A Devastating Cover-Up

21 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. 22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— 23 if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant (Colossians 1:21-23, italics mine).

Satan’s goal is to move the church away from the gospel of reconciliation, to get us to believe that we have not been made holy and without blemish—that we’ve not been reconciled. If he can seduce us into believing anything less than the gospel (if he can get us to believe, for example, that at our core we’re 75% holy and 53% without fault), then we, the people of the gospel, won’t believe the good news. Instead, we’ll believe that God’s gift of righteousness and holiness and redemption (and all the other incredible gifts we’ve received through Christ) have either not been given to us or have been sullied and perhaps taken from us. Now what do we do? Moved away from the gospel, we will no longer be free from accusation. We’ll take a pounding (“You idiot! You’re so stupid!”), and it will hurt.

So to stop the pain, we’ll cover up. We won’t live by faith and we won’t trust God. But because our days and lives go on, we’ll turn on our personal image projection system. After all, now there’s work to be done. In a terribly twisted way, we’ll believe that we have to earn what has been and will always be a gift. Then we’ll measure ourselves and others by how we’re looking, and by how we’re really getting ourselves together now. Really.

This is the primary misery plaguing the church. We’re horribly cheated when we go for the image we can perform instead of the revival of faith and grace that the church is to assist us with.

To see if you’ve been affected, I want to ask you a question: If people suddenly knew that you sometimes got sloppy drunk, were in an affair, were lately looking at pornography, or were about to have an abortion, who would you be most afraid of meeting: a roomful of Christians from your church, or a room full of people you didn’t know?

If you responded, “I’d be most afraid of a roomful of Christians,” you have something in common with me and 90% of the people who have previously answered the question. Think for a moment what that means. The implications are devastating. We’re a church that doesn’t like or trust each other—not really. How can we have fellowship on the grand scale befitting the church if we don’t know what we have in common?

Since God’s revelation about my own cover-up, the most difficult people for me to be around have been Christians. Not rookie Christians and not those recently born anew, but some of the veteran and leader types, those who shepherd the flock. They often don’t see the church for who it has already become in Christ (having been reconciled), so they work to make something of it, to push it somewhere, and to make something happen—a bigger church. That means the members have to know what to do, how to look, how to reach out, how to love, how to obey, how to fight, and how to win. WIN!

But because these leaders don’t know who they already are (new creations), the projection way of life remains, and their hearts are left bound up, blocked from view, and blocked from life. Their only hope is God and His reconcilers.

If we don’t help convince new believers who they now are, and if we don’t prove to them that they may walk among us without fear, safe and welcome because they’re actually part of us, then we’ve left them in the tangle of the grave clothes of their previous way of life—a way of living that was dead. Even as we tell everyone in Christ to run because they’re free, no one really will be. Everyone will be impaired because everyone will be stumbling over the grave clothes we’ve not removed.

This is why church is mostly boring, given enough time. We’re not truly impressed, and we’re not actually engaged with one another. Imagine a sanctuary filled with mummies, and you’ve about got the picture. This is what happens to believers when they’re still wearing their own grave clothes, when they don’t know they are truly dazzling, new creations in Christ, with new life and a new way of living. It doesn’t matter whether they’re new or longtime Christians. When they’re not relieved of living as they once did because they’ve been made new, they cannot help “falling away” or “backsliding.”

However, God “has committed to us the message of reconciliation” (2 Cor 5:19), and I’m deeply thankful for the sons and daughters of God who are noticing the urging of the Spirit toward assisting others.

(Excerpted from my book, “God’s Astounding Opinion of You,” chapter 14: “Stripping Mummies—Finding Freedom and Life Outside the Tomb.” For more information about the book and my ministry, go to http://lifecourse.org and click on Ralph’s Book. You’ll find my book at bookstores everywhere, as well as in eBook format at amazon.com, christianbook.com, barnesandnoble.com, and more.)

Speaking This Weekend

Grace Evangelical Free Church of Longmont, CO, is hosting me for a weekend conference, “Putting AMAZING Back Into Grace.” I will be speaking from 9:00am – 4:00, this Saturday, Oct. 22—tomorrow—and again on Sunday at 8:30am and 11:15am.

For more information about this free event, call the church office at (303) 772-5685, or find them on the web at http://www.graceefc.org/

Video Sermon Available

Did you miss me speaking at Andrew Farley’s church, Ecclesia, last Sunday? You may watch the video at http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/17920119.

If you’ve wondered how the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus profoundly affects you today, this sermon, “Looking Where God Is Looking,” is for you. (Andrew introduces me at about the 11:00 minute point in the service, after which there is a bit of an audio glitch—mine! But it doesn’t last long.)

In Texas

I arrived in Lubbock this afternoon, and immediately began ministering to the locals.

(TIME CORRECTION! -- I will be speaking at Andrew Farley’s church (Ecclesia) tomorrow, Sunday, Oct. 16, at 10:30am and 7:30pm (CST). You may stream both services live at http://www.churchwithoutreligion.com/home.)

Absurd Forgiveness

(Here's an article by Steve McVey, who also wrote the foreword for my book. It's another strikingly clear and vital truth I know will help you. Otherwise, would I post it?)

When Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden, he wrongly assumed His God would be angry but instead God came looking for Him to take His regular evening walk.

When Abraham sent his wife, Sarah, into Pharaoh’s tent to protect his own life by allowing her to have sex with another man, God told Pharaoh that he was on dangerous
ground and that he’d better get her out of there right now. The next words out of God’s mouth to Abraham were to reassure him of the covenant He had made with him. Not a word about his sin.

When Elisha was depressed and afraid and angry and prayed to die, God sent an angel to feed him so that he might regain his strength. No shame or blame.

When Peter denied Jesus, our Lord made sure when he arose to mention Peter by name and said to make sure he knew Jesus was alive. No reference to what Peter had done.

These were giants in the Bible – giants who made horrific choices. In each instance, the love of God swallows up their sins and foolishness in one great gush of grace. It's absurd. What have you done that causes you to think God may be disappointed or perturbed toward you? Whatever it is, you need to set it aside because that's what He has done. As absurd as it sounds, God isn't interested in what you've done in the past. He lives with you in the now and wants you to live in this moment of grace and accept His forgiveness.

Jesus showed us our Father’s heart when He had the Father of the prodigal son throw him a party when he returned home without so much as a mention of what the boy had done. That’s your God.

Refuse to accept His acceptance and you’ll lock yourself inside a prison of your own making. Accept His acceptance and you’ll run in the joyful freedom only known by those who know their sins never appear on God’s radar – never.

You’ve messed up? Welcome to the world of great children of God. It happened. So put it aside now. Don’t insult the finished work of Jesus on the cross by insisting on trying to share in dealing with it through your own gnawing guilt and spiritually suicidal self-consciousness. You are forgiven. You are free. You are one with the One who keeps no record of wrongs and promises to never remember them again.

So dance. Run. Laugh. Play. Celebrate. That’s what the Father, Son and Spirit are doing and He asks you to join in right now.

This Sunday, Oct. 16!

Update! Seeing others as they are in Christ has become one of the most invigorating aspects of faith for me. Each encounter, whether by phone or in person, is an opportunity to live by the Spirit and not by the flesh, to reap God’s life, instead of the failure of flesh. Everybody wins.

I will be speaking about this at Andrew Farley’s church (Ecclesia) this coming Sunday, Oct. 16, at 10:30am and 7:30pm (CST). You may stream it live at http://www.churchwithoutreligion.com/home.

Majesty Unveiled

A great danger today is for Christians—the ones made holy and blameless and new and radiant, and who are right now the happy homes of God Almighty—to listen to a speaker or pastor or leader who does not see them as they have become in Christ, but who sees them only in the disguised and lowly appearances of this world. What they hear will be flesh to flesh, and confusion, though cloaked in bright lights and noise and smiling faces, will produce frustration and disillusionment.

If, on the other hand, that speaker or pastor or leader truly sees them and is at all dazzled by the royalty they are, then they can rest confidently because what they hear will invigorate who they are—majesty unveiled. It’s then that the glory of God in the sons of God is brilliantly evident. And that—the sons of God living together by faith in God—is how the world is changed.

Still Cookin' At 90

I think this short video is terrific. Had I been present, I would have hooted and hollered! I think you'll enjoy it. Have a great weekend!

Works For God

“Then they asked him, ‘What must we do to do the works God requires?’ Jesus answered, ‘The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.’” John 6:28-29

God stunned me with the simplicity of this many years ago, and He has shaped me and worked through me all the years since. In example, what follows is an excerpt from the Introduction of my book, “God’s Astounding Opinion of You.” –

“I believe the current work of God is centered upon the following passage, with the immediate benefit being a happy bunch of God-enamored Christians—it’s what God is doing today.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matt 11:28-30

“While works for God are important, the work of God in His people should thrill us so much that we become crazy about and gladly dependent on Him. And that’s what life is like when you find Him in you as well as around you. The great joy you find will certainly produce sincere works for God, but that’s not God’s first goal—it’s the result. Works for God are a by-product of grace-filled believers who cannot contain the wonderful, deep urgings and desires of the Spirit living within.

“God is working to impress and convince you of what He has done for you and in you. It’s a labor He really enjoys! As he increasingly wins you over to His way of thinking about you, you’ll increasingly live as you really are because you’ll know who you really are. When your opinion of yourself matches up with God’s opinion of you, and when who you are lines up with how you live, the glory of God will be stunningly evident. And you’ll be living by faith.”

That’s what I believe, and that’s my approach to people whose “works” or “labors” or even “looks” don’t seem invigorated by God. I give them the gospel, stunning and magnificent, and God does what He does—convinces them, builds them up and let’s them live, abundantly and fruitfully. That works for God.

Great Resources

Here's a link to a site with terrific resources (books, audio CDs, and more) for those growing up in Christ. You will also find me as the featured author for the next few weeks. http://www.lifetime.org/

Preposterous!

If God's good news is as good as God thinks it is, shouldn't it be a just a little close to preposterous? I think so.

The Bible says that God, through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, has made us holy already and that He has already perfected those of us who are in Christ. Doesn't that seem preposterous? It is perhaps the most humbling point of faith to believe what He believes is true about you, and the wonder of it makes you addicted to the One holding the opinion. What a concept. (Heb 10:9-14)

Pinocchio's Itch

Lifeless Pinocchio got it right.

With centuries of practice since Adam and Eve’s exit from the Garden of Eden, it is now common for men and women to live by the flesh and call it normal – it’s all they know because it’s all they have. But get alone with someone and they might admit that life isn’t at all satisfying and that it doesn’t work. You and I know it’s because, having been designed for something more, all they have is flesh. They’re left to walking “in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God,…” (Eph 4:17,18 NAS)

No one can live like that.

Living without God’s life is impossible; it’s a caricature, a perversion and cruel joke of life. It’s the sad lot of Pinocchio, who, while walking and talking and interacting with the world around, had not life. That he one day realized it was the gift of an irresistible itch.

For us, Pinocchio’s itch—Something’s not right about me!—is answered in Christ. Jesus, “the way, the truth and the life,” makes His entrance into us, and we’re not flesh bags anymore! "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” (John 3:6 NAS, italics mine.) Jesus successfully makes us spirit, new creations now filled with God, now filled with life! That’s why He came in the first place, “that you might have life.” (John 10:10; 1 John 5:12)

While you know who and what you were born—a pagan-natured flesh bag—you know who and what you have been born a second time—a godly-natured spirit, a son filled with life. Where at one time you were by nature an object of wrath (Eph 2:3), you have become by nature an exalted son. (Eph 2:6) What a miracle!

You and I know that while we still have a monster (flesh), and can walk in the manner of a monster (by the flesh), we’re not monsters! We have an enemy, but we are not the enemy of God; the enemy is not us. God has a problem, but it is not us. We are not God’s problem anymore. Without making an excuse for sin, if we believe we are the problem, if we believe we are the reason for our stumbling, for our sinning against God and against others, we are deceived. We’ll usually make war on sin, which, in our thinking, usually means we make war on ourselves.

If you believe “I’m bad,” or “I’m the problem,” then where does your attention go and where do your efforts go? Right at you. . .or the “you” you think you are. And that forces you into a double life.

Luther Price wrote: “Be what you is, not what you ain’t; ‘cause if you ain’t what you is, you is what you ain’t.” In other words if you believe you are something (the flesh) when, in fact, you are not, the life you live will be a false one. You won’t live as you really are and have become because you’ll believe you’re something else; you’ll live as you ain’t.

And that’s a mess. But you’re no mess. Like Pinocchio, you’ve received life—only yours isn’t simple animation. Your life is God Himself.

Air Guitar & Conspiracy

My daughters are in on the conspiracy, I’m sure of it.

Almost two weeks ago, the Spirit surprised me with the following words in my head: “I want you to have more fun. . .with me.” Well, I’m having some trouble with that. I mean fun is for weekends and vacation, right? Fun is for kids on a playground and idiot youths on sleepovers. Fun is irresponsible. Fun is not productive. Right? Hasn’t anyone ever told you, with a bit of a sneer, “Hey! You’re having too much fun! Don’t you have a job or something better to do?!” Only they didn’t mean better, they meant harder, more responsible. And more quiet. Probably they meant something like, “Dear God, can’t you get yourself together and act like an adult?!”

The words were drenched with shame on you.

Well, if I’m ever going to live by faith, then, for me, that’s going to mean having more fun with God even around people who might think I’m being, well, bad, or less than the good I should be. Frankly, I don’t particularly like it when people draw the target of disdain on my back—you know what I mean? Have you ever caught a glimpse of someone giving a he’s such an immature idiot look to those who are the audience of your loony moment? It’s like that person is looking around at everyone except you in order to form a gang by shaping their opinion that you are, in fact, an immature idiot. Now, thanks to your looniness, everyone knows what’s acceptable and what isn’t. Let’s get to work, since Ralph, the epitome of immature idiot-ishness, isn’t getting anything done.

Honestly, I adore God, and that often reduces, er, liberates me into childlikeness, which is a really close cousin of childishness. And hasn’t Cousin Childish gotten a bad name? Between those two words, childlike and childish, entire nations have squared-off against each other and gone to war. Okay, that might be an exaggeration, but haven’t you noticed how much fighting and shaming goes on by the behavior police over which is which? Over which is acceptable and which is not? I mean, who is to say? Childlike & Childish: A Paradigm for the 21st Century wasn’t a class offered at my college. Yours?

I know, I know. My favorite bible person, Paul, wrote about childishness, telling the Corinthians to knock it off.

9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11When I was a child (infant), I talked like a child (infant), I thought like a child (infant), I reasoned like a child (infant). When I became a man, I put childish (infantlike) ways behind me. 12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. (1 Corinthians 13:9-12, italics mine)

But Paul wasn’t saying that they should quit acting like kids—stop playing around!—he was telling them (and us) to stop clinging to what we believed when we were imprisoned under the law! If they didn’t, they would be stuck as infants (Nepios, the Greek word) in immaturity—move on! Grow up. There’s a new covenant now where love is the greatest—both the receiving and the giving.

I’d say we're being infantish when we refuse to have fun with God because we're busy being serious, as if seriousness equals maturity. It doesn’t. Often it means locked-down behavior, the end of funny antics and loony playfulness because The Scrutinizers have spoken. Thus saith The Scrutinizers. Paul meant that we must come away from a faith that keeps us in immature infancy (Nepios); he didn’t mean that we should leave the playfulness of childhood. It is unfortunate that we’ve attached an inaccurate meaning to the word, “childish,” and stuck it into our biblical interpretation. Nepios means “infant,” with regard to what one believes. It usually has nothing to do with behavior and everything to do with believing.

Let’s invite Cousin Childish back into the room, and praise him for his true identity. How ‘bout a round of applause for C2! Can I get a witness?!

Anyway, over the last few days each of my daughters has given me something that has induced childishness in their father. I know God’s in on it, even if they don’t—it’s His conspiracy. First, Emma told me about a video where some guy prays wicked prayers for his former girlfriend, who recently rejected him. (Didn’t see it? Click here.) I loved it, and, throwing off the heretofore well-fitted, I-must-be-serious-before-The-Scrutinizers cloak, posted it all over the place. And then this morning, Ellen gave me a Creedence Clearwater Revival CD with not only some songs I didn’t have (How did THAT happen?!), but one I hadn’t heard in eons—It Came Out Of The Sky. Have you heard it? Come on—it rocks! (Click on the video below.) And I’ve played it eight times already, ripping some fantastic air guitar, air drums and even air mouth(!) during at least three of the plays. Maybe four.

So immature. Except that nobody could see. There was no one to scrutinize and shame me. And God loved it. He was on background vocals. He’s pretty good with harmony.

I’m going to go take our dog for a walk now and I’ll be bringing my iPod. CCR is about to be in concert on my head.

Buh-bye.

Looking Deeper

Call me foolish, but I refuse to believe that things are as they seem. There is much behind it all, and that’s where I’m looking today.

"For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." 2 Cor 4:17,18

Reverse Thinking

I like this short video. Of course, if I didn't I wouldn't post it. Duh. I hope you enjoy it too. Have a great weekend!