Dying to Self

Whatever Happened to Sin?

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Long time ago, the Garden: the universe was corrupted by two humans who chose sin over the Almighty. God immediately cursed those two, then gave a promise that sin would be dealt with by a perfect sacrifice.

In short, it used to be about sin.

Christians throughout history understood how pervasive sin was. Knew that it was a ball and chain that kept them in bondage. The whole Reformation started because Luther was overcome by his own sinfulness and was begging for release. Sin killed, then killed some more.

It used to be about sin. The freedom we are to proclaim to the captives is freedom from sin. The ancients understood the ugly stain they could not wash out. Seekers wrestled with sin and fell upon God seeking forgiveness from it. The grace that promises to lead us home was offered freely to us when Christ paid our penalty, the penalty of sin. It used to be about sin. Preachers railed against sin. They understood that conversion came only after people understood the depths of their own depravity. Those preachers brought people to the cross, the place where sins were laid down and forgiven. Those converts knew they were saved because that crushing load of sin was removed. They wept over the release from that oppressive taskmaster.

But in churches today, the message has been changed. It is no longer about sin; it is about what we can get from God. Christianity has become the religion of meeting felt needs. Need your car fixed? We Christians can help with that! No one to pal around with? Hey, let’s get a pickup game of basketball going! Can’t walk the walk? No sense feeling guilty about it!

Many seekers, especially in America, don’t want to hear about sin, so our preachers oblige them by not talking about it. “Too scary, too off-putting to people.” “That message doesn’t work anymore.” “You can’t catch flies with vinegar.” So in the place of the message about the depths of sinfulness we all possess, many churches have adopted a message that says, “You are entitled to special treatment, and God is right there to give you anything you think you need.”

Last year, I heard a presentation advertising small groups within a church. This was a multimedia extravaganza that featured numerous real-life stories of people currently attending the church’s small groups. The clip ran almost five minutes, but when it was all said and done, the name of Jesus had never been mentioned. People talked glowingly about what they got from their small groups, but nothing was ever said about triumphing over sin, getting closer to Christ, understanding the Bible, or any of the traditional Christian issues. Instead, we all heard about going to baseball games with others in the group, having someone bring groceries over in a tough time, and the like.

It’s now all about what we can get. Because of this, few people ever talk about sin anymore. I wonder if seekers ever wrestle with their sinfulness. Considering the dearth of time we all claim today, perhaps others simply cannot devote much mental energy to thinking about their own sin since so much time is commanded in getting felt needs met.

The “new” churches that adhere to this self-centered paradigm wrap their evangelistic efforts around conducting felt need analyses or interpreting neighborhood demographic studies rather than working to show people the depths of their depravity and the person who can release that burden, Jesus. We are on the verge of losing the entire sin perspective as we abandon the very core of why Christ came in favor of making everyone happy, lest they find another, more accommodating church to attend.

Jesus said that if He be lifted up, He would draw all men to Him. Are we lifting Him up and showing Him as the Redeemer and the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world? Or have we reduced the Savior to little more than being a sanctified version of Santa, doling out whatever we ask for in the absent shadow of a missing cross?

Joy unspeakable comes from knowing that we will not have to pay the price for sin because Christ already has. In the midst of our endless desire to have our felt needs met, do we still remember this?

Whatever happened to sin?

Prophetic or Pathetic?

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Sorry for the lack of updates folks. I’ve been mired in taxes and locating income. Now that the first part, at least, has been resolved, I hope to have more submissions in the future.

For now I ask questions about the growing strength of “prophetic ministries” and their sway over many charismatics. Just the other day I heard an ad on the radio for a prophetic conference that was coming to town. I had to ask myself, if this is truly a prophetic move, then why does it have to travel? Why not stay at home and issue the prophetic words from a central location. Much cheaper and more efficient.

The sad answer is that surely too much money is involved. Register people who are desperate and want a painless prophecy spoken over them (rather than spending the hours in prayer needed to hear from God on their own) and let them be satisfied with the 60% accuracy claimed by Rick Joyner, one of the big names out there in the “prophetic.”

The gift of prophecy is a real gift, but it seems to me that this modern equivalent is more pathetic than prophetic. That these new prophets are as wrong as often as right seems to paint God as capricious in His ability to bring things to pass. That is not the God I serve.

I feel for the people who get “a word” spoken over them only to have it never be. Many such people have been so repeatedly burned that they’ve adopted the attitude of the villagers in the fable of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. When a real prophecy comes down, will they heed it or yawn? And still they go to the prophetic conference.

Not Enough Time to Be Disciples

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Been re-reading The Pursuit of God by Aiden Wilson Tozer. This is about the seventh time I’ve read the book, so you would think it would be memorized by now, but what is striking me more this time is his kind way of saying that we simply do not spend enough time before God.

Tozer himself was known to have five hour prayer times in the morning, from 7 a.m till noon. This is one reason why he knew God so well.

But what about us? How do we “normal” Christians get to that rarified place that so few Christians actually reach: deep communion with God?

There is only one way—time. If we don’t spend time before God, large chunks of it—counted in daily hours, not minutes—then we can forget entering the roster of saints. Churches today emphasize everything but extended time on one’s face before God. We have a million shortcuts to “growth,” but the truth is that they all fail.

Recent conversations with other Christians show a paucity of prayer time. There is simply no way we can walk in any depth on fifteen minutes a day. Others counter that they “practice the presence of God” all day. Now that is fine and a great discipline, but we are always shown Jesus’ example of withdrawing to private prayer. Hours of it, too. I simply cannot see the Lord merely practicing the presence in the Garden of Gethsemane. When it comes down to it, practicing the presence is in addition to prayer closet prayer, never a substitute.

We wonder why the Church today in America is so powerless, but we need look no further than the collected hours we Christians spend in prayer daily. Some argue that life is too hectic for prayer time like Tozer, but I would answer then that perhaps we Christians need to rethink everything else in our lives that draws us away from such committed time. We as a Church need to explore alternative ways of living that allow us to free up that time for every person who claims the name of Christ.

But then again, if Christianity is just something we do, then perhaps we should keep on doing what we are doing, sloughing off that precious time in favor of whatever worldly thing is pressing on us in that moment. Millions have already.