final days forum

Jesus + 'The Bad Seed'

Oprah and author Eckhart Tolle, as I wrote yesterday, teach principles that view Jesus as a spiritual supplement. But many Christians live out the principle of Jesus-as-supplement every day.

We may have invited Christ into our lives and now have a relationship with the Father, but our self-efforts wither the vitality of the union. We inwardly believe lies about what Christ did for us. What the crucified and risen Jesus did was incomplete, so we tack on the same nefarious Jesus+X equation:

• Jesus+my efforts to be absolutely perfect=a good relationship with God.
• Jesus+my refusal to wear makeup =a good relationship with God.
• Jesus+my snubbing those who does not know Him= a good relationship with God.
• Jesus+my church attendance=a good relationship with God.
• Jesus+my cuss-free, drug-free, illicit-sex-free efforts= a good relationship with God.

You get the point. (Even people who think they know Christ practice such as equations, but let's concentrate now on those who really do.) Christians are God's own, but this devilish thinking reeks in the eyes of God. We do not take into account God the Father's commitment to make us whole. We ignore the work of the Holy Spirit to create wholeness in us a little bit every day.

Our efforts to reach perfection without relying completely on Jesus remind me of the pigtailed girl, Rhoda Penmark, in the 1956 film,"The Bad Seed."  Her outward perfection is jewel-hard, a manifestation of a polluted heart.

("The Bad Seed," courtesy of Shasta018 on YouTube.com.)

Rhoda's corrupted heart led her to kill others. When we believe the crucified and risen Jesus is not enough, that He is only a spiritual supplement, that we do not have to surrender to God's work in us to reach His standard of perfection, we cut off ourselves from heaven's bounty. For as Paul says in Galations, the life we live in the body, we must live by faith in the Son of God, who loved us and gave Himself for us.

The "perfection" we seek to obtain is merely bewitchment.

More tomorrow.

Film link courtesy of www.imdb.com.

Jesus, the perfect supplement?

Jesus Christ is the must-have supplement for today's made-to-order religious practices. He is used like a healing herb or a trace mineral. Mix a tablespoon of Jesus into your daily religious smoothie and you're good to go. Jesus flavors any religion, belief system, principle or spiritual practice on earth. He is the binding agent, the innocuous role model for perfectly executed belief.

He's a very cool additive only when you peel away the messy crucifixion, that blood-as-sacrifice-for-sin stuff, His statements about being the only way to God, and that wild notion about resurrecting bodily. But for those who prefer their Jesus tame, the Jesus who taught about blood and sin is passive aggressive and His Daddy is a cosmic control freak.

For example, the crucified and risen Jesus doesn't flow with Oprah and Eckhart Tolle, author of the "A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose," and other self-made faith practices today. Faith is self-actualization, consciousness and an untethered spirituality that says: We have seen god and god is us.

(Courtesy of : lsim13 from YouTube.com.)

I'm a huge fan of Oprah and the way she embraces mass media to supply forums for a variety of people, interests, and ideas. Hosting a global webcast featuring Tolle is a brilliant use of today's technology and further proof that she is a master storyteller and entrepreneur. She has her fingertips on what matters so much to so many.

But "A New Earth" and other books that turn away from the crucified and risen Christ reveal not the greatest story ever told, but the greatest lie ever believed.

Long before Oprah became a beloved media personality, she was a person with a question. Oprah herself has said that when she heard a minister talk about a "jealous" God, she was disturbed by that description. The God she knew was loving, so how could God be jealous? Her question was real. Her curiousity was normal. Did anyone in her former Baptist church share with her about what a "jealous God" meant? Did one of the "mothers of the church" put her arms around her and explain the full story about the God of All Love?

Whether they did or not, Oprah's question was left to take unruly root.

More tomorrow about this.

Is a simple Gospel, well, too simple?

Lots of talk these days about whether Christian ministers -- especially those with television broadcasts -- are rightly dividing the word of truth. Did the minister sufficiently mention the name of Jesus? Did the sermon sound too much like a life-coaching session? Were enough biblical passages exegeted?

This tone of criticism within Christian circles is prevalent. But is that really the chief issue?

The Gospel stands for itself and is both simple and profound. We don't have to manipulate it -- either in trite motivational speaking  methods or in self-righteous theology-speak -- to help the Gospel make its point.

Besides, the onus of the Gospel's success within a human heart is not dependent on us at all. That's the work of the Father who woos us and the Holy Spirit who regenerates us.

If a minister just points to Jesus, should we not trust Jesus Himself to illumine any truth that minister may have shared?

Everyday theology

We can talk about God everywhere. On a blog. On a TV spot. Over punch at the Little League game. Over the backyard fence. While our voices can be heard in a multitude of places, the platforms themselves should not be our first focus. Once the cameras spotlight us, what will we say? Will our message still flow from love? Or will we belittle, alienate or anger?

Lovelessness is an easy disease to catch.  Lovelessness can appear as right dogma, common sense, pop psychology, Bible knowledge, tough love or political smarts. All the right things are said, but the words just don't feel right when heard. Instead of calming the chaos, the words stir things up. It's like watching a person smile at you, but you recognize the insincerity because the smile doesn't meet the person's eyes or your heart.

How important it is to rely on the Holy Spirit to teach us what to say when we are talking about God. Although He transcends everything, are we guilty of being the worst publicists for Him? Any uncertainties we have about God and His unconditional love spill out when we talk with others. If we see God as unbending, we are unbending. If He is only a rule-maker, we are rule-makers. If He is impossible to please, so are we!

Let us dig up any roots of thinking that tell lies about God and His relationship with us. Let us refuse to talk to people out of wounded confusion, recklessly sharing an erroneous picture of a loveless, rigid God to a world hungry for His touch.