"False religion is present when people say, 'Thy Kingdom come,' but don't immediately add, 'My Kingdom go.' And we Christians have believed that we could both say, 'Jesus is Lord!' and go on being the lords of our own lives."
Richard Rohr - Simplicity.
What a profound quote! Costly grace is where we choose to let go of our Kingdom and let God's reign and rule fill the void. Cheap grace is what Rohr describes here as false religion. I think we have done such great harm to Jesus' message not because we have failed to say 'Jesus is Lord!', but because we have failed to live as if he truly is Lord of our lives. As Paul says in his letter to the Romans;
'You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? As it is written: "God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you." (Romans 2.23-24)
As a good friend of mine often says, 'either He is Lord of all or He is not Lord at all!'. How different our churches would look if we had lived in this way. But we can! This is why He has given us His Spirit. Not so we can shake and fall down, but so we would stand up to the call placed on our lives and live as Kingdom people.
We need to learn to live a different way. We need to go back to living simply and following Jesus' commands. We need to learn a total obedience to his message. We need to fall in love once more with who He is and what he has said. A group of people who loved God and each other radically. Now that sounds more like the Church, more like the body of Jesus. Bring it on and let His Kingdom come.
2 comments:
as john stott used to say - he is Saviour BECAUSE he is Lord - you can't have one without the other.
why do we settle for such false religion in the west? how can we 'get it' better?
rob
Too many other things make us too comfortable. When you're wrapped in cotton wool, why do you need a saviour? But we can't serve God and comfort!
We're crafting ourselves more comfortable crosses all over the place. We say, why do I need one which might give me some splinters?
We have created professional christians who will do the work on our behalf, so all we need to do is to attend. We have become fat and lazy (spiritually speaking). We need a seismic kick up the arse.
Some thoughts. What do you think R-Diddy?
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