Many people' idea of the gospel is that some day we'll get to the bridge to paradise and be asked, "Why should you be allowed to cross?" As long as we answer correctly, we make it across. Answer wrongly, and we're cast into the abyss. The gospel is redefined to the the announcements of the minimal entrance requirements for getting into heaven.
In Hank's church, this is all we asked of him. He knew the words. He knew what his standing before God was based upon. But we didn't know how to transform his life.
Jesus never said, "Now I'm going to tell you what you need to say to get into heaven when you die." The gospel writers make it clear that Jesus' good news was that we no longer have to live in the guilt, failure, and impotence of our own strength. The transforming presence and power of God is available through Christ, right here, right now. To live in that power, you must become his disciple, or as Dallas Willard captures it, his apprentice.
John Ortberg, "True (and False) Transformation: Two Counterfeit Forms of Spiritual Maturity, and one way to find the real thing," Leadership, Summer 2002, 102.
The power to change lives.
How many of us really want to see such power! Yet, when we look around the Christian world we don't see folks who are radically different from "nice" folks in our culture. I find many truly nice folks. I don't find many who are radically different or refreshing holy.
Are we really satisfied that our faith is all about making us nice?
I hope not.
When I see Jesus I see a man who the religious leaders and religious people would not consider nice. He challenged them. He challenged his disciples. He did love them, but he also was too confrontative and radical to be considered nice.
He was also holy and pure, yet fun to be around and loving to all types of people. He taught as one with authority. He had power to heal souls and bodies. Those seeking God loved him and wanted to be around him. Those seeking to put God in a box of their own making hated him and had him killed.
If we apprentice to Jesus, can we not expect to experience the same weird and apparently contrary contradictions? Yes! Those who walk with Jesus and learn his ways experience life changing power in the here and now. They are transformed by grace ever increasingly to Jesus' likeness.
Why don't we see this more?
Perhaps because we don't know anything different. Thus, we make ourselves satisfied with a cultural religious form instead of a culturally transformative religious life that always marks Christ followers. If so, repent, believe, and follow the Lord Jesus! He bids us to come and die to self, to being "nice", and to our addiction to fitting in. He calls us to a life of faith, a life of love, a life of power, and a life of transformation.
Lord Jesus, power out your Holy Spirit upon us that we may walk with you and experience life transforming power!
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