Being Comes Before Doing

Oftentimes we stake our identities on our activities, or by what we do. I suppose that's just natural. After all, we are a "doing" kind of people. We "do" so that we "earn" the privilege to "be".

I propose that in God's economy, this is exactly backwards. Our identity is foremost in Christ and what he has done for us in the cross in the redemption of our bodies and souls. The activities in which we engage are to flow from this identity. Being comes before doing. If doing comes first, then we will make idols out of our activities and doings. Then we will stop at nothing to keep that idol going. We'll forsake our health, our relationships, our leisure time-- our being.

Ultimately, our identity is our image. Either we provide the image or God provides the image. If we provide the image it becomes an object of our affections and our worship. If God provides the image, then we give praise and thanks to our Creator by first being, and then through loving and serving our neighbor.

Okay, Enough Sarcasm

Using sarcasm and parody as my main devices, my last few posts have been complaints about the state of Christianity in America. It's so steeped in consumerism that going to church has become no different than going to the mall or the local country club. The real Jesus has been kicked out of the church and replaced with bellhops and Santa Claus. It's sad how most churchgoers, including me, forfeit grace and accept pabulum in its place. What is grace anyway? Is giving people only what they want so that they feel good about themselves qualify?

It's strange, this belief that if people's whims are satisfied that we've been "graceful". But I wonder sometimes if we really do a disservice to people when we do things just to pack people into the Sunday morning pews. Is this grace?

This is what I understand grace to be for churchgoers: coming to the worship space empty-handed. No preferences, no motives, no pride, no whims, no comparisons-- nothing!! It is only when we are empty that we can receive. As Luther said, "We are truly beggars." We come together only to get what we need, not in a therapeutic way, or to help us "get through the week". We come to be equipped with the love of God shown to us through Christ so that we may exercise our various vocations. We come to worship in the sanctuary so that we may worship in the world. It's the worship after worship.

For myself-- I would rather have 5 people in worship wanting to be fed with the Gospel than 500 in worship waiting to be entertained.

Worship-- It's All About Me

The consumer culture has infiltrated the church, and I'm afraid for good! Here's what all of the so called "praise" songs are really saying for those who demand only songs "I like". Too many churches cater to human whim instead of submitting to God's grace. Who is worship really all about anyway?

Life Coaching

You don't need life coaching.

Charles Manson needs life coaching.

You participate in life much better than you think.

Defeated

Christ defeated our sin on the cross, not so that we stop sinning, but so that our sins can't keep their hold on us any longer; not so that we try to free ourselves from sin, but so that we would already know that freedom; not so that we turn and fight our sins, but so that we repent and run from them.

The opposite of sin is grace, not virtue.-- Philip Yancey