What's the Point?

Came across this via Scott Williams quoting Darryl Dash paraphrasing Earl Creps at the Revive Your Soul conference last month:

"He did not come to make bad people good or good people better; he came to make dead people live."

I would add "and love".

Otherwise, that about covers it.

In a project I'm working on, I wrote something similar yesterday:

"There is a song that says:

Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.

I absolutely agree with that sentiment, however, I believe freedom is also another word for nothing left to gain. As in nothing left to gain by believing or behaving a certain way. If we have Christ, we truly have nothing left to gain through our actions, theology or lifestyle. To be blunt, nothing gets us more saved than we already are. We really ought to start living like it.

You don’t need to be better; you probably don’t even need to be as “good” as you presently are. You don’t need to follow the rules one minute more. What you really need is to experience the true grace of God, a grace that says, “Because of my Son, you are perfect exactly the way you are, now go live like you mean it!”. The moment we believe we are presently less perfect than we ought to be, or more perfect than any other human, we call God a liar and negate the victory given us by the death of Jesus. If you believe anything you do or don’t do has any bearing at all on life in Christ, you are missing out on LIFE. If you believe anything anyone else does or doesn’t do makes them less “good” than you are, you rob them of the right to LIFE.

In all my experience in Church, I found one thing to be true. We spent a hell of a lot of time robbing each other of LIFE. Every moment I spent in church in any form could be summed up one way: “Be Better”. Sermons were 5-bullet-point lectures on how to experience better Christian life, how to avoid temptation, how to become closer to Jesus. Not a whole lot in there about living how we already are. There was often a “Yes, but” attitude. We are no longer sinners because Christ set us free, but we must work to become more holy. We are accepted and loved unconditionally just the way we are, but we must be maturing as time goes by.

We don’t need to be better, not one stinking iota. Honestly, I believe we need to be far, far worse. We need to really live in our brokenness, and be OK with that. I learned, after years spent in this system, that what I really needed, what could save me from myself, was to learn to be unholy. For the minute we believe we have taken a single step closer to holiness, we believe everyone else is a step behind us. Even if only a step, we will begin to judge those we perceive to be less holy than we are. The more we judge, the holier we feel. Soon, we believe we are doing pretty damn well in God’s eyes.

Instead, all we really end up with is loads and loads of holy shit."