Do Not Read Through The Bible This Year!
Question of the Week: Are You a Country Club Christian?
Versions of the Bible
A simple Question for you...yes, you.
I’m going to make some assumptions about you, yes you, the person reading this article. I am going to assume that you were born in the United States and you consider yourself to be a Christian. If that is the case, this article is meant for you. You are part of the 70ish% of the population of the United States that self identifies as Christian, but only about 24% of you actually are, but that’s a story for another day.
Today, I want to ask you a question. It is meant for you, and only you can answer this. It will be very difficult for you to give an honest answer because it is hypothetical…but it’s extremely important to consider. Before I ask this question, I want you to think about why you are a Christian. Not the part about the desire for an eternity with our creator but the logistics for you coming to Christ.
Were you like me and were fortunate enough to grow up in a Christian home and it was all you ever knew? Did you have a friend who was a Christian and invited you to church with them? Or, did you have a life-changing experience that brought you to Christ? Probably a better way to put it is how did you come to experience Christ for the first time? There are many ways to have had this experience, especially in the United States wherein certain communities it is part of the culture.
I grew up in the South and one of the first questions someone will ask you when you meet is, where do you go to church? It’s often assumed that you do because it is so common in the Bible belt to attend church. In other areas of the country, it is not as common but still common, especially when you consider that 70ish% of the country self-identify as Christian.
So here is the question…If you were born in Iran, which is 99.7% Muslim, would you still be a Christian?
If you grew up in a place where Christianity is so uncommon, would you have had the pull towards Christ or would you have just followed suit and been Muslim, after all, 99.7 % do? If you had followed the statistically logical path and been Muslim, would you have at least researched your beliefs to make sure you hold the proper beliefs? Maybe at that point through your research you would have landed on the belief you hold now, that Christianity is the only way to eternal life, but would you have done the research? Or would you have just settled into your life as a Muslim, since that’s what everyone else you knew was doing? All of your friends and family would likely be Muslim, and it would likely be the community you would be plugged in to.
If you had been born in Iran, you might have grown up in a nice home that was Muslim, and it would have been all you ever knew. Possibly you would have had a friend who was Muslim, who asked you to go to the mosque with them. Or maybe you would have had a life-changing experience that led you to Islam since it is the common religion of the region.
The reason for this question is not because I believe you don’t have the proper beliefs as a Christian, but because I think it is likely that you don’t know for sure that you hold the proper beliefs as a Christian and why it is correct. Like so many self-professing Christians you have never investigated it like we are told in (1 John 4:1), Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. You have just accepted it and most likely don’t know what you really believe and definitely can’t give a defense for your beliefs as (1 Peter 3:15) says, but in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, ready at any time to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.
I also believe that it is very likely that you have never had a heart change, only a head change. I believe that because I don’t think that you are consumed with following Christ that is the result of a heart change as Paul wrote in (Romans 10:10), One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation.
If 70ish% of the US truly were followers of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, then I have no doubt that this would be a very different country. We would not have more than 3,700 babies killed by abortion, 2,400 divorces, and 44 murders each and every day. Also, pornography wouldn’t be a $4 billion-dollar industry. But all those things are happening and it’s not the remaining 30% of the population who are fully responsible.
It is very easy to be a Christian in the US today, which is probably why we as Christians are so complacent. It is getting more difficult to be a true Christian, but very much socially acceptable to say you are one, as long as you tailor your beliefs to fit with what secular society says is an acceptable form of Christianity.
So, if you were born in Iran, would you be a Christian? Of course, the Calvinist point of view means that none of this matters anyway.
Saul did not become Paul
For the entirety of my life in the church, which has been all of my life up to this point, I have heard every pastor, Sunday school teacher, and Bible teacher tell of how Saul became Paul. The only problem with that narrative…it simply isn’t true.
Why do we as Christians do that? We have the greatest story ever told. The story of creation, the story of life, the story of our salvation through Christ and yet we feel the need to create these images that elucidate the story, even when it isn’t needed.
The story of Saul to Paul is didactic in nature. Its purpose is to show the drastic change in the person after receiving Christ as his savior. It simply isn’t needed here because if you can’t tell the change in Saul/Paul by what he was doing compared to what he ended up doing then you aren’t paying attention...or maybe you just haven’t read it.
I know that Christian leaders over the years desired to make a simple point with this analogy, but it just isn’t needed and it teaches Christians a false narrative which can give the impression that all of it is a lie.
We don’t need a false narrative. The Bible can stand on it’s own.
This type of tactic should be offensive to Christians because it assumes that we are not smart enough to understand the truth of the entire story and for me that is the real problem. Too many Christians want comfortable Christianity.
Comfortable Christianity is easy. It doesn’t ask much of you. It doesn’t require you to dig too much and it doesn’t require you to think. It simply gives you a nice and easy message that doesn’t challenge you in any way.
Saul did not become Paul. Saul is the Hebrew version of his name, Paul is the Greek.
Don’t believe me? I challenge you to read all of Paul’s letters, Luke, and Acts. You will see that he continues to be referred to as Saul after his conversion...11 times!
Now, go read your Bible.
Sacrificing Growth for Nostalgia
Grow or Die
There is an old saying, if you’re not growing, you’re dying.
Growth can come in many forms and sometimes you don’t even realize it’s happening. Typically, people associate growth with getting bigger, but it is sometimes about getting better, smarter, or stronger.
Many corporations grow through adding new products, services, or locations. Others grow by becoming more efficient, resourceful, or cost effective. In whatever way that growth manifests itself the main component is change, without change, there is no growth. Something cannot grow without changing.
Warren Buffett once said, “the investor of today does not profit from yesterday’s growth.”
What Mr. Buffett is talking about is not resting on your laurels and becoming complacent.
The Draw of Nostalgia
Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?”
For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.
Ecclesiastes 7:10
Everyone knows someone who you might say peaked in High School. They might have been the football team’s star player or maybe the most popular kid in school. This is someone who you run into 10, 15, maybe 20 years after graduation who is still trying to relive their glory days and can only speak about High School, because they never grew past those experiences.
They were happy with the way things were and continue to try to relive those happy times, which, you really cannot do except through memory. Unfortunately, they never progress past what they were.
Those mired in nostalgia spend perpetuity reveling in the splendor of their own minds.
It is not uncommon for people to sit with old friends and reminisce about old times. The nostalgia of those moments is comforting and knowing that we had good times with people we enjoy can give us warm feelings. Despite these moments being pleasing, they rarely lead to growth.
When I was a kid we went on a family vacation with a family my parents knew. This was a vacation that the other family took every year. We went to the same restaurants they went to the year before, we went to the same sites they went to the year before, and we went to the same shows they went to the year before all in the same order and at roughly the same time as the years before. They went to those same restaurants, sites, and shows the next year, and the year after that, and the year after that too.
Luckily for me, my family did not conform to this pattern. Of course, we had our go to places, but it wasn’t a given that we would go to those places every vacation and because of that I was able to see much of the United States, I have seen Europe and parts of the Caribbean and Central America and I experienced all that these places have to offer. The other family went to the same restaurants, the same sites, and the same shows they went to years before and likely had virtually the same experience while I experienced new types of food, new languages, and new places, unlike anything I had ever seen.
Now, I can be nostalgic about these new experiences and hope for more new experiences to one day reminisce about, but most importantly, I grew because there was change. The other family didn’t learn new things about the place they went every year. There were no new cultural experiences, new languages, or new topography…it was always the same.
Growth always comes from new experiences regardless of whether those experiences are good or bad but because they are new, we grow.
There is nothing wrong with repeating something that we find enjoyable, or maybe comforting, but if at some point we don’t break up the pattern we become complacent because it’s simply the same and there is nothing to get all that excited about.
Growing the Church
The great commission is a very well-known account from the Bible, and it is all about growth and therefore, change.
In Matthew 28:19-20 Jesus told the disciples, 19 “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
If Jesus’ goal was not growth He would have instructed His disciples to go back to their old lives and just comfort each other rather than instructing them to go out and make disciples of all nations.
This wasn’t the only time Jesus told the disciples this, it was also His last words to them before He ascended into heaven. In Acts 1:7-8, He said, “It is not for you to know times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
The disciples probably would have liked to have taken a nostalgic approach and gone back to what was comfortable, to the way things were before and sit around a table together every Sunday morning and talk about all the miracles they saw Jesus do, and how Peter walked on water until he didn’t, or how great it was to see Jesus alive again after he had died…but they didn’t.
They did what was most likely for all of them, uncomfortable, and anything but nostalgic. They traveled from place to place, preached the gospel, brought people to Christ, and endured persecution from a society trying to eliminate Christians. All but one of them were imprisoned and later executed in horribly painful ways, which certainly wasn’t comfortable or nostalgic.
But they went.
Go Forth and Bring Coffee and Donuts
The church today, especially in the US, does not resemble the church of the disciples in Acts in many ways. Through repressive nostalgia and refusing to grow, in not only a spiritual way, but very often corporately, we have allowed ourselves to become complacent with the way things are. Most of us want church to look, feel, smell, and sound a certain way, and if it doesn’t, you better believe somebody is going to hear about it.
We just don’t want it to change, it’s comfortable the way it is.
We want to have Sunday school at 9:15 where we have some coffee and donuts and then have someone tell us a Bible story. Then head over to the sanctuary, say good morning to a few people, find our assigned seats and if someone is already seated there, they better be visitors. Then we want to hear the same hymns played like we remember them from our youth, the way they are supposed to be played, take the collection at the proper time, communion when it is properly scheduled and hear a palatable sermon that doesn’t ask too much of us. And the pastor better not take too much time to finish whatever it is he has to say because we have to get to Cracker Barrell, so we can beat the rush. We do all of this EVERY Sunday, because, well, that’s what the Bible says we are supposed to do.
At least I think that’s what it says. I could check, but I know I’m right and wouldn’t want to dig too deep into God’s word. It doesn’t really matter because that’s the way we have always done it anyway, why would we change now. That wouldn’t be comfortable.
You Were Promised Comfort, Not to Be Comfortable
Many people come to Christianity, not necessarily Christ, but Christianity, for comfort, and they can get it, but it might not look the way they think or want it to look.
It is no secret that when people are going through tough times they very often look to Christ, and they should. We are called to lean on God when times are tough (Romans 15:13), but that doesn’t mean He is going to take away whatever the problem might be. Just maybe you are supposed to go through whatever trial you are dealing with, so you might not be comfortable, but you won’t be alone, God will be there to comfort you.
And that is where we often find the church, looking to avoid the uncomfortable, which very often comes in the form of change.
The pastor at my church recently said, “if you have been sitting in the same Sunday school class for thirty years and nobody new has come into the class and nobody has come to Christ, then that class is a failure.”
This is the case in so many churches across the US. We go to the same Sunday school class with the same people, every week, because it is comfortable, and after a while, it feels like it has always been that way. It becomes nostalgic, but it hasn’t grown, and it hasn’t accomplished the great commission. It simply has existed, and when those people are gone, it will be forgotten.
If that same class, had gotten out of their comfort zones, gone out into the world, adjusted to the ever-changing landscape that is the world, and done everything they could possible to fulfill Jesus’ last words, then they would be worthy of remembering. But in so many cases, they are forgettable.
When people come to Christ for comfort they very often believe that it is supposed to make things easy, but once again, a little biblical exegesis shows how wrong it is to make that assumption.
Jesus promised that His followers would be uncomfortable.
In Matthew 5:11 Jesus said, 11 “You are blessed when they insult you and persecute you and falsely say every kind of evil against you because of me. 12 Be glad and rejoice, because your reward is great in heaven. For that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
He promised we would not be comfortable, of course, unless we were not actually following Him. But He also promised eternal reward in heaven.
Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way
The paraphrased quote of General George S. Patton, lead, follow, or get out of the way is a phrase that has been used effectively over the years. It cuts to the chase and gets its point across. It has been used in movies and in sports metaphors to great effect.
We would never think of Jesus saying something so cutting, but He was painfully clear when it came to following Him.
In Luke 9:57-62 Jesus makes it clear that He only wants committed followers. He said,
57 As they were traveling on the road someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”
58 Jesus told him, “Foxes have dens, and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” 59 Then he said to another, “Follow me.”
“Lord,” he said, “first let me go bury my father.”
60 But he told him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and spread the news of the kingdom of God.”
61 Another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but first let me go and say good-bye to those at my house.”
62 But Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
He might come across as cold in these verses, but the point He was making is that no follower should put anything ahead of complete dedication to following the one true lord and savior, Jesus Christ. He was telling them not to make excuses, not to expect comfort, and not to be nostalgic.
Click here for Immortality
Today, I am going to tell you how you too can attain immortality.
It might seem impossible, unreachable, or unattainable…but it can be done and the simple answer is…
Jesus!
Most of us come to Christ for salvation in a similar way; we accept Him as savior, get involved in church (or continue if already involved), and then lose sight of what's important. Somewhere between the bustle of VBS, fall festivals, and Christmas pageants we forget why we are here and exactly what that means.
Of course, we know about salvation in Christ but we become complacent in it.
We forget we have been given eternity, forever, immortality.
I think it's difficult for us to really comprehend forever. Just think about eternity for a second and what that means.
If you've ever bought a house, you know that most of us get nervous over a 30-year mortgage, but we are talking perpetuity, infinity, never ceasing to be with our Lord.
When we are young we think that we will never finish school, but that is a drop in the bucket compared to eternity.
The point is, time, in the eternal, is difficult to imagine. But that is exactly what we gain through Christ, we gain eternity. Even non-Christians know John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Hollywood likes to portray immortality as someone that cannot be killed on earth, but who wants to live forever on earth with all its problems?
We have been promised immortality with our savior in paradise…that is far greater than anything that Hollywood can offer.
Many Christians and critics of Christianity forget to think eternally.
We, as Christians, get down when things go wrong, but this life is fleeting. We feel like we just can’t catch a break, and that somehow God has been unfair to us, but He has given us everything, including the gift of immortality. Non-believers use a Christian down on his luck in this life as proof that God is not real, but once again, they are not thinking eternally, they are thinking ephemerally.
Our reward is not here regardless of what a prosperity teacher will tell you, we have no promise for here.
But we do have one for eternity.
So, I’ll take Christ…how about you?
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Two Thirds of the People in Your Church Are Going to Hell, and You Might be One of Them.
In 2012 a Gallup poll echoed the findings of a 2010 census poll that showed that 77% of the US population is Christian, but I believe that both of those polls are wrong.
A more thorough poll earlier this year conducted by the American Culture & Faith Institute determined that 67% of self-professing, Bible believing Christians, who sit in church every Sunday do not believe that Jesus is the only way to salvation.
Therefore, 67% or 2/3 of the people in your church, are going to hell.
But wait a minute, those people believe in Jesus for their own salvation, just not for everyone else. So, they are good, right?
No, they are not!
In order to receive salvation through Jesus, you have to believe, not in your head, but in your heart, that He is the only way…He told us He was the only way in John 14:6.
So, either you believe that Jesus is the only way or you believe that He was lying. If He was lying then He was a sinner, and if He was a sinner then He was not worthy of dying for your sins. If He did not die for your sins then you can kiss heaven goodbye because at that point you are depending on yourself and you are definitely not good enough, none of us are. If you think you are because you are a pretty good person, then you really don’t understand what it means to be a Christian.
Sitting in church every Sunday will not ensure your salvation.
Teaching Sunday school will not ensure your salvation.
Volunteering to be an usher will not ensure your salvation.
Being a pastor will not ensure your salvation.
Writing a clever blog will not ensure your salvation.
Only complete trust in Jesus can ensure your salvation.
Jesus said, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
Seek Jesus, and only Jesus.
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