Checklist Xtianity:

A couple weeks ago my pastor and I were talking and he was asking for good ideas to put in his sermon about why we Christians sometimes suck. I told him Christians sometimes suck because we prescribe to what I like to call checklist Christianity. We make this long, or not so long, checklist of what Christianity is all about or how we maintain our “relationship” with Christ. For instance:

__ Pray at least once a day

__ Read my Bible

__ Go to church at least 3 times a week

__ Give my offering

__ Tell at least 2 people about Jesus

__ Have a Christian bumper sticker

__ Listen to Christian music

__ Act happy when in public

__ Read a Christian book

__ …

… and what ever else somebody might find to put on this checklist. Then we go out and live by this checklist that we’ve compiled. We get all these ideas and “formulas” of what others (pastors, videos, music, etc.) say Xtianity is supposed to be or look like and we make our checklist to live by. And we then fix our efforts to just go by each week making sure we can check off each thing on our list. The more “Christian” we are the more things we have on our list. And as long as we complete our task sheet we thing we are right on track with Christ.

And, it doesn’t stop there. We then proceed to look at our checklist and hold others up to that standard that we have adapted for ourselves. We see that some people don’t have a very long checklist, or that as far as we can tell, they aren’t doing these “very spiritual” things that are on our checklist. So we conclude that they must not be very good Christians; at least not as good as we are.

We have to be very careful to make sure that our relationship with Christ is not reduced to a set of ritualistic formulas that we check off of a list. Jesus never gave formulas for how to live for him or remain close to him. Please don’t misunderstand! Most of these things are very beneficial disciplines that we would do well to have as a part of our lives. But… not because it makes us measure up, not because it makes us better than others, not because it impresses God. Scripture makes it very clear that God looks only at our hearts, man looks at the outward. This checklist is all too often an outward thing, especially when the heart is not right with God. He only sees our hearts, and we as men can’t fully see another man’s heart, so let’s not judge their hearts. And, let’s not make checklists to follow. Let’s instead just follow our hearts and how God is prompting. Yes, develop spiritual disciplines, but make sure they are not part of an empty routine or checklist.

In Christ,

Geoff

2nd impressions

Second Impressions!

I have been thinking for the past week about how people perceive us. As I was prepping for our Sunday morning youth service, in which we are discussing new beginnings and how we get a new start and a clean slate at the beginning of each new school year, especially for those students moving to new schools. God led me to the realization that some people have negative impressions of us for things we have done in the past or things they have heard and how sometimes that makes new beginnings difficult. There are people that have negative opinions of us. We typically have two responses to that; (1) people pleasing and trying to get them to change the way they fell about us, or (2) saying “well forget them, I don’t need people to like me or approve of me”. I don’t think that either approach is the way God would have us respond. As ambassadors of Christ we ought to strive to reveal Christ and all his goodness through our lives. We ought to strive to change people’s impressions of us by giving them a godly impression. After all that is truly what an impression is, something that is pressed onto a person’s memory. We in our humanity press a bad image of ourselves and the Christ we represent into people’s minds. We can change that impression though. I keep a painting that my wife painted in my office. It has no frame and is painted on a cardboard painting canvas. It has sat for years on top of a book case and leaned against the wall. After leaning for years it became very concaved and it makes they Tuscan countryside portrayed in the picture look distorted. So when we moved just recently, I took the picture out of it’s box and laid it flat for 2 months. The picture is now flattened again and the image is a beautiful as ever. We have that ability with the image of ourselves that is shaped in others minds. It may be distorted or unattractive but we can, through a long series of positive impressions shape a godly image. First impressions aren’t lasting, continuous impressions are lasting.