My mother is not green

Imagine three people talking about their mother. A stranger wants them to describe her, so they each offer a description.

Person Number One says:

“My mum is green. She has antennae sticking out of her head, and her hair is yellow. She’s as big as a sumo wrestler and has muscles that Mr Universe would be proud of.”

Person Number Two says:

“She’s got very pale white skin and blonde hair. She’s very petite and short.”

Person Number Three says:

“She’s got dark skin and black hair. She’s tall and beautiful.”

Could all three of these people be correct in their descriptions of one person when their descriptions are so contradictory? Of course not. If she is a real human being, she can’t be both a giant green person with antennae and a petite blonde with pale skin at the same time.

You can believe whatever you want about who she is and what she looks like, but she will always be who she is regardless of what you believe about her or how you describe her.

Of course, you probably know that already. You wouldn’t describe your wife as green or purple unless she is (probably), and you would likely be hurt if you heard people describing you as somebody completely different than you really are, especially if they describe you in a way that you would consider to be insulting.

Yet so many of us treat the subject of God in the way the three people above talked about their mother. They say that whatever you believe about God is fine, as long as you’re sincere.

This belief defies logic, though. If we believe God is a myth, then of course we can paint Him however we want. But if God is REAL, as I sincerely believe He is, we need to realize that not everything that is believed about God can be true.

Some believe that Christ-followers are arrogant to suggest that there is only one God, but I don’t believe it is any more arrogant than it would be for me to suggest that I only have one mother. She is who she is, and what others believe about her doesn’t change reality.

I am on a quest to know the God Who Is, not just a god whom I wish existed. If I wanted to create my own religion, I could create any kind of “god” I wanted, but that god wouldn’t be REAL. I want to be careful, as much as possible, not to misrepresent God. That’s why I try to seek Him in the ways He’s revealed Himself and not to create God in my own image.

The problem with many religious people, Christians and non-Christians alike, is that they tend to create their “god” in their own image. If they are of a particular political persuasion, they assume that God is too. If they believe particular things about morality, life, culture, or whatever, they assume that God does too.

But God is Who He Is, not who we make Him.

I think we all have the tendency to project our own ideas or perceptions upon God, so this is something we all have to try to fight if we are going to begin to discover the God Who Is REAL.

Yet I will always continue my quest, not to describe God as I think God should be, but to discover more and more of Who God really Is.

How can I know the God Who Really Is?

God is infinite. That means He has no limits and no boundaries. God is bigger than me. How can I ever truly understand a mind that is infinitely bigger than mine? The fact is that I can’t. The best I can hope to do is to get the tip of the iceberg, to learn to know SOMETHING of Who this God is.

That isn’t cause for despair, however. Why? Because I believe I can know SOMETHING of God. In fact, not only can I know something ABOUT God, I can even KNOW God personally.

How, you may ask?

Well first of all…

1. I can know God through the things He has made.

   Romans 1:20 says:

   For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

   I sincerely believe that any great masterpiece must have the hand of a master behind it. The Mona Lisa didn’t come into existence by accident, and neither did this beautiful and vast universe we live in. We can argue all we want as to HOW God created it, but I believe that no effect can exist without an ultimate Cause. And I believe God is that Cause.

   Furthermore, I believe all that is good and beautiful in this universe points to the Creator. Yes, I know there are a lot of things in this universe that have been messed up by humankind but, before we messed it up, it was all beautiful. I also believe God has a plan in place to make it all beautiful again one day.

   When I look at the masterpiece of a sunset, a snow-capped mountain, or a star-filled night, I believe it points to the Hand of the Creator. However, that alone only points to the idea that there IS a source and that this Source must be beautiful if He can create such beauty.

   How do I know anything more of Who this Source is?

2. I can know God through the Words He’s given us.

   The Bible says:

   All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.

   These words from the Bible are claiming that all the Bible comes from God in some way. This may seem like a ludicrous claim, but I sincerely believe it’s true. I believe that this book, which is really a library of 66 ancient books, has been somehow preserved through the centuries in better condition than any other books from the ancient world for a reason. People have tried to disprove it time and again, and yet it still remains the best selling book in the world. Instead of contradicting science, as some have unfortunately tried to claim, it is supported time and again by the discoveries of science and archeology. It is also supported by the reality of the millions of lives its words have changed.

   It tells us about One God, and I truly believe that the God it reveals is the One True God. Its words are often debated and misinterpreted, but I am dedicated to the study of these ancient texts because I believe that the God who inspired it is the God Who is Real, and I’m convinced that the God Who is revealed in its pages is the One Who has the power to rescue lives and restore all of Creation to its intended glory.

3. I can know God through His Son.

   Jesus said, in John 14:9, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” In other words, he says that if you’ve seen Jesus, you’ve seen God.

   Of course, none of us have SEEN Jesus either, but we learn about Him in the Bible. We learn about His plan to rescue us from all the junk in our lives and to give us a life that never ends. We learn about His radical love for every one of us, and if His words are true, we learn that He is God’s way of revealing Himself to the world. The more we learn about Jesus, the more we learn about Who God Really Is. Not some preacher’s idea of God, not the ramblings of some crazy son who talks about his mom being a green sumo-wrestler — but WHO HE IS IN REALITY.

   He also says that we can do more than know ABOUT Him. He teaches us that there is a way that we can know Him personally.

Of course, you don’t have to believe any of what I’m saying. What I suggest, though, is that you investigate the facts for yourself before you come to a conclusion. Don’t just listen to what somebody says ABOUT God, or what you think God is or should be like.

If God is real, then He will be real regardless of what you think about Him; just like my mom is real no matter what you choose to think about her.

But if you don’t investigate the facts for yourself and find out if what I’m saying is true, I fear that you will miss out on the most wonderful experience you could EVER have… the experience of KNOWING the God Who is real.

Won’t you check out the evidence? You might be surprised what you find!

Love, fear and pride

Continuing our look at man-made religion versus life with Christ, let’s compare the key element of the Christ-filled life with the two key elements of man-made religion.

From what I have seen, I agree with the writer, Dallas Willard, who says that religion has to do with pride and fear. The Christ-filled life, on the other hand, is meant to be defined by love.

Let’s first consider this word, “love.”

LOVE IS “WILL TO GOOD”

The word, “love,” is thrown about very casually these days. People say that they love their car, or that they love pizza. And people fall in and out of “love” all the time.

However, the proper meaning of real love is “bene-volence,” which means “will to good.” In other words, it means to want good for the other, to honestly desire the best for them. It is NOT the same thing as desire. We can have evil desires and selfish desires, but those aren’t love.

Dallas Willard writes:

Love is not the same thing as desire, for I may desire something without wishing it well, much less willing its good. I might desire a chocolate ice cream cone, for example. But I do not wish it well; I wish to eat it. This is the difference between lust (mere desire) and love, as between a man and a woman. Desire and love are, of course, compatible when desire is ruled by love, but [many] people today would, unfortunately, not even know the difference between them. — “Renovation of the Heart,” Pp. 130-131

None of us accomplishes this “will to good” toward one another all the time, but when we begin to let Christ form our lives and change us from the inside out, this is the kind of love God wants to form in us.

Man-made religion, on the other hand, tends to be dictated by pride and fear.

PRIDE

St. Augustine taught that the opposite of love is not hate. It’s actually pride.

Why? Because pride is all about getting “my way.” It’s not about willing the best for the other person but for myself. This leads to manipulation, power plays, and all the other things that some unhealthy churches might refer to as “a board meeting.”

Yet love pushes pride away because when we truly begin to be concerned about the other person’s needs and concerns, there’s no room for manipulation techniques and the determination to always be “right.” The determination to prove myself is never about love; it’s always about pride. But when I learn to let God’s love take its rightful place in my heart, proving myself begins to be less important than the more important issues of helping those who are hurting and meeting the needs of those who are hungry, lost or poor.

FEAR

As I said in my last post, fear involves torment. God doesn’t want to be our tormentor; He wants to be our lover, our Father and our friend.

“Religious” Christians become obsessed with “holding on” to the people. They want to fill their churches and so become afraid of doing anything that would push them away. As a result, they start making more and more demands of them in order to get them to conform to their ways and ensure their power over them.

But that has NOTHING to do with Christ’s love.

Fear pushes people away by trying too hard to hold on, while love is rewarded as it willingly ‘lets go.’

When we let God have His way in our hearts, we begin to desire the best for the people who come into our lives. We no longer need to be worried about “holding on to them” or “getting them into our church.” All we have to do is love them, share God’s message of hope with them, and be available.

We don’t have to make them conform to our patterns of life or ways of thinking. Everybody’s different, and God uses us in our diversity. We can point people to God’s Word and let God do His work in their minds and hearts, but we don’t need to expect that He will always speak to them in exactly the same way He spoke to us. He has a unique plan for every life, and it will look different in some people than it will in others.

The funny thing is that, as we start to live our lives in this way, holding loosely to our own agendas and to other people’s lives, often our churches WILL begin to fill up with people and more and more will be attracted to us. This will not be because we are trying to make them come to us, or make them look like us, but because they will begin to see that we really do have their best interests in mind… that we love them as God loves them.

May God deliver us all from religions of fear and pride and fill us with His genuine love for one another.

This concludes a 3-part series that started with
Is Christianity Religion?
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Is Christianity about fear?

I recently heard somebody saying they didn’t want to become a follower of Christ because, as they understood it, the Christian life is all about fear. They said that the idea of a God who requires people to live in constant fear of hell and judgment seemed counter-intuitive to them.

Fair enough. In fact, I would actually agree with that last statement…

In my previous post, I talked about the difference between man-made religion and life with Christ. I don’t believe in the modern understanding of religion, which is basically the creating of a cultural system that uses the idea of God in order to get people to conform. Whenever “church” becomes all about “religion,” the truth is it tends to become an organization that is based on pride and fear.

That is the opposite of what Christianity is meant to be about. The life of the Christ-follower is meant to be about love, which is the opposite of pride and drives out fear. Though there are churches that fall into the trap of religion, a church that is true to Christ must do everything it can to avoid it.

The Bible does talk about having a “fear” of God, but the biblical idea of the fear of God is not about living in torment and terror. The word, in that context, refers more to a holy reverence for God and a respect for Who He Is.

Now don’t get me wrong. There IS a place for a healthy kind of fear, but only in the context of respect.

Here’s an example:

I fear the ocean.

However, I’m not afraid of it.

What’s the difference, you ask? It’s simple.

When I stand at the brink of the sea, I recognize its incredible might and power. I recognize that, if I jump into the sea without knowing how to swim, I could drown. I recognize that, if I don’t pay attention to the laws of nature and go out into the sea on a boat in the middle of a storm, its waves might destroy me.

I’m not afraid of the sea, but I respect it for what it is and treat it accordingly. I went on a cruise once and I wasn’t afraid because I trusted that the ship was well-designed, the crew was well-trained, and the lifeboats were ready in case of emergency. That doesn’t mean I chose to be stupid though; I knew better than to jump in with the sharks!

The fear of God is about respecting God for Who He Is. It doesn’t mean being afraid of Him, but it does mean I’m not going to be stupid. If there is a God who made the heavens and the earth and is more powerful than any ocean or force of nature or man, I’m not going to try to pick a fight with Him! And, of course, when I begin to recognize how powerful, glorious and real He is, you’d better believe I’m going to stand in awe of Him.

The fear of God is about respecting God, standing in awe of our great Creator, and submitting ourselves to His rule just as I would submit myself to the natural laws of gravity and the laws of the sea. I don’t stand in terror of those laws, but I respect them as they deserve to be respected.

So do I fear God? Yes, I do. But am I afraid of Him? Absolutely not.

The Bible says:

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. — 1 John 4:18

When we begin to have a healthy understanding of Who God is, He actually chases all fear away. This Bible verse says that “fear has to do with punishment,” and the Bible teaches that God doesn’t want to punish us. In fact, He wants to save us from punishment. He went so far as to take the punishment for us.

And when we trust our lives into His hands, we don’t ever need to fear that He’s going to change His mind about us and inflict terrible punishment upon us. On the contrary, He has promised to love us and take care of us.

“In this world you will have troubles,” Jesus said, “but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world!” (John 16:33)

I remember a friend years ago who was always afraid of God’s punishment. Whenever something bad happened to her, she would say, “God’s punishing me because I’ve been bad.”

Although Jesus teaches that bad things do happen in this world, and they will continue to happen until He returns to make everything right once and for all, Jesus does NOT teach that those bad things happen to punish us. Life can be messy sometimes, and things happen that we don’t understand. But God’s promise is to take us through even the worst of times and lead us to eventual victory.

When we trust Him, He doesn’t reward our trust by throwing stones at us. He promises to be with us and to be faithful to the very end. He promises to deliver us from eternal death and to give our lives purpose and meaning. We don’t need to be afraid that He’s going to give up on us or punish us, because He has made us His beloved children and will never abandon us.

The life of a true Christ-follower is not about being afraid.
It’s about being delivered from being afraid.

Romans 8:15 says:

For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”

I’m so glad God is my perfect “Dad” and that, in His arms, I don’t ever need to be afraid.

Is Christianity religion?

Once, in a conversation, I said that I wasn’t really interested in religion. The person I said that to was confused by such a statement and asked, “But isn’t that the same thing as somebody saying I’m an electrician, but I’m not interested in electricity?”

That was a very good question!

Isn’t Christianity a religion, after all?

The honest answer to that is that it IS a religion. However, it is also NOT religion in the sense many have come to understand religion today.

How can the answer to this question be both YES and NO, you might ask? The answer is that it depends on your definition of “religion.” I will first present the argument that CHRISTIANITY IS A RELIGION, then offer the argument for why I also believe that CHRISTIANITY IS NOT A RELIGION.

A) CHRISTIANITY IS A RELIGION

The earliest published definition of the word, “religion,” is found in Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English language, which was published in 1755. He defined it as “a system of faith and worship.”

In this sense, it might be right to say that all Christianity is religion. It is a worldview that shapes how we think and act, and it is based on faith in God. It also includes worship of God. How we choose to worship may vary amongst followers of Christ, but when we are truly devoted to Him we desire to give Him our worship.

The word, “religion,” is actually used in the Bible, so it is hard to say that biblical faith is NOT religion in the face of the Bible itself.

For example, James 1:27 says:

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Under this definition, religion does not have to be a man-made set of beliefs or a system of thought directed by or lorded over by man. Though many religions might turn out to be that way, the definition does not require that it be so. In fact, Christianity would have been seen, in Johnson’s day, as a religion that was defined, not by man, but by a relationship with God.

Yet, the modern world has, for the most part, gone far away from Johnson’s definition. That’s why I tend to lean more toward the following statement when asked how I feel about religion.

B) CHRISTIANITY IS NOT A RELIGION

The most commonly understood definition of religion in the current age is one that was introduced in the 20th Century by a man called Clifford Geertz. According to his definition, religion is a “cultural system.” Geertz, an anthropologist, believed that religion was a system of symbols which act to establish certain long-lasting moods and motivations in people. This kind of “religion” is a man-made thing and often results in a long list of taboos; telling people how they should live, act, dress, etc.

Though most people probably don’t know who Geertz was, a large percentage of Westerners would tend to have a similar concept of religion. Religion, when defined in this way, becomes a man-made thing that is imposed upon people and cultures. And, of course, if they are merely cultural systems, then there is no reason to encourage people from other cultures to believe as we believe. One “cultural system” becomes as good as another.

If this were what Christianity was about, I would be against it. In this understanding, Christianity begins to look like a religion gone wrong, a cultural system that keeps trying to impose itself on other cultures and to make others think like they think.

Some expressions of Christianity have become just that. There certainly are churches that focus mainly on man-made taboos about how people should dress, act, think, vote, etc. And there certainly are churches that try to assimilate people into their “church” culture, rather than trying to carry a life-changing truth into the culture where people live.

However, that’s not what biblical belief is about at all. When we truly follow Christ, it’s not about religion in this sense at all. It’s about a relationship with a living God who wants to meet us where we are, to forgive us for where we’ve failed, and to change us from the inside-out into new people.

Religion, according to the more modern definition, tries to change people into the religion’s image from the outside. Jesus, on the other hand, changes us from the inside by filling us with His values of love and grace.

So, as you can see, there is a BIG difference between a true life with Christ and a man-made religion. I’m interested in telling people about Jesus and what His Word has to teach us about His amazing plan for our lives. I believe that He has the power to change ANYONE who believes in Him and to give EVERY life a positive, eternal purpose. But I DO NOT BELIEVE that it is my job to change anyone. It is only to point people to the ONE who can change them, transforming their lives in a vibrant and very REAL way.

That’s why, when asked if I believe in religion, I tend to agree with those who say that following Christ is not about religion, it’s about relationship.

Imagine an electrician who lectures about electricity all the time but never uses it. He refuses to turn on the lights when he’s at home, and he doesn’t even know how to change a light bulb. Such an electrician is only an electrician by name but knows nothing of electricity.

That would be an apt comparison for many “religious” people today. They talk about their religion and may even try to get people to conform to their ideas of what “religious” people should be like, but they’ve never experienced the electricity of God’s power in their lives.

Another definition of religion I have heard is that religion is man’s search for God. No matter how hard we try to search for Him, in our own power, we will always remain in the dark. But life with Christ is about God’s search for humankind. It’s about Him coming to us and seeking a relationship with us.

That’s the difference. Most religious people are still in the dark but, when we truly turn to Jesus in faith, He turns on the light.