Salvation: What’s in it for me?

I read the quote in the book Making Sense of the New Testament by Craig Blomberg:

“Simply professing to follow Jesus is inadequate, especially if one does so merely for personal gain. The path of true discipleship is the road to the cross– death to self, deinal of the ‘triumphalism’ that perverts the Gospel into a formula for worldly success and prestige, and the willingness to lay down one’s life for Christ should that prove necessary, even if it means an ignominousand agonizing death.”

Does this mean that if you profess Christ just because you don’t like the idea of going to hell that you have missed the point of the Gospel? Is escaping Hell a reason of mere personal gain and not one that acknowledges He is worthy of our service and worship regardless of what we get in return?

If we preach a Gospel that says, “Believe in Jesus so you won’t go to Hell,” are we selling the Gosepl short? Why do we seek the forgiveness and love of the Savior? Is it because we want something from Him, or is it because we recognize His holiness and our total inability to survive apart from Him?

I will chew on this observation for several days as I re-evaluate how I share the Gospel and how I frame God’s good gift of salvation– How do you explain the gift of salvation God has provided for us without making it about us?

God, Gold, and Glory

People keep asking me what my problem is with the current administration. What’s wrong with wanting everyone to have health care? What’s wrong with the President encouraging students to stay in school? Nothing. People should have health care. Students should stay in school and excel to the best of their ability. My problem is not with the ends desired by the administration; my problem is the means by which the administration intends to achieve them.

See, I have a very different worldview when compared to most of the world. I firmly believe in the separation of church and state. Religion and politics should never mix. When those two things get together, events like the Crusades and the Holocaust and the Salem witch trials and British Civil Wars and segregation in the South occur.

However, I also firmly believe that my faith is the lens through which I should view the entire world, politics included. Religion brings to government more dogma and a competing legal code, and two legal codes will rarely co-exist in friendly terms. But faith will govern how I select who will represent me in the government and how I view things like history, politics, and culture. Faith and religion are not synonymous. I have a real problem with a government that is permitted to grow larger and larger so that it can accomplish the work mandated by God to be done by His people. I also have a real problem with God’s people allowing it to occur because we are too busy being religious to be faithful.

As a Christian, I take the Word of God very seriously. I believe that while it is not exhaustive in its information, it is 100% true in the areas in which it makes comments and observations, especially about human nature. Who, after all, is better qualified to comment on the tendencies of the creation than the Creator?

And the Creator has lots to say about how and where we spend our money and how we should care for one another. If believers all gave just their tithes, not even offerings above and beyond the 10% tithe, I’m certain we would be able to eradicate issues like poverty and hunger and lack of education in our own country and beyond. Why do I believe that? Because in Scripture, God mandated that His people care for the widows and the orphans. He gave instructions for how to care for those who could not care for themselves like the sick and infirmed. He gave instructions for how to treat those who refused to provide for their families, and he also gave instructions for how His people should care for those who had been abandoned. And our God does not give a command without also providing a way for us to be obedient.

By our actions, most of us show that we believe that we understand finances and the economy better than God, so we don’t give Him all that He requests of us. Last time I checked, the government takes a lot more than 10% of each of my paychecks. Probably would have worked out better for us in the long run if we had just given God what He asked of us.

My “problem” with the current issue about the President addressing school children is that it’s not the government’s responsibility to educate the next generation any more than it is the responsibility of the government to care for those who cannot care for themselves. God did not ordain the government as the foundational institution of society; He ordained the family to fulfill that role. My problem is not with the government stepping in and meeting a need; my problem is with the church and the family that for too long allowed the need to go unmet.

There are many “what about” illustrations that could be proposed, and there is one consistent biblical solution: we each work hard and to the best of our ability. When that occurs, some do better than others financially and those that are better off give out of their abundance to care for those who are in need.

But, you say, that sounds like communism. The issue is that you cannot legislate a charitable heart. When believers work as unto the Lord and not men, needs are met lovingly and graciously. When we have been given a gift as great as salvation, meeting physical needs should be a no brainer.

So here is my problem: the church wants to switch places with the world. We come to church and demand life AND liberty AND happiness while expecting the government to care for our poor and educate our children. Our society is broken; that is evident to all with eyes with which to see and ears with which to hear. But the world’s solution and the church’s solution should be very different.

I will not place my faith in any man made system of government to care for my family and meet my needs. My proposed solution involves not a change in the majority party of Congress, but a change in the hearts of believers. James gives this illustration of faith in action in his letter in the New Testament: “Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?” This is the example James uses of speaking of faith without acting in faith. When believers begin looking out for themselves instead of looking out for one another, we quit walking in faith. It is easier to place our faith in a visible government that we can see and hear than it is to place our faith in the God of the universe that owns it all to begin with.

I am by no means proposing a theocracy. That returns us to a mixing of church and state that has proven to always be disastrous. Changes of heart cannot be legislated from the capital. What I am proposing is what God proposed to begin with; that His people care for those less fortunate than they and show the love of Christ first to one another and than to the world around us. If we would simply do those two things, there would be no need for welfare and universal health care and daytime speeches on the benefits of education.

See, I don’t have a problem with President Obama. It doesn’t surprise me when politicians behave like politicians. It grieves my heart when the church refuses to behave like the church.

Wealth is Relative

The adult Sunday School classes at my church are studying James chapter five tomorrow. This chapter begins with a stern warning to rich and oppressive landowners:

1 Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. 2 Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. 3 Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. 4 Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. 5 You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and murdered innocent men, who were not opposing you.

In God’s providential timing, tomorrow is also the Sunday that we will be collecting money for Christmas in August. What, you may ask, does a warning to the rich have to do with collecting an offering at church? It all goes back to the title of this post: wealth, my friend, is a relative term. In studying for my lesson tomorrow, I read the following statement in a commentary on James:
The second complaint James made was against the wanton indulgence of the rich. They lived luxuriously and in wastefulness. They went beyond what could be justified under any conditions; they flaunted their riches and wasted them in excesses. Israel had been plagued by such people in almost every generation. Prophets like Amos cried out against such luxury when the poor were starving. This matter raises a question concerning ourselves. Most of us are not rich, but we have an abundance of the necessities of life. Will God overlook our unconcern for the multitudes of people in our world who lack the minimum food and clothing needed for survival?

It is true times are tough economically. But what better time to teach our children and remind ourselves that our Father owns the cattle on a thousand hills? I encourage you to seriously look for ways that you can practice some self-denial and make a sacrifice of praise for God’s work to be done among the nations. Maybe you can give up your daily Starbucks fix for a week and donate that $20. Perhaps you could brown bag it to work two days this week. Or rent a movie instead of going to the theater. Or give the money you would have spent on gas had you gone to the lake in your boat or gone for a ride on your motorcycle. Maybe it means you sit down with your family, discuss the urgent need ministries have across the world and then you sell some video games or movies you don’t use. Maybe it means committing to missions the money you would have spent on playing fall ball or going on a mini-vacation. Perhaps Christmas this year should be giving a well to a village in East Africa through Samaritan’s Purse or World Vision.

Did you know that on average, Americans spend $13 billion every year on materials produced by the porn industry? Evangelicals make up approximately 10% of the US population, and we spend nearly as much as the general population on pornography. That means that evangelical Christians most likely spend around $1 billion a year on pornography. The Lottie Moon Christmas Offering goal last year was $170 million and Southern Baptists were $41 million short of the goal. We spend nearly 100 times more on our idol of sex than we do to ensure that the nations know the love and salvation of Christ. It seems as though our priorities may be a little askew.

We often think there is a great sacrifice on our part when we give out of our abundance. But how much more faith does it take to give when we have less than we are used to having? And how can you really consider it a sacrifice at all when we live in such wealth and our money is going to provide food and clothes and access to the Gospel for millions around the world?

To learn more about the Lottie Moon Offering for International Missions, visit here. To learn more about the Christmas in August campaign, read this post. To see how one community of believers has answered the call to give sacrificially, read here.

When you see how we still have so much compared to the rest of the world, and you are faced with the great need that we are able to meet, the question becomes not “why should we give?” but “Why would we not give?”

Tony Dungy is my Hero

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who hare spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, deceives himself. Galatians 6:1-3, ESV

I watched the press conference yesterday morning in which the Philadelphia Eagles formally announced their signing of Michael Vick. There has been great public outrage since word leaked Thursday night that the Eagles had signed him to a two year deal. One person in Philadelphia wondered aloud on a radio program why Vick had not been executed for his role in a dogfighting ring. The fact that, as a society, we are more outraged at dog fighting than we are of child molestation or spousal abuse is outrageous to me, but that’s another subject for another time. What impressed me during this press conference was Michael Vick’s mentor and adviser, former NFL coach Tony Dungy. Coach Dungy is an outspoken Christian. In fact, one of the reasons cited for his decision to leave coaching was the fact that he wanted to have more time to contribute to the lives of young men who needed guidance and direction. He left a multi-million dollar job to pursue the work of mentor ministry.

The Eagles have been blasted in the media for giving a second chance to Vick when he hasn’t proven that he deserves one. Last time I checked, that’s why we called a “chance” and not a “guarantee.” Michael Vick doesn’t deserve a second chance. None of us do. But Coach Dungy didn’t provide Michael with a second chance, he extended to him the grace of Christ. He didn’t sit at his home in Tampa and pray that Vick would contact him. He went to Leavenworth and extended grace to him where he was. Grace doesn’t say, “There’s help available to you after you do this list of things to prove you deserve it.” Grace says, “You don’t deserve it, but I’m giving it to you anyway.” What Vick does with the grace extended to him is ultimately up to him. What we do with the grace extended to us by God is up to us.

I understand the world’s reaction to Vick; those in PETA who have set animal life as their idol have no concept of the grace and mercy of Christ to work in and change the life of a person. What I don’t understand are those who claim to be Christians who join in the verbal lynching of a man who has done what he can in the limited amount of time given to him to show himself to be broken and contrite. What he has done to “deserve a second chance” is that he has been willing to confess his sins, apologize for them, humbly speak out against them, and then allow a mentor to walk through life with him. I don’t know too many of us average joes who will allow someone to truly mentor us, for to be mentored you must first admit you don’t know it all and second, submit to the guidance of another.

Part of the problem with the prison system in America is that it is not truly designed to rehabilitate offenders. It’s used to mark them with the Scarlet Letter of “Felon” and then, as a pridefully blind society, we force them to carry that stigma for the rest of their lives. If you tell someone they’re nothing but a worthless ex-con enough times, they will believe you. Coach Dungy has set an example for his fellow Christians of how we should respond to those who have paid their debt to society and need to be brought back into society with the goal of making them productive members of society.

Mentoring takes time, it takes wisdom, it takes commitment. But it’s a command of Scripture that applies to the lowest of criminals, to the most famous of criminals and to everyone in between. After all, Scripture tells us that if you are guilty of breaking one law, you’ve broken them all in the eyes of God, so none of us is really aren’t any better than the dog abuser, the child molester, the thief, or the murderer. Before Christ, we are all criminals in the eyes of God, and we all need a mentor to guide us through this life.

Put in the wrong circumstances at the wrong time with the wrong people, I’m sure I would be capable of anything. May I never think so highly of myself to look upon anyone caught in sin and say, “That would never be me.” Such a self-righteous attitude is the first step down the slippery slope to entanglement in atrocious sin. I know. I’ve been there before, and it took someone willing to walk with me back up the dirty slope to get me out. And if, God forbid, there is another lesson I must learn in this life that must begin in the pit, I pray there is a Tony Dungy standing there who is willing to walk that road alongside me.

Who is my Neighbor?

This summer I’m adjusting to the self-controlled schedule of online classes. I’m taking Introduction to Evangelism. I know, I’m taking an intro. class my last semester of seminary. To share with you a moment of honest transparency and confession, I put it off until the last minute, praying they might change the core curriculum for my degree program. Alas, they did not and, in the words of that well-known singer/theologian, Garth Brooks, “Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers.”

This class has reminded me of the need to urgently and intentionally share the good news of Jesus Christ with the lost and dying world that surrounds me all of the time. While living in Seminary World I sinfully and selfishly fooled myself into believing that we lived in such a gospel-saturated area that my sharing would only annoy the people around me. I went to three continents in three years to share the Gospel, but never walked across the street to do so. But God even uses our disobedience and fear for His glory. In His perfect timing, I avoided taking Evangelism until I was back in the “Real World” and was forced to once again face head-on the vast lostness present right here in the Bible Belt of America.

While I was watching Doc Reid lecture this morning, he made a statement that I’m sure I’ve heard before, but it resonated in my heart as it shattered my last remaining excuses for not intentionally sharing my faith. His words were simple: “Play to your strengths.” He was discussing the differences between relationship and lifestyle evangelism. For some of us, the idea of going door-to-door, cold calling people or striking up a conversation with the person in line behind us at the store with the intention of sharing the Gospel brings up images of panic attacks and faking illness to avoid the situation. We are not outgoing people with salesman personalities, and the idea of “selling” the Gospel to a complete stranger makes my head explode.

I am much more likely to develop a relationship with someone, get to know them, share my life with them and then, after a connection has been established, confront them with the Gospel. That works for me and my personality and how I live my life. The problem is that when most of us think of evangelism, we only think of visitation with the deacons from church on Tuesday nights. That limited thinking stymies our desire to share our faith.

While Dr. Reid did encourage us to play to our strengths, he also challenged us to develop our weaknesses. I don’t naturally share my faith with strangers, but I also can’t tell you what part of the Christian life comes to me naturally. Naturally I’m selfish and self-centered and a host of other ailments and sinful tendencies. Just like I have to die to self and discipline my fleshly nature in the battle against sin, I must also die to self and discipline myself to practice evangelism. Consider the alternative: I can die to myself for a few moments and risk the possibility of rejection and ridicule before I go along with my day in relative ease. Or I can choose to love myself and my comfort more than that lost soul, essentially telling them that my personal comfort means more to me than their eternal destiny.

So in an attempt to find ways to be more intentional with those I do not know, I began to pray that God would show me things I can do to create opportunities to connect with the lost around me. Connecting with those around us is the key to being able to share the Gospel with them. How do you connect with your neighbors? According to Jesus, who is our neighbor? That’s right, the guy next door AND the lady standing in line behind us at the grocery store and and the Muslim woman in Afghanistan and the gay guy that works in the cubicle next to you and the single mom on welfare shopping next to you at Wal-Mart and everyone in between. Who is your neighbor? Anyone who comes across your path. The common denominator is the image of God found in every human being. Osama bin Laden and your BFF are equally your neighbor when discussing who you should care for in light of the Gospel.

In an answer to my prayer from earlier this morning, Reformissionary blogger Steve McCoy posted some fun and practical ideas on connecting with those around you in a blog entitled Summerbia:Connection Tools. Check it out, then grab a tennis ball and some kids and head to a local park and have some fun and share your faith. It’s guaranteed to be an evening you won’t soon forget.