  it only treats it temporarily.

I've recently come across an increasing number of very devoted followers of Jesus who believe in grace primarily as an act of pardon:  "You're off the hook, now."  And, they may also believe in grace as the action of God in them to produce goodness and Christlike character.  But this form of grace will always be stunted, cut short by their view of the heart.

If the believer's heart hasn't been thoroughly renovated -- no, replaced -- by the very heart of Jesus, then this stunted form of grace is actually a cruelty.  The resulting effect of stunted grace goes like this:  "You're off the hook now because of God's grace; and he is indeed working in you to make you more Christ-like; but, because your heart is still sinful (desperately wicked) and prone to wander, you're probably not going to do very well at this holiness thing.  Why?  Because your heart is still bent on self-will and preoccupied with getting life on its own terms.  Try harder next time (by God's grace) to not let your diseased and corrupt heart get in the way of this new holiness you're after. 

Doesn't this seem a bit cruel to you?  The problem with stunted grace is that it doesn't address the root problem:  the heart needs an overall, and the rescuing work of Jesus has to go beyond pardon.  It must go straight for the heart.  And .... thankfully, it did.

Is it possible to "love God with all your heart" if your heart remains dark and prone to wander? Would God ask such a thing of us, knowing it sets us up for failure? "You're required to love me with your truest self, but you won't be able to. " It's similar to offering a man on death row a pardon, releasing him from his debt, but then asking him to function as a healed man in society.

How cruel it would be to expect a man with a shattered leg to climb Everest, pressuring him to be more committed to the task, admonishing him to have more faith, all the while knowing he can only do it if his limb is first restored.

First, you heal the man of the disease that sentenced him in the first place, then you ask him to live the life of Jesus -- out of that restoration.

To be sure, there will continue to be competing desires in a person, for the person's old heart/nature is still present, yet the believer is clearly a new creation with his identity firmly secured by his restoration.  His new heart is now the center of his identity.   "God became man to turn creatures into sons; not simply to produce better men of the old kind but to produce a new kind of man. " -- C. S. Lewis

What does it mean that we are 'new creations in Christ' if it does not include the rescue of our hearts? If we first stray with our hearts, we can also (following our rescue) return with our hearts. The heart is at the center of it all.

"Grace" is the gift of a restored and noble heart.