What Must I Do for God? (part 2)

Let's get back to the original question: What must I do for God?
Now, I have claimed that a plausible answer to that question is, nothing but receive.

We've heard from Steve McVey and Devern Fromke in part 1.

How about walking further back in time.

Enter Watchman Nee, a Christian who made a huge impact on Communist China in the first half of the 20th century.

He said the following: 

"Grace means that God does something for me; law means that I do something for God. God has certain holy and righteous demands which He places upon me: that is law. Now if law means that God requires something of me for their fulfillment, then deliverance from law means that He no longer requires that from me, but Himself provides it. Law implies that God requires me to do something for Him; deliverance from law implies that He exempts me from doing it, and that in grace He does it Himself. I need do nothing for God: that is deliverance from law."

Hmm...there is that answer again. "I need do nothing for God." Nothing?!

How about one more perspective, that of Hannah Whitall Smith. For her input, we'll go even further back to the 19th century. I finally got around to reading one of her books, The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life.

She opens the first part of this book with these words: (highlights added)

In introducing this subject of the life and walk of faith, I desire, at the very outset, to
clear away one misunderstanding which very commonly arises in reference to the
teaching of it, and which effectually hinders a clear apprehension of such teaching. This

Hannah Whitall Smith

misunderstanding comes from the fact that the two sides of the subject are rarely kept in view at the same time. People see distinctly the way in which one side is presented, and, dwelling exclusively upon this, without even a thought of any other, it is no wonder that distorted views of the whole matter are the legitimate consequence.
Now there are two very decided and distinct sides to this subject, and, like all other subjects, it cannot be fully understood unless both of these sides are kept constantly in view. I refer, of course, to God’s side and man’s side; or, in other words, to God’s part in the work of sanctification, and man’s part. These are very distinct and even contrastive, but are not contradictory; though, to a cursory observer, they sometimes look so.   ...I would like to state as clearly as I can what I judge to be the two distinct sides in this matter; and to show how the looking at one without seeing the other, will be sure to create wrong impressions and views of the truth. To state it in brief, I would just say that man’s part is to trust and God’s part is to work; and it can be seen at a glance how contrastive these two parts are, and yet not necessarily contradictory.


Is that a hard pill to swallow? "Man's part is to trust and God's part is to work." 

So some Christians through the ages have taught that God does the work in our lives and we simply receive and trust in Him to do it. So what? That doesn't necessarily make it true?

What if I feel that the Bible paints a different picture? Couldn't these people be wrong, possibly even heretical?

Well, I think Smith is on to something by stating from the very beginning that both sides need to be recognized. Let's think of some Scriptural illustrations of how the two sides are presented and ask some rhetorical questions.

Could the clay do some of the molding at times rather than the Potter?

Are branches able to accomplish very much apart from the vine? (see John 15)

Is it possible for seeds to become great trees by working hard and putting forth "their share" of the effort, and not by simply receiving the water and sunlight and nutrients from the soil?  (see Mark 4)

The obvious answer to all of the above is NO WAY! I believe most people will honestly say they accept these truths. It is clear that God can do things that we cannot do, even when it comes to our own spiritual growth, and especially when it comes to meeting His own perfect standards. But it is not a matter of whether we say we believe it; the bigger issue is whether we live like we believe it. 

Rather than accepting these ideas as starting points and moving on from them too quickly, my encouragement would be to stay and rest in these truths. I know I am at a place where I need to seriously and patiently consider what all of this means in my life.

It is always the Potter who does the molding. Always! The clay simply yields.
Problems arise when I confuse myself as the Potter instead of the clay!

Branches separated from the vine or root can do nothing! When connected to the Vine or root, they simply produce what naturally flows from the Vine.
Trying to do things for God instead of letting Him live through me is just as silly as me walking down the street giving advice to tree branches on what they should do next to help their growth!

Seeds have everything inside them from the beginning to define what they will become. Gardeners don't have to wonder if the sunflower seeds they planted might somehow produce tomatoes, unless they have the wrong seeds in the first place. They just have to focus on preparing the soil. Nature will take care of the rest.

Our job, then, is to trust and receive as we abide in Christ.

Don't get me wrong. I still wrestle with how simplistic this all sounds. It even seems somewhat irresponsible. I wonder how to make sense of certain passages that appear to contradict these truths, and I know that it is just as easy to find Christians who preach messages that conflict with those of the believers I've quoted in these posts.

However, just because I may not comprehend it fully, I cannot dismiss it. I cannot ignore the reality of grace. Abundant, relentless grace! 

I cannot pretend that this exchange did not occur even though John 6 records it:

28 Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”

29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

The formula for faith, then, is that I work for God by believing that He works in me.
After all, this is the mystery of God, the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27).

What Must I Do for God? (part 1)

Question: What must I do for God?
Answer: Nothing!

How does that answer sit with you? 

All right, let me qualify it just a bit. More precisely, nothing except trust and receive Him.

Does that sound any better to you?

Probably not, if you are anything like I have been for years. You see that answer and wonder if it cheapens grace. You wonder where is the Christian responsibility. You wonder if such a "shallow" view of faith can be real. Of course, we have more to do than just receive from Him, you contend. Of course, we have to obey. We must serve. We ought to do good works. We should produce fruit.

You may even complain and question, Who are these "low-standard, anything goes" Christians who expect God to do all the work? What kind of relationship works when only one side does all the giving and the other side does nothing but receive? That doesn't sound very fair, does it?

Am I right? Are those some of the thoughts going through your mind?

I recently tweeted a bunch of insights from Steve McVey's book, Grace Walk (1995), which stirred the pot a little. I believe this sentence from page 129 captures the purpose and main point of the whole book: "If contemporary Christians spent as much time developing loving intimacy with Christ as they spend in defining proper Christian behavior, the world would be a different place."


Take a minute to review some of the other statements from Grace Walk:

• "In the natural world, trying harder is commendable and often effective. But God's ways aren't our ways. Sometimes they seem to be opposite from ours. In the spiritual world, trying harder is detrimental."  (p. 17)

• "We sometimes try to live for Him when He wants to live His life through us."  (p. 37)

• "Resting in Christ is the sole responsibility of the Christian. Everything else flows out of that."  (p. 39)

• "The Christian life is not about Christ. It IS Christ!"  (p. 71)

• "Self-effort is the essence of legalism. It is pointless to pray for God to help you live for him. That may be your goal, but it isn't His."  (p. 89)

• "God's life just naturally flows out of Christians who are abiding in Him."  (p. 106)

• "God's will is not primarily a path, but a Person named Jesus Christ. As we abide in Him, it is impossible to miss the will of God."  (p. 145)

In the book, Steve McVey distinguished between a "changed" life and an "exchanged" life. It is one thing to believe that we have a life that God alters in some ways. It is quite another thing to wrestle with the Biblical teachings about dying to sin and self, and being "born again" to a new life guided by the Spirit. The clear message is that the Source of the new life is Jesus Christ. It is a different life. It is a divine life, though still expressed in a physical, imperfect body.

DeVern Fromke

This is a good time to introduce DeVern Fromke. He wrote a book 30 years prior to McVey's, called No Other Foundation. (I think the book is out of print, but you can find more info about Fromke and his other writings here.) I recently read this book and was struck by the following portion from a chapter entitled, "Why Does Humanity Exist?":

My concept of life had become distorted because I had been thinking, "There is love and faith and power and holiness in the Bible, and I'm sure God will kind of impart it to me somehow, so that I will become a loving person, a believing person, a powerful person." I could not see for the life of me but that I should become something.

This, then, was the first and greatest problem: a misunderstanding of what life is. I think we all start there. It is really a product of the fall: We interpret life as something that we live ourselves; so that even when we become born again of God's Spirit, and saved through the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, we still interpret life as something we are living right now. We have a job to do, a home to run, and so we seek to live a life in contact with God through Jesus Christ, so we can get assistance and guidance and leadership from Him.

I had to discover that this was not life at all, rather that life is a total reverse of it. Life is not an assistance or addition; it is a replacement. There is only one Person who really lives in the whole universe, and that is the living God Himself. He is the One who is the Three, who is self-giving love. He is the One who is the love of the universe. And we humans exist that we may be means by which He expresses Himself. Humanity itself exists to express Deity.

Hold on! It gets even better! He later adds:

So God created persons to express His own Person by them. The basic purpose of us human beings therefore should be to become the vessels that contain Him. That means our permanent habit has to become receptivity rather than activity.

...If you look at nature, you see that a tree does not produce one leaf by activity. Vegetation receives. It has sunlight and moisture poured on it. What it receives it uses, but activity is only a product of receptivity. Thus did I begin to learn the basic secret of life.


(To be continued...)

Cool Quotes - Watchman Nee

This cool quote comes from Watchman Nee:

Grace means that God does something for me; law means that I do something for God. God has certain holy and righteous demands which He places upon me: that is law. Now if law means that God requires something of me for their fulfillment, then deliverance from law means that He no longer requires that from me, but Himself provides it. Law implies that God requires me to do something for Him; deliverance from law implies that He exempts me from doing it, and that in grace He does it Himself. I need do nothing for God: that is deliverance from law.

"The Bible Says..." (Book Review: Scripture and the Authority of God)

I am almost done with N.T. Wright's book, Scripture and the Authority of God (HarperCollins, 2013). Some of it is a little "heady" for me, but necessarily so. I don't feel qualified to "review" the book, but I would like to share a couple of important take-aways, at the risk of oversimplifying a few points.

First, the entire lens of seeing the "authority of scripture" as shorthand for the "authority of God through scripture" is helpful. This position is one Wright uses throughout the book. To me, the Bible is not authoritative unto itself. It is what God and the church do with the Bible that demonstrates authority and divine inspiration. Without that authority, the scriptures become writings to be studied while missing out on true revelation.

N.T. Wright

Second, Wright reminds us that the glory in John 1 comes not from the idea that "the Word was written down," but the pronouncement that "the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us." It is important to keep in mind that the "Word of God" that brings salvation and changes lives is none other than Jesus Himself, who literally moved into our world. Again, going back to the first point, the Bible is a resource of words that the Word may use to transform people's hearts and minds only when the authority of God through His Holy Spirit is at work.

The Bible does not equal "God with us" unless we are receiving the revelation of Jesus Christ (aka. Immanuel). In fact, Bible study could indeed be one of the least spiritual acts in which some people participate, misleading us into thinking we are growing closer to God through head knowledge when we are actually distancing ourselves through self-reliance (see John 5:16-47).

I'm glad I stuck it out and will finish the whole book this morning. It was interesting to consider how believers have wrestled with approaches to Scripture throughout the centuries, which Wright summarizes succinctly. I also found the chapter devoted to a case study on the topic of the Sabbath eye-opening, especially as he compared its relationship to time with the Temple's relationship to space. Ultimately, we end up with Jesus fulfilling Sabbath rest, in my opinion, but Wright got to deeper concepts that I had not considered before. For those interested, below are more viewpoints about Sabbath and/or N.T. Wright's perspective. Note that I am merely sharing, not promoting or opposing, these:

• Rethinking the Sabbath (Frank Viola)
• Blog review (Anabaptist Redux)

The "Great Fact" in the "Big Book"

I know when I use the phrase "Big Book" many will think I mean the Bible. However, I was recently introduced to the "Big Book" used by many people in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) by a friend of mine. I have to say that I wish I had read this book much sooner, but at the same time, I am not sure I would have been mature enough to let it work on me. 

My friend was right about it having some type of relevancy for anyone, regardless of whether they struggle with alcohol. (However, he also told me that it is a must read to truly understand the mind of an alcoholic.)

The spiritual insights in the Big Book are simple yet profound. Based on real stories, it points out that either "God is everything or God is nothing" and that when others ideas won't work, the "God idea" will. In particular, it strikes me how it is a "great fact" that God will bring about great events as we realize that we cannot bring them about ourselves in our own power.

My friend has moved away to another state. I am glad to have learned much from him in the short time I was around him. 

It is likely good for our hearts to occasionally thank God for the "great fact" of the "great events that have come to pass" as He uses others in our lives.

Bartering or Partnering

I heard a great quote recently. 

"Religion is bartering with God instead of partnering with God."

Sit with that for a while. Consider how you may have traded in the offer to "participate in the divine nature" for an attempt to come up with ways to earn God's approval or love. Why, when we have something so beautiful available to us, do we still turn to the cheap impostor of religion?

That's all.

Only Human vs. Human Enough

Here is another insight from The Incomparable Christ by J. Oswald Sanders, from the Moody Classics series.

Sanders writes, "We must be careful to distinguish between 'human nature' and 'sinful nature.' They are not synonymous" (p. 112). He reinforces this point by reiterating that Jesus was fully human and yet without sin. 

Being human is part of the original design that God declared good. Theologians have sometimes picked up on this theme and submitted that part of the sanctifying work in people's lives is not to make us less human (more "robotic"), but actually more human; more fully alive, with our emotions and intellect and all parts of ourselves being touched by God.

While it is obvious that part of being human is making mistakes, to say, "I'm only human" when we are faced with the fact that we have made bad choices or willfully disobeyed God or hurt another person, is probably a very poor way of avoiding responsibility for our actions, both naturally and supernaturally.

The fact is that our human nature is what God made us to be. It is good. So, attributing our sin to it is bad theology and anthropology. It quickly can become, God, why did you make me this way? Now, we have fallen into the same trap as Adam and Eve and every blamer and excuse maker in history. We actually dismiss our evil as God's fault.

However, we have a "satanic intrusion" (as Sanders describes it) that is our sinful nature. You may hear the apostle Paul talk about the sin living inside him or doing things he does not want to do (Romans 7), but you don't really hear the excuse from New Testament writers, "Well, I'm only human."

Knowing all of this doesn't solve much of anything for us. We are still left to wrestle with the reality that there is a force at work against us. Simply, we do sin in our humanity. The only point is to be careful what we believe as a result of that fact. We can quickly get into a pattern of all kinds of faulty thinking about God and ourselves if we are not careful to keep that distinction between the human and sinful natures that Sanders mentioned. Once those mindsets take hold, they distort the meaning, and reduce the power, of grace and mercy and love.

Sanders concedes that we are left with a mystery when we consider how we have two natures, and even more, how Christ depended on his anointing from the Spirit rather than his own deity for power in ministry (p. 114). It is mysterious, but it is extremely important and practical for us to realize this truth. Jesus did not have to escape His humanity to perform miracles or love perfectly. Neither do we have to escape ours!

No longer should we say, "I am only human" (insulting the Creator's craftmanship). Instead, we can say, "I am human enough to respond to God and submit to His Spirit and carry out His will today."

To Be Unaware

Now that I have shared some quotes from The Incomparable Christ by J. Oswald Sanders, from the Moody Classics series, let's dig a little deeper into some of the concepts put forth in this work.

One of the realizations I had while reading about the birth of Jesus is just how easy it is to be totally unaware of what God is doing near us. We could be in the midst of a miraculous work of God, an extraordinary act, and not even know it.

Sanders says this about the Roman empire at the time of Jesus' birth: "The astounding fact is that with all its magnificent system of communications, 'the great Roman world remained in absolute unconsciousness of the vicinity of God.' The entrance of the Creator into the world seemed a matter so insignificant as to warrant no notice being taken of it" (p. 38, emphasis added).

I wonder how many times a day that God performs supernatural interventions in my life, my family, and my work to which I pay no attention. Am I so conditioned by a worldview that does not expect such divine things to happen?

Is life sometimes too natural? Too ordinary? Are there "laws" of the physical world and human relationships and economics that I trust in above my God to run everyday life?

While I would like to point fingers at the Romans long ago and criticize them for not "getting it," I am left with the very strong possibility, no, reality, that I am too often "unconscious of the vicinity of God" myself.

May we all become a little more conscious of the presence of the Messiah today and from now on.

Colossians 3:1-4

Happy Easter Choco-holics!

Like me, you might be surprised to know that except for Halloween, Americans actually purchase and consume more chocolate on Easter than any other holiday, including Valentine's Day and Christmas! 

With the celebration of Easter and Passover, there will be A LOT OF EATING CHOCOLATE going on, which brings us to a tragic irony. The Passover that so many people will celebrate in remembrance of the Jewish deliverance from slavery in Egypt under an oppressive Pharaoh will be held in conjunction with more people eating candy made available to us by the hands of forced child labor.

For information and videos from the full CNN series about the relationship between chocolate and child labor, go here. To check out a recent documentary video, click on this link.

In keeping with my "baby steps" theme, next week I will post simple ways to take action to make this Easter season more about freedom and still treat your sweet tooth.

Baby Step: Pray for Freedom

While I will not be attending IJM's Global Prayer Gathering, the fact that it is right around the corner is good timing for a reminder about one of the most important steps any of us can take to promote freedom and justice.



Since we can't all attend great prayer conferences, it helps to have practical ways for us to talk to God about things like this that matter to us. One way you can consistently remember to pray for those in bondage today is to sign up for IJM's prayer updates or download their prayer devotional.

Whether you use a resource or devotional or nothing, the main thing is to simply call out needs to God and listen for his heartbeat. I am "preaching" to myself here because having a superior prayer life is something I could never boast about. Taking time to converse with God is, embarrassingly, a constant work in progress for me. Fortunately, I always find God to be a gentle and forgiving Listener.

2 Corinthians says, "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." There may be many things in our lives that we wonder if they are a part of God's will. This subject is not one of them. We can be confident that setting people free is as close to the heart of Jesus as anything else we could ever pray about.

Priorities

By now, I have shared a lot about how we "do church" simply.

You can see our Mission in a Minute and our Plan on a Page.

You can start to read beliefs about Children and our Measures of Success.

Our theology, evangelism, and discipleship is entirely based on one question: Who is Jesus to you?

In addition, we do have some practices that we want to keep at the forefront of the way we "do church." These are priorities for us, and we do not declare that they should be priorities for any other churches or ministries. Here are a few:

• NO WALLS: Our ministries are not primarily based around buildings. The money, energy, property and personnel required to keep a church building running is not the wisest use of resources for our particular church network.

Scene from Patch Adams movie

• "PATCH ADAMS" APPROACH: The main character (played by Robin Williams) in the movie Patch Adams (based on a true story) is driven by his belief that every person is both a doctor and a patient. Likewise, we believe every person is a teacher and a learner. The expectation is that each follower of Christ can both give and receive ministry. We try to keep a participatory model that involves everyone (all ages) as much as possible so there are no passive spectators. There may be times when one person will teach a lesson or facilitate a series, but these are exceptions, not the rule.

• SOCIAL JUSTICE: In other places, I have reflected on growth barriers vs. impact barriers as a metric of effectiveness. I see a gauge of our community's spiritual health in how well we attempt to break through obstacles so that we can minister to more people in our communities and cities more effectively. Each person is encouraged to foster a cause or need that they are passionate about. One way we try to harness these interests is in meeting needs both Here (locally) and There (globally/internationally).

As I said, these are some of our priorities.

My Simple Church Guide

For those of you that can't handle a church group not having a manual to address all the "big rocks" like doctrine and evangelism and leadership, here you go. This is what ours would look like.

Our Theology & Beliefs

• Jesus is All.
• Be willing to unlearn some things so that you can learn new insights.

Evangelism & Outreach

• Ask and answer one question: Who is Jesus to you?

Discipleship & Ministry

• Let the answer to the question in the previous section dictate how you live.

Church & Fellowship

• Keep it simple!

Leadership & Service

• The Holy Spirit is the Leader. Everyone else follows as they share in His gifts. 

Organization & Policies

• This section is not applicable due to no buildings, budgets, or big shots. 

There you go!

Somebody's "Emerson" (aka. Why I am Becoming a Modern-day Abolitionist")

Recently, my family and friends surprised me with a birthday celebration. Boy, they got me good! I never saw it coming!

In addition to the event itself, another surprise was the collection of donations toward a personal interest I had of trying to raise enough money for a slave rescue operation with International Justice Mission (IJM). Due to their generosity, I needed to find a way to organize these efforts so I could track funds and progress toward the $5000 goal. So, I went to the IJM website and started a FreedomMaker campaign called Somebody's "Emerson". (You can check it out here.)

My daughter was naturally curious about the name, "Somebody's 'Emerson'." So, I explained to her the reason I am becoming a modern-day abolitionist. Here is what I told her.

"Every night I get the honor of tucking you in at night and praying with you. Many times, we read together and talk about our day and laugh. I look around your room and I see stuffed animals that you can hold in a comfortable bed, a nightlight, a dresser full of clothes, and shelves covered with books.

Emerson with her daddy

"You are my Emerson. You have a lot of nice things and are protected in a home with a family that loves you. Your mommy and daddy get to kiss and hug you and tuck you in safely each night.

"But did you know there are children like you all over the world, and there are some of them that don't get to be in safe homes at night? Some of them don't get to sleep in comfortable beds. They don't have even one stuffed animal to hold on to. They are hurt by people stronger than them. They are told lies. And the worst part is that they don't have a mommy or daddy they can go to for help. Some of these precious kids don't have someone to hold them and love them and do what is best for them.

"If you, my Emerson, were ever in a situation like that, I sure do wish someone would do something to help you. And if that is what I would want someone else to do for my Emerson, then it is right and good for us to do something to help someone else's "Emerson".

Every hurting, exploited or trafficked child is "Somebody's Emerson"!

My Heart Will Sing No Other Name

I am actually writing this very short post in early January 2014 as I think about what I want to do and be this year. I have scheduled it to publish close to my birthday as a reminder to myself and a testimony to others as to what I want to be the theme of my life.

I feel like the words of this song capture it well. May these lyrics be my prayer today.

Lord, help my heart to sing no other name.

I chose this version because there is no distraction of a band, cheering crowd, or images...just the words.

Maybe the message alone can bless you today wherever you find yourself.

Kids in the Kingdom

Since the point of this blog is to explore ways to impact the next generation by radically reforming the institutions of public education and the organized church, the main question that I hope to keep always before me is, What is best for kids?

To answer this question, we need to consider children as whole people that have spiritual, physical, intellectual, emotional, and social dimensions. You can check out my "Faith Like a Child" series on this blog to see what the Bible says about the spiritual capacity of children.

Here are those posts:
Faith Like a Child (part 1)
Faith Like a Child (part 2)
Faith Like a Child (part 3)
Faith Like a Child (part 4)
Faith Like a Child (part 5)
Faith Like a Child (part 6)
Faith Like a Child (part 7)

It is important to us that disciples of all ages can fully participate in the mission. Therefore, it is critical that children understand the essentials of our practices without "watering down" their meaning and power.

A child does not receive a "junior-sized" Holy Spirit, but the Bible teaches that children have tremendous spiritual insight and often receive profound Kingdom truths more easily than adults. Simultaneously, a child's human development requires that the gospel is presented in its simplest form in terms of the language and imagery we use. Therefore, we process our core practices in "kid-friendly" terms because we want to pass on essential truths to the next generation form the earliest moments possible.

Here are the child-friendly, essential truths of our mission (what we call our "Cores for Kids"):

• Jesus teaches us that praying helps us get close to God!
• Jesus teaches us that we can worship God by doing good everywhere we go!
• Jesus teaches us that baptism is a way we can show we want to follow Him with our whole heart!
• Jesus teaches us to obey Him and be like Him by loving God and others!

Teaching (Core Practice #4)

Intro Note: I have already written about our Plan on a Page, which lays out the four core practices that we consider the marks of discipleship according to the New Testament. In that document, we try to capture the "irreducible minimum standards" of our mission. 

Basically, I contend that there are many things you could not do and still be a Christian, or follower of Jesus. For example, you could not "go to church" or participate in a youth group or listen to Christian radio stations or become a missionary in a foreign land or tithe or...okay, you get it...and yet still be an authentic, sincere, passionate follower of Jesus. These examples may all be good things, but they are not the marks of true discipleship that Jesus gives us in the Bible. They are not the "make-or-break", non-negotiables of the Christian faith used to identify people as real believers.

Then, what are the non-negotiables?


The fourth and final one is TEACHING.

 If we are going to call ourselves disciples, then we must respond to the Great Commission, which calls us to teach new disciples everything that Jesus has commanded us. Discipleship is holding to these teachings. There is a long list of things we could teach each other that would be helpful in our faith, but Jesus has a special way of boiling it all down to the absolute most important teachings. He also makes it clear in Scripture how the world will be able to tell if we are truly His disciples.

Ultimately, everything comes down to obeying Jesus' command to love. This is the greatest command for us to obey. Obedience is expressed through the fruit of the Spirit and leads to freedom.

What is critical to teach children is that being a disciple means obeying and acting like Jesus, especially by loving God and loving others. 


The guiding question for a disciple or church could be, Are people being set free and becoming more like Jesus?

Why the Golden Rule is Key to Freedom

I could pretend to be really smart and try to write about the topics to which I am going to refer here, but it is much better and easier to just defer to people who can articulate it better. That being said, for those interested, check out these two articles.

https://www.christiancourier.com/articles/9-three-rules-of-human-conduct

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harm_principle

In short, the Iron Rule is about might. Bigger and stronger rules over smaller and weaker. The Silver Rule is a negative principle. It says, "Do not do unto others what you would not want them to do to you." It operates on the principle of reciprocity, and is the basis for much of the law in our society.

The Iron Rule can keep people in bondage. The Silver Rule is a step up because it at least says that we should not enslave others. However, neither of these rules prompt us to "set the captives free" if there is no harm to us.

The Golden Rule is set apart as a positively stated directive. It tells each of us to do to/for others what we would want done to/for us. Jesus issues the Golden Rule to dictate how we live because it is the rule of Love, not the rule of law. Ultimately, it requires His divine love to set people free, spiritually and physically. 

This concept of the "three rules" ties in directly with the issues related to modern day slavery because it is hard to see that we are in any way complicit in the problem. We are distanced from the anguish of human trafficking and forced labor by supply chains, business practices, policies, underground activities (even in our own backyard), and other factors. 

I know I am. 

Sometimes, it makes doing the right thing even more challenging. 

It is so uncomfortable. It is so inconvenient.

It is so Jesus. 

So, I pray that it will become so me.

Baptizing (Core Practice #3)

Intro Note: I have already written about our Plan on a Page, which lays out the four core practices that we consider the marks of discipleship according to the New Testament. In that document, we try to capture the "irreducible minimum standards" of our mission. 

Basically, I contend that there are many things you could not do and still be a Christian, or follower of Jesus. For example, you could not "go to church" or participate in a youth group or listen to Christian radio stations or become a missionary in a foreign land or tithe or...okay, you get it...and yet still be an authentic, sincere, passionate follower of Jesus. These examples may all be good things, but they are not the marks of true discipleship that Jesus gives us in the Bible. They are not the "make-or-break", non-negotiables of the Christian faith used to identify people as real believers.

Then, what are the non-negotiables?

The third one is BAPTIZING.

Let me start this one with what we teach children. We are baptized as a way of showing we understand that Jesus died and rose back to life to wash away our sins and give us power to live a new way of following Him. I respect that this is a topic about which parents can have strong feelings.

Baptism is one of the topics that has challenged me as I read through the New Testament objectively. It is possible to defend just about any position concerning baptism, depending on which verse people quote and what context they use it in. I am not going to dive into that debate here. Simply, we define this practice as uniting with Jesus in a new life.

Regardless of what you believe about baptism, there is no way to dismiss the significance of this act in the New Testament. The early church's immediate and automatic response to the gospel was baptism. 

Anyone who encountered Jesus could be baptized and baptize others.

I want to be clear that I am not saying that going into water is what "saves" a person, but I also can't dismiss the obvious importance of baptism as evidenced by the repeated emphasis on it throughout the New Testament. I just have to re-state it again: The early church's immediate and automatic response to the gospel was baptism. It was the Bible's equivalent to what the "sinner's prayer" or "altar call" has become in our part of the world over the past two centuries.

The guiding question for a disciple or church could be, Are we bringing people to salvation in Christ?

My wife baptizing me

(You can read my baptism story here.)

Going (Core Practice #2)

Intro Note: I have already written about our Plan on a Page, which lays out the four core practices that we consider the marks of discipleship according to the New Testament. In that document, we try to capture the "irreducible minimum standards" of our mission. 

Basically, I contend that there are many things you could not do and still be a Christian, or follower of Jesus. For example, you could not "go to church" or participate in a youth group or listen to Christian radio stations or become a missionary in a foreign land or tithe or...okay, you get it...and yet still be an authentic, sincere, passionate follower of Jesus. These examples may all be good things, but they are not the marks of true discipleship that Jesus gives us in the Bible. They are not the "make-or-break", non-negotiables of the Christian faith used to identify people as real believers.

Then, what are the non-negotiables?

The second one is GOING.

The idea here is to do good everywhere God sends us, individually and corporately. Although it's a little cliche, I like to say that our mandate is to choose what is right, and change what isn't.

The Great Commission tells all disciples to go and make disciples. Our identity in Christ is as a "sent" people. We are described in the Bible as ambassadors, reconcilers, and apostles.

The key is to see this practice as service in our everyday, real life contexts. We find ourselves in the mission field in our normal, daily lives in the marketplace, work, and home. This is one of the reasons the term "organic church" is used, because God plants us in all kinds of soil and we can organically respond to our natural surroundings. 

What is important to stress to children is that Jesus taught us to worship God by doing good everywhere we go. It is how we praise Him.


The guiding question for a disciple or church could be, Are we doing good works that help people and glorify God?