I agree that we as fallible human beings (whether in the western church or not) fall short of living up to God’s standard, and do not mean that we should be content to stay as we are. However trying harder is not the answer, see Tim Keller’s book, The Prodigal God for more on this. In it he quotes a seminary professor teaching on the prodigal son, “It’s not our sin that’s separating us from God, it’s our damnable good works.

Finding atonement through repentance is the answer. And as you have pointed out, the way to that is through diligent study until the truth of scripture, through the work of the Holy Spirit, takes a hold of us and brings us to the place where we recognize of our weakness and inability to change and cry out to God. (Ps 43:3.)

In his book review of Francis Chan’s book, Crazy Love, Tim Challies says, “There are two ways of critiquing the church. We can critique out of love or out of disgust. We have to work hard to make sure those who read our words, without being about to hear the tone of our voice or see our facial expressions, do not take words given out of our love for the church as instead flowing out of disgust.

I almost did not post this reply, again because I am not a very gifted writer and somehow I know these words fail miserably at conveying what I mean to say. And the harder I try, the longer this reply becomes. And because I would rather this be a personal conversation we shared over a cup of coffee rather than an electronic message in a public arena.

God bless you, Dan.

Your classic Baptist knows his Bible inside-and-out but lacks the driving force of the Spirit. Spirit-centric charismatics (Todd Bentley is a truck-size pinata to whack at here) lack the guidance of Scripture and become loose cannons.

When you have both the Word and Spirit, you give that cannon GPS targeting.

It’s easy to move God aside and say “I’ll handle this, Lord.” I do it every day.