Well, today is March 4th, the second in our series, “Loving God Without Becoming an Arrogant, Self-righteous Know-it-all.” Today I talked on “I Don’t Want to be Better, I Want to be Different.” I knew this was going to be a great day when I began to hear the music. Ken and Barbie Isham and all the volunteers had really outdone themselves this week. The special song was called, “God Deliver Us From Religion.” It was an exciting day as both services are beginning to fill up and I’m seeing new faces; people I’ve seen in the past and a lot of new faces of people who are on the hunt for God in a non-religious environment.
Today I got to talk about Chapter 3 in my newest book, about the dangers and menace of moralism. Christianity is not a set of morals, things that we do to attract the favor of God and the goodness of God. As I said today, the difference between moralism and Christianity is that moralism is spelled “do” and Christianity is spelled “done.” Christianity is about what God has done for us.
This week I was talking to a friend from Argentina who is an architect and also Jewish and one of the things he didn’t understand about Christians in America is all the division and differences that exist. Then he asked me an important question, “How many ways are there to be Christian?”
That’s a great question. You would think that if we all followed one person, Jesus Christ, we would all look the same way. But we don’t. In America, when people say they are Christians, many of them are simply advancing a moral system, a religious system of beliefs, a tradition; an artifact of the past that has no reality in the present.
Others are attempting to label things to make them safe for consumption. That’s why we have Christian music, Christian books, Christian exercise programs, Christian weight-loss, Christian radio stations that advertise that the highest value of a Christian is to be safe. Truthfully, when I say I am a Christian, what I am saying is that all truth is God’s truth, that God is real, and that He has spoken; that His love for us is beyond anything that we can begin to imagine.
The majesty in Christianity is that in Christianity God does the pursuing. What may seem like circumstances where things aren’t working out, may very well be that God is cutting off a road of escape and hedging you into a corner where you’ll surrender to Him and His love, where you’ll trust Him completely for the life you now live and the life you dream of living one day, because in Christianity, God does the dying. What a heretical thought! And yet it is true.
Isaiah said that Christ was wounded and bruised for our sins, that he was beaten that we might have peace, that He was lashed and by His suffering we are healed. God loves us and heals us in every way that a human can be. And the good news in Christianity is there is life. It is about life. It’s about being alive. As I spoke at The Gathering, Christ’s aliveness infects us with life so we live free, have fun, and change the world.
Today at The Gathering was also the first time that we live-streamed video. Now we have podcast, live stream audio, live stream video, and The Gathering is growing not only here in Franklin, but around the world.
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