Sitting on my Toilet

This is a snippet from reading of “Renovation of the Heart” by Dallas Willard.

Christians are routinely taught by example and word that it is more important to be right than it is to be Christ-like.  In fact, being right licenses you to be mean, and, indeed, requires you to be mean – righteously mean, of course.  You must be hard on people who are wrong, and especially if they are in positions of Christian leadership.  They deserve nothing better.  This is a part of what I have elsewhere called the practice of “condemnation engineering”.

Now I must say something you can be mad at me about.  A fundamental mistake of the conservative side of the American church today, and much of the Western church, is that it takes as its basic goal to get as many people as possible ready to die and go to heaven.  It aims to get people into heaven rather than to get heaven into people.  This of course requires that these people, who are going to be “in”, must be right on what is basic.  You can’t really quarrel with that.  But it turns out that to be right on “what is basic” is to be right in terms of the particular church tradition [or theology] in question, not in terms of Christlikeness.

Now, the project thus understood and practiced is self-defeating.  It implodes upon itself because it creates groups of people who may be ready to die, but clearly are not ready to live.

I am struggling to answer when people ask what are some of the action items or list of things that we can do as a take away from reading particular scripture verses.  Should we pray more often? Should we help the poor? Should we honour our parents? Should we read the word more? etc. YES! n No! All of the above. But Why?

The reason I struggle to give straight answer is because I feel it will completely miss the mark, and I’ve been led down that path before.  It’s that I used to look at scriptures as collections of dos and don’ts; but it’s more than that.  Took me a long time to really come to terms with grace and to understand that transformation really starts when it originate from the heart as a response to a profound realization.

As I am sitting here pondering for this post, I can’t help but hearing the voice of the Phrisees asking what the greatest commandment is; and the resonse “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”

I realized that it takes so little for us to start this journey and it isn’t complicated, but rather basic – to accept God to be God of our lives.

Everything then begin to flow from that -

• Our identity is sure again
• We surrender the life that we never really had control over
• Future is decided
• Clothed with His righteousness
• Approved, no more trying to seek approval from God nor people
• We are broken free from sin’s grip
• Sanctification starts to move our hearts and desires to be aligned with His
• Things we do, we do out of worship
• Mind is renewed
• We begin to do things that resonates with Jesus
• Love flows
• Filled with Joy and Peace
• We find His perfect law, perfect.  Not cumbersome.

The list can go on and on.  Yes, the scripture covers multitudes of dos and don’ts, but those are all written on our hearts.  As long as our hearts are in the right place, everything else be aligned with it, the do-s will follow.  When we try to focus on the do-s before addressing the core, it’s merely an outward performance.  It sure didn’t last long for me.  In days or weeks, the ‘chore’ became so annoying and burdensome that something else takes over.

But the truth sounds so easy doesn’t it? So simple. But it is simple.  It’s a gift, grace, mercy.

I am reminded over and over again by this comment “Wanting God to be God is very different from wanting God to help you”.  The difference is that one – God is in the center.  The other, you are the center.