Lite Christianity

When I was 9, my 8-year-old younger brother died in an accident. It was devasting to us. My life turned very serious. So, when later that year I ‘accepted Christ,’ I took it more seriously than most other ‘raised in the church’ young Christians. I really didn’t fully know what it meant and looked to other Christians to try to figure it out. Like all young people, I was trying to figure out my place in the world. I, and most of my friends, certainly didn’t want to be ‘weird’ like some Christians seemed to be. Over the years, I realized that many of the Christian adults I saw, didn’t seem to take Christianity “too” seriously either, especially when it came to their pursuit of success. In retrospect, I wanted Christianity to be ‘part’ of my life, balanced with other parts. Even though it grew to be a bigger part, my life revolved around me or the loves of my life. This Christianity often failed me over time. It was good when life was good, but discouraging when really bad things happened. If I’m honest, I wasn’t growing much. I wasn’t producing much fruit and I could not honestly say that I loved God, let alone ‘with all my heart.’ I thought it was ok, because most Christians around me were doing the same, except for the often unnoticed, loving Christians who seemed to live to serve God and others.Over many years, I heard a lot of inspiring sermons from some great pastors, but, like the saying goes, “we were like thousands of spectators at a football game desperately in need of exercise watching 22 players who desperately needed a rest.” Even though some times were great, I would also go through times feeling deeply discouraged with Christianity and myself. Ultimately, years later, I was so torn up about the end of a marriage where I tried to do all the right things, that I felt I could soon lose my faith altogether. I was definitely at the end - and beyond - of my rope, with little hope. Then a strange thing happened from that pit. I sought God from the depths of my soul and I soon began to see and feel his love for me as never before. I started to have a much deeper interaction with him. I began to realize that Jesus says in multiple ways that it is not enough to just have God as a part of my life. He made it clear that the most important commandments were to “love God with all your heart, soul, and mind” and to show it in love for others. If you think about it, that means the deepest kind of relationship. We were built with souls that are only truly satisfied when we are revolving around him.

Personal experience and scripture like the one above made it clear that the ‘lite’ version of Christianity doesn’t work that well in the long run for anyone and may result in danger of being cut off from Jesus’ vine (or were never really part of it). God expects us to be in regular communion with Jesus and constantly growing in him. Ultimately that means growing in love for him and producing serious ‘fruit’ (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, humility, self-control, etc) on a regular basis. This life is often a tougher life, as he prunes us and we have to sacrifice our prior ‘gods’ to keep God at the center. Like new high school football or basketball players who sacrifice their video game playing and easy life for the challenge of being part of something bigger in a team, it is a challenging life but it is more fulfilling. Part of us wants ‘a comfort zone,’ but a deeper part likes challenge and growth. And unlike other earthly challenges, God doesn’t set us aside when we have made enough progress or are old, but is constantly challenging and growing us and will do so, if we are willing, to the very end of our life.

I think most Christians, like I did, expect ‘a reasonably good life,’ believing that if they do “the right things,” God will protect them. But Jesus and the New Testament says multiple times that Satan is the prince/ruler/god of this world. Really bad things - including not only the actions of evil in people, but things like cancer and natural disasters - happen regularly. Jesus said, “the rain falls on the just and the unjust.” Yes, he hears our prayers and works in small (or occasionally big) miracles but he clearly does not make everything better for Christians. I currently have been reading mesmerizing real-life stories of totally committed Christians, like “God’s Smuggler,” “The Heavenly Man,” and “The Hiding Place.” There’s a huge number of Christians who have suffered terrible persecution, prison, and death throughout the years. Bummer, huh? Not so much, because the deeper their connection to God, the happier they were.

Right now, more than 300 million Christians worldwide are suffering from very high levels of discrimination and persecution. Why do we expect that God owes us the absence of difficult circumstances when so many Christians are in so much worse circumstances? God says (James 1:2-4) that you can actually be happy in bad circumstances if it is with him! Even if your circumstances have been unusually good in life, they are likely going to be really tough as you get towards the end of it.

Disillusionment with the Christian life can be the prompting to get to know the God who is vs the God you expected, and to seek him at a much deeper level. My experience is if you do that, God will draw you into a dynamic growing relationship with him. It will be more challenging but a much more fulfilled, ‘abundant’ life - even during hard times.

Difficult Circumstances

Our circumstances are very important to us. For most of us, we ride the roller coaster of circumstances, feeling that our circumstances are a big determinant of how happy we are. We hate it when our circumstances are ‘bad,’ like lost jobs, broken marriages/relationships, death of loved ones, or health issues (in ourselves or in our loved ones), money issues, extreme embarrassment, and so forth. You can probably think of your worst past circumstances right now.

A few of us may have had a great childhood and an idyllic life for a while. But sooner or later, we realized that life has some bad things in store. Some that we may have contributed to and some that just happened to us. Others may have had very difficult circumstances from early on. I got to know some really poor people who had terrible life circumstances from the beginning. Does that mean, they are less loved by God or I am more worthy of blessings? No. We all face different sets of circumstances from the very beginning. At any rate, in old age, almost all of us will have very difficult circumstances. Early in life, I found what was my ideal job in a start-up ministry. It was great. But about 10 years later it took a sudden turn for the worse. I prayed a lot and thought that surely God was going to cause good to triumph. But he didn’t. I was terribly depressed. But after a while, I thought about it. Did I deserve ‘the American Dream’ while people in 3rd world countries were in circumstances way lower than my worst circumstances? Many of those people were content with very little, while a lot of rich Americans weren’t content. Why? Because of our MINDS. Our minds tell us what we think we deserve. And so we are distressed because we have a setback.

We live in a broken world. Evil is in almost everything touched by humans. We can’t expect God to be our servant and fix everything for us. He doesn’t promise all us who are ‘committed believers’ the perfect love relationship nor prevent most divorces (note, there are two broken persons in every marriage). When we realize we don’t ‘deserve’ any particular circumstance, we will appreciate so much more of life.

I’m convinced that God isn’t usually focused on fixing all our bad circumstances, although he may ‘fix’ them if that is something that promotes spiritual growth in us. He is more focused on our relationship with him. If you really read the Bible and Jesus’ teachings, he makes it clear that God must be the total center of your life. In fact, we are supposed grow to ‘love him with all your heart, all your mind, and all your soul’ (Matthew 12:30-31). I don’t know about you, but other than some occasional ‘mountain-top experiences,’ for most of my life I could not honestly say I loved God, let alone ‘with all my heart.’ But don’t we grow closer to God when we are faced with really difficult circumstances - assuming that instead of blaming him for not fixing the circumstance, we seek him more deeply?

Perhaps it helps to know, as it did for me, that really difficult circumstances are not abnormal, nor a sign of God’s disfavor. But God does not want any of the difficult circumstances in our life to go to waste. We have to grow to trust that God has a better life for us than what we think is best. We are where God wants us and he uses all the things we went through to bring us closer to him and to be better ministers to others IF we let him. He (Jesus) says that we must be part of the vine (in relationship with him), growing, and producing fruit. (John 15:1-11).

So, here is the great thing: While this kind of God-centered life will likely have a lot of internal as well as external challenges that push us out of our comfort zones, it is a more “abundant” and purposeful life.

How Well Do You Know Jesus?

I suspect you and I know snippets here and there about Jesus. We know a number of pieces to the puzzle, but do we really know the whole picture? Questions about Jesus and his key themes (the things he put priority on, repeated often, and showed in his life):

What was his biggest positive theme?

What was his biggest negative theme?

What kind of relationship did he require between his followers and himself?

What kind of life did he expect of his followers?

What kind of relationship did he require his followers to have with other followers?

What kind of relationship did he require his followers to have with non-Christians?

How do you get the big picture of Jesus and the Christianity that he started?

Of course, that picture mainly comes in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. I - and I suspect a lot of Christians - spent years where we would sort of lightly read over things we thought we knew (“yeah, yeah, I know this part”). Because I had an agenda to cover a certain amount of scripture each day, I would just kind of ignore details that I didn't fully understand. I didn’t really think much about the context of the passage, like how it might have impacted the people Jesus was speaking to and how it fit with the rest of what he said and did. Eventually, life showed me that I had an incomplete concept of what Jesus was about and wanted from me. I became convicted to really study much more deeply. I got a harmonized, chronological version of the Bible/gospels, so as to see more the single storyline of how the things progressed over time. It helped me form a more comprehensive picture. I would check the Old Testament and other cross references (and their context). I would check multiple commentaries. I would check things in the non-gospels part of the New Testament that covered the same theme that Jesus was talking about. I would mull things over in the light of the most profound things Jesus had taught me during my life. Most of all I truly sought to hear what God was saying to me. It changed and continues to change, my life. It is also an ever-growing puzzle for a limited human to relate to the unlimited God of the Universe. Even though his coming to our level helps us understand more about the picture of him and God, they don't fit in any human 'box'. It's actually very comforting to know that it is a challenging and exciting journey that will continue throughout our life!

I'm not saying everyone who wants to know Jesus better will have the same path as me. Nevertheless, I encourage you to get more of the full picture of Jesus direct from the Bible. I believe it will likely change your life as well.