Faith + Life

Innocent.  Those big blue eyes are filled with it.  Not a sin or an hateful thought anywhere around.  Pure.  Clean.

Innocent.  That’s the best word I can think of to describe what I see in my infant (3 weeks old) son’s eyes.  Pure.  Clean.

Yes, I am well aware of the doctrine of Original Sin.  Yes, I know that Jesus’ atonement and God’s grace must be the foundation of my little boy’s future.

Why?

So he can be as he is: innocent.

I don’t know what your experience with churches / fellowships that claim the name Christian has been, but… between my wife and I, we have seen the good, the bad and the really ugly.   It’s enough to make you sick…to make you angry with God…and to be a wonderful place to experience God.  While God moves in many of those assemblies and wants to transform all of them into communities of healing and nurture, the Church is not God.

Read that again: the Church is not God.  The people in those communities aren’t God.  They aren’t Jesus, per se, although they are supposed to be allowing God to transform them into people who reflect Jesus into the world.  Sometimes they are a nurturing community.  At other times, they are more broken than some who don’t know that they need God.

For all the times you’ve been frustrated or demeaned or hurt by someone acting in or claiming Jesus’ name, consider this concept put forward by Bill Thrall, et al., in True Faced.  I think it will help you see that the Church is not God.

There are two possible paths within Christianity:

• Pleasing God, and
• Trusting God.

If you choose the path to pleasing God, you have to earn God’s favor.  Your belief framework must be perfect.  You have to call God by the right name.  You have to know more about God to get God’s “ok.”   It’s the same trap as trying to earn anyone else’s love.  At some point, you will fail. What do you do then?

If you choose the path to trusting God, you don’t have to earn God’s favor.  Your belief about God and holidays in his honor can be flawed.  You don’t even have to utter the right words.  A simple plaintive cry and God knows your talking to him.  You don’t have to know more to get him to love you.  He just does…love you.  He forgives you.  He considers that you are like my 3-week-old son: innocent.

At about the same time, the disciples came to Jesus asking, “Who gets the highest rank in God’s kingdom?”  For an answer Jesus called over a child, whom he stood in the middle of the room, and said, “I’m telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children, you’re not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in. ~Mt. 18:1-4, MSG

Innocent.  That’s how God wants to make you.  He wants to see in you the innocence I see in my son’s eyes.  He wants to love you as if you’d never done anything wrong.

Even though…we all know…that we all have.

God wants you to trust him.  Then, and only then, can you work together with him on the pleasing part. ‘

Trust…and let God look as if you were as innocent as a little child.

Oh…and those people who want to pop your balloons…to make you feel bad or guilty or like you’ve done too much that’s wrong…  Say a prayer for them. It’s hard to listen to them when you’re talking!

Talkback!

I look forward to hearing from you.  Either leave a comment below or use the “Contact” page!

How have you experienced the failure of the “pleasing” path?

How do you struggle with the “trust” path?

___________

True Faced is published by Navpress.  You can find our more about the True Faced approach by clicking here.

Scripture quoted from The Message (MSG),Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

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