Connecting the Discriminatory Dots

As Christians, we want our institutions like private, Christian colleges, to be able to set a standard of conduct for the employees of the organization that, as employees, they must agree to abide by. This includes both conduct related to the job (the employee may not teach heresy, as the organization defines it) and moral conduct unrelated to the job but which the institution assumes the employee either implicitly supports by their presence, or has agreed to support in their behavior even if it conflicts with their personal view. All are welcome to apply. All are welcome to disagree. But if an employee takes the job, there are certain mandates which they must adhere to. If they find that they can no longer adhere to them, the organization has the right to terminate the employee and the employee has the right to resign. As a result, Christians do not believe that this is discriminatory.

Our Government, as an institution, wants to set a standard for the conduct of it's employees that the employees must agree to abide by, which include conduct related to the job (the employee must issue marriage licenses, how the government defines them) as well as conduct unrelated to the job but which the government assumes the employee either implicitly supports by their presence, or have agreed to support in their behavior, even if it conflicts with their personal view (the employee will support President Obama, even if they didn't vote for him and hate his policies). All are welcome to apply. All are welcome to disagree. But if the employee takes the job, there are certain mandates which they must adhere to. If they find that they can no longer adhere to them, the government has the right to terminate the employee and the employee has the right to resign. As a result, many Christians think the Government is being discriminatory.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but it seems to me that we should be more careful in calling something discriminatory when we want the right to be able to do ourselves, lest that (real and important) right be taken from us.

Entering the Fray

We are more informed than ever. We are more confused than ever. Let's call that "the fray".

My wife and I had an interesting conversation a couple of days back where she recounted what a 50-something grandmother told her about being a parent. It was one of those "back in my day" comments, but it offered a lot of insight. It had something to do with the amount of stress modern parents tend to be under while they are raising kids. It was something she hadn't experienced when she raised her own children.

It's not hard to figure out why that's the case. In days gone by, there were only a few sources of input; a few "experts" you would turn to for your parenting: Your mom. Your aunt. Your grandma. Your older sister. If you were an over-achiever you'd read a book or two. And that was it. Today, everybody and their mother thinks they are an expert on parenting, and there is no shortage of ways to be exposed to their opinion. At any given moment you have too many kids and too few, keeping them alive and killing them by the food you feed them, fostering attachment issues or loving them unconditionally, and protecting them or sheltering them. Of course it's not just parenting.

Today I spent an hour reading articles related to the recent bill passed in Indiana related to religious freedom. I expected partisan commentary as it relates to the content of the law, which may not make it any easier to figure out what to think about it, but at least I knew it was coming. What I didn't expect as much, and what was much more frustrating, was the mixed bag of supposed "experts" commenting on what Christians believe about politics and gay marriage in particular. Most of the articles–the mainstream ones, at least–were incendiary at best and downright incorrect at worst. They painted some negative portrait of the Christian perspective, only so that they could then articulate their view, the truly Christian one, the one that Jesus himself would surely have. It's no wonder we're confused. Everyone's an expert.

But then who am I? And why would I want to enter into that fray, as one more voice? Who cares anyway? And won't the only people who appreciate my input be the ones who already agree with me?

Of course, that's the nature of the "everyone's an expert" approach. Once everyone is an expert, no one is (you can say the same thing about superheros according to Syndrome from The Incredibles.) And if no one is an expert, if no one has some objective credibility or expertise on an issue other than the fact that they posted something on the internet, then in the end I'll just go with whatever opinion feels right. Most of the time, the one that tugs at my emotions the most. It's no wonder we're not willing to live in the "truth and love" tension that is Christianity. Living in that tension hurts. Period. And we don't like to hurt.

The reason I write, personally, is because I hope that there will be a renaissance of Christian thinkers who are willing to live in that tension of love and truth. Let's not treat Christian truths like we can just widdle off what we don't like; let's not also assume that we can simplify them into pre-packed tweets that can be blasted out to our followers. Let's not assume that theology doesn't impact real life and real people. Let's not assume that if truth is hard, it must not be truth at all, or must be something that's secondary to "love". Let's not assume that truth is contradictory: that if you believe marriage is between a man and a woman you must not know any gay people, or at very least you hate them if you do. Let's not assume that getting to know what God really thinks is easy, or that we can reduce it to simply how we feel at any given moment.

So I occasionally enter the fray and attempt to offer something worth thinking about. I try to treat issues like they aren't one-sided. As if there are people on the other end of the truth. And of course, as if the truth can be known.

Life is not always Black & White

Over the past week or so a couple of articles have cruised past the ol' browser window having to do with the topic of "Death with Dignity" or "Doctor Assisted Suicide", depending on your extremist position. Much of it has to do with laws that are coming to the fore attempting to regulate if and when it is possible for a patient to choose to die on their own terms, as well as the recent national story of Brittany Maynard, who became the poster child for this issue when she decided to end her life before succumbing to terminal cancer. I wrote about this around the time that she made her choice and while I was admittedly thinking things through and not necessarily taking a definitive stance on the issue, I think that most of what I wrote still stands.

The thing that bugs me about debates like this is that choices in life are rarely black and white. There is rarely an exact right and wrong, specifically in matters that are beyond the scope of what is addressed in Scripture, if by exact we mean universally right and wrong. Choices like this require us to think through not just the choice itself but the implications of attempting to draw any universal conclusions.

The opponent of Death with Dignity (DWD from here on out, which I use not because I'm attempting to take a position, but because I think it's less inflammatory than Doctor Assisted Suicide) will argue that life, by it's very essence, is black and white. With that I agree. You cannot be both dead and alive at the same time; it is, by it's very definition, a black or white issue. But the question is not really as simple as life or death, no matter how much we'd like to be able to simplify it. If that were the case, and we could reduce any difficult decision to life or death, we'd find that most of the time we would be remarkably inconsistent. Reduce war to life or death. Reduce medical intervention to life or death. Reduce criminal punishment to life or death. Reduce birth to life or death. Even if we were to answer consistently on the side of life–not to lean that direction, mind you, but unequivocally, without fail, in a black or white manner to choose life over death–we would inevitably find some examples that do not fit so neatly into our categories. What if childbirth will lead to the death of the mother, for example? What if refusing to go to war means that some other innocents will die at the hand that we could have stopped? What if our aging parent received a fatal diagnosis, and they could either live for two months pain free and then die in their sleep, or extend their life for two years, albeit in substantial discomfort?

I'm not suggesting that there is a right and a wrong answer to any of those questions, but that is precisely the point. What I am suggesting is that if you choose one over the other without at least wrestling with the question, I do not think you are giving the question it's just due. You do not feel the weight of the decision. And if you do wrestle with them, as you should, then you must at least admit that the choice is not purely a "life or death" decision. One answer may not be the correct answer in every single case. It's easy to say that you would never go to war under any circumstances, until your family lives in the country being attacked.

Such is the case with DWD. There are implications to our choices that go beyond whatever our extreme position is. For example, should hospital resources, already in somewhat tight supply, not ever be taken into consideration? What is the difference between "pulling the plug" on a family member who may be breathing on their own, but unable to feed themselves, and giving a bit of medication to speed up the process? Aren't we choosing death in both cases? And of course many difficulties exists on the side of the pro-DWD crowd: at what point does DWD just becomes suicide, as the opponents rightly question? Surely there is a line. Surely there will be people who want to take the pill and end it all as soon as they are given a terminal diagnosis, even if they appear to be in full health. Is that justifiable?

Inasmuch as I think that the question must be wrestled with and the decision given it's just weight, I do think it's possible is that you may come to a conclusion that is always right for you. You may decide that you will never, under any circumstances, have a doctor give you medication that will end your life short of how it may have ended. I think that you can come to that decision personally, without having to say that it's true for every person in every circumstance. In fact, to have wrestled with the decision personally and come to a conclusion is commendable; I'd argue that if you have done that, you would be unlikely to mandate that same conclusion for everyone else.

This is ultimately to say nothing about whether a law that regulates the practice is good or right, nor, perhaps more importantly, what should go into any such law that was passed. What seems reasonable is that if DWD becomes a legal practice, it ought to be regulated, and probably very tightly.

To say at the end of the day, however, that one decision is right over the other in all cases is to assume a level of knowledge that you do not and will not ever have. That doesn't mean that laws shouldn't still be passed or rejected–one way or the other, we are always responsible for our decisions–but it does mean that in considering the law, we ought to avoid platitudes that alienate more than clarify. Maybe let's commend those who are willing to be in the gray area with us; after all, that's where we all live.

Life

I came into the ol' orifice today (Michael Scott reference), which I have been doing less frequently as of late. Sometimes, I find the office comforting. Other times I find it lonely, so I stay away. One of the great advantages of being at a large church–and the great disadvantages of being at a small church–is that at a large church, there are other people around all the time. Other staff that you work with; probably other pastors. Other people just walking through the office! Even for introverts, having people around is typically a comforting thing, even if you don't want to necessarily engage them. I don't know the statistics but I wouldn't be surprised if the burnout rate for pastor's of small churches is far higher than the rate of burnout for pastors at larger churches. Some of that has to do with unrealistic expectations of what one person can accomplish, but I also think it has to do, at least a little, with the loneliness. If burnout isn't higher, I bet you depression is.

In any event, I don't feel burnt out or depressed, which I am thankful for, but that wasn't why I started writing in the first place. The reason I was writing was the stack of very old sermon manuscripts on my desk from some Pastor I've never met, and the wind howling past the window, and the radiator that bangs when the heat comes on and then never really heats up quite as well as I wish it would, and the carpet that is falling apart so that little carpet balls form that look like little fabric tumble weeds that get kicked across my office floor, or the half-empty cup of water and the Dunkin' Donut's cup that was left in here this past weekend by someone–a teenager? someone on the worship team?–who was using my office, and the broken furniture and the many, many books I will never have time to read that are nevertheless on my shelves so that, in the event of an argument, I can simply wave my hand at the bookshelf and, without lying, give the subtle reminder that I may have actually acquired all this knowledge, and if so, perhaps it would be silly to argue with me after all.

It's just life.

Life that has ups and down and joy and depression and answers and usually more questions than we care to admit. Life that sometimes seems like it makes sense and other times seems like there is no rhyme or reason; life where some people prefer platitudes and others people prefer to just sit in the silence and wait it out. Life where some people try to escape, and others try to engage it, and in the end, we're all just doing the same thing: trying to make sense of life.

There are those who view life through the lens of meaninglessness; those who view all situations as if they are predetermined by a cold and uncaring biological steamroller. The heat, broken as it might be, is nevertheless an accomplishment of man that keeps us from the cold wind outside; it's a testament, at least, to how far we've come and how much we can get done and how much better life is because we, the human, the biological marvel and miracle that we are, have evolved not just to give ourselves heat in the cold but to actually sit and wonder about having heat in the cold.

Others view life through the lens of God; my pastor-friend I have never met was one of those men. Here he is, writing sermon after sermon year after year, telling whoever will listen that there is more hope than they may see now, that there is another way to make sense of things, another way to interpret the events of the times, another moment that we can look forward to that will make sense of all of the moments that don't make sense. He preaches that sermon, and then finds, many years later, that the same sermon he once preached is apt again. "The times", "the events that are unfolding", the "wonders", the "mysteries"...a decade later, they are still the same. Different on the surface, but the same underneath. The same struggles, the same need for hope.

Life. 

Teasing & Grace

Our kids know that they aren't supposed to tease each other. They understand that if they do it, they are being disobedient. Nevertheless, the regularity with which they tease one another must border on legendary. Twin boys, age 6. A younger sister, also age 6. Three kids ten months apart, all of them in their teasing prime.

So there they are. Knowing that "obedience" and "behaving" is a positive quality that we would like to help them learn. And yet, battling daily with their internal desire to tease. On the way to school each day, it is nearly inevitable, except on those rare days when God is gracious to us, that at least two of the children will begin to tease one another. The third will be silent. We will remind. We may scold. Finally, we may yell. And when we are close to silencing the teasers, so that three children are once again in line with our expectations, the third will finally speak: "Daddy, I'm the only one behaving." He may as well add a "nanny nanny boo boo" for effect.

And thus, all three children descend into rebellion.

Someone said that God gives us children so that we will understand what it is like to create someone in our own image who denies our very existence. It isn't that they pretend we're not there; they just completely ignore our "sovereignty" over the situation as parents. They know the rules, they just have a really hard time keeping them. The internal push to do the wrong thing is too strong. It's almost worse than pretending we weren't there. They look us in the face and do exactly the opposite of what we asked them to do, and what they know they should do.

Of course it really is just a microcosm of our own rebellion. It's the reason that religion doesn't work. The internal push to do the wrong thing is too strong; the rules only highlight our desire and make it worse, like someone telling us "not to look" at something. Our first reaction, without even thinking, is to look. Had no one ever told us not to look, we may have never looked, or at very least, we wouldn't have known it was wrong to look. It's when we hear the law of not looking that our desire becomes evident and we do the one thing we aren't supposed to; we look. But the problem is deeper.

Even if we don't look, and we don't descend into obvious rebellion, we still end up in the wrong spot. We say, "See, I didn't look." But our heart (and our tone!) reveals what we really mean: "see, I knew I was better than all those lookers; all those rebels." It's a much more subtle form of rebellion; an implicit rebellion; a rebellion couched in righteousness. A rebellion that elevates our selves and denigrates others because, after all, we really are better than them.

Religion creates rule breakers and rule keepers and neither of them are righteous.

The only one righteous is the one who not only kept all of the law, but loved keeping it, not because anyone would notice, but simply because he delighted in God and delighted in keeping his ideals. There was no self-interest involved; only God-interest. He fulfilled the law not because he was a law-lover, but because he was a God-lover. He loved God fully, so he loved others fully. So love is the fulfillment of the law.

What does that mean for three kids who tease each other incessantly? I don't really know. But what I do know is that they need grace more than they need law, and I need grace more than I need another parenting manual. That doesn't mean I don't help them to behave, it doesn't mean I don't give them rules, and it doesn't mean that they don't have consequences. It just means that the first thing they get when they get to school is a hug and an "I love you", and that's the first thing they return to every day. And they get it regardless of whether or not they teased each other in the car.

The Trouble with Religion

“But one of the worst results of being a slave and being forced to do things is that when there is no one to force you any more you find you have almost lost the power of forcing yourself.”

— The Horse & His Boy, C.S. Lewis

Religion is a wicked taskmaster. It is a tyrant that tells you how you can be "good", how you can be "better", that your ultimate righteousness is just one step further ahead–and at the same time, your destruction only a step behind.

The worst part about religion, at least in the sense that the New Testament most often describes it, is that it teaches you how to be good and do good things. The religious leaders in Jesus day and the plethora of other religious teachers throughout early church history had a similar theme to their message: Yes, God loves you...but only if you obey. Consequently the adherents of the religious teaching would look good, do good things, help others, and serve God, but it was always out of fear. Fear that others would find them out, fear that they may not be as good as they had hoped, and ultimately, fear that God would stop loving them. The truth is that religion is a never-ending ladder that you just can't climb.

The Gospel frees us from the tyrant of the law, and it's taskmaster, religion. It turns the old teaching in it's head: God does not love us because we obey. We obey, because God already and always loves us. The Gospel story is the story of God's one-way love towards us, even when we didn't deserve it, couldn't obey, were running in the opposite direction, trying to displace God with our own "gods"...God loves us anyway. When we begin to really understand that reality, our obedience has nothing to do with fear that God might somehow stop loving us–why would he stop loving us now? He has always known who we really are–but rather is driven by the fact that he will never stop loving us! God loves us. The more we understand that love, the more we will obey.

Unfortunately, when people are set free from the driving whips of religion, they often find that they do not exactly know how to have the discipline of obedience. Their obedience in the past was driven so hard by external forces and people and perceptions and law that it never really took root in their heart of hearts; they never really learned how to obey. They just learned how to avoid getting the whip–and these are different things.

For some it happens when they go to college and find that once the taskmaster is no longer around, they no longer have to obey. This is not because of the Gospel; it is simply evidence of what we already know to be true: if our obedience was only the result of a fear of a negative consequence, then once the fear is removed, so is the obedience. 

But for others, the same phenomena is seen when they finally discover the Gospel. Sometimes, the freedom they begin to experience as they hear the truth leads them not to more obedience, but for a time, to what appears to be less obedience. Perhaps this is why the apostle Paul had to remind the early church not to take license with Grace. Just because you are saved totally, freely, and forever, does not mean that you go on sinning. Actually it will lead to the opposite. But for many people freed from the shackles of religion, there is a time when they realize that they don't actually know how to obey. They have to relearn, because they have to be retrained. Obedience is no longer the result of the whip; it's the result of a heart softened by love.

Religion is a wicked taskmaster because the law can never produce what it promises. In fact, it always results in the opposite. Press a person with religion, and for a time, they will appear to have improved. Stop pressing, and you'll find that they haven't gotten better, they've gotten worse. As soon as there is no one to force them to do something, they find they don't have the power to force themselves.

Only the Gospel ultimately leads to obedience, because the Gospel starts with the heart and transforms our very desires. We can't force ourselves to be better, but when our heart changes, we find that we don't have to force ourselves at all. It starts slow, eventually seems to come naturally, and one day, it will come perfectly.

Death by Religion

Jesus reserves his harshest words for religious people. As a recovering religiouholic, those stern warning continue to stand out to me. I get them.

In Matthew 9, we see Jesus calling one of the tax collectors, Matthew (the author of the Gospel), to follow him. Matthew probably remembers the scene vividly. He may have had some interest in Jesus, he may have known who he was, and in his soul, he may have longed to follow him and become one of his disciples. Unfortunately, Rabbis, and religious people in general, didn’t associate with him because of his profession, and maybe because of his attitude. He may have wanted Jesus, but Jesus didn’t want him. Matthew had been conditioned by the religion of his day. Religious people don’t hang out with sinners.

Imagine Matthew’s shock when Jesus walks by, takes one look, and says, “follow me.” Whatever emotion he experienced in the moment is unrecorded. All we know is that Matthew got up, left his stuff behind, and followed Jesus.

As surprising as it was that Jesus called Matthew, what is unsurprising is that after he does it, word spreads quickly that Jesus, the great miracle worker, the great teacher, is a friend of the riffraff. Pretty soon they’re all joining him for lunch at his house. If Jesus hadn’t already stirred up the anger of the religious people, he was about to.

Pulling aside a couple of Jesus disciples, they ask them in hushed voices why Jesus, the teacher, would eat with such lowly sinners. Jesus hears the question. And then, in a stunning display of authority over those who claimed to know the Scripture and have the greatest grasp of the Word of God, Jesus tells them to “Go and learn what this means, I desire mercy, not sacrifice, for I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

That stings.

It stings because I think I’m a pretty good person. It stings because there is a part of me that still wants to believe that I can be at least somewhat righteous on my own efforts. It stings because I think, surely, Jesus saved me because he thinks I’d be an asset to the kingdom of heaven.

But what he really wants is my repentance. And that’s it.

King David understood that he had nothing to offer God. In his great Psalm of repentance, Psalm 51, after being caught in adultery, conspiracy, and murder, David knows that he’s a mess. If he didn’t know it before, now he’s got proof. He could have gone the religious route and started making sacrifices; doing penance for his sins. But he doesn’t. It won’t work. The only sacrifice that matters is a “broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”

The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross for sinners is a gift for broken, messed up people, who have turned to him in faith. It’s not because of our good deeds. In fact, if you think you have any righteousness in you, you’ll need to repent of that first! Only Jesus can stand before God and gets his approval. The rest of us get in because we stand behind him.

The crazy work of the Gospel is that once that reality has grasped our hearts, God suddenly enjoys and delights in our “good works”. Paul tells us that we have been saved to do these good works; that these good works were prepared beforehand for us to do (Eph. 2:10). David understands in Psalm 51 that eventually God will enjoy his sacrifices; it’s just that it can only come following God’s grace, and David’s repentance.

Religious people put the cart before the horse. They think their good deeds trump the Gospel–or at least, that their good deeds work in unison with the Gospel for their salvation (putting the cart on the horse?). Jesus says, I’ve come to call sinners­, not those who do good deeds.

The Gospel message is that there is nothing you’ve done, can do, or will do, that will restore or maintain your relationship with God. Only Jesus can restore your relationship with God, and only Jesus can keep you in relationship with God. His benefits are applied to us through faith–and even that is a gift!

To say it another way, it is only through Jesus that sinners are free to live in the presence of God once again. And it is only because we are free to live in the presence of God, that we are free to love in the presence of our neighbors.

Religion, Irreligion, and Grace

A few words in response to what I see as an increasing divide in the Christian community as evidenced by the varied responses to the situation in Newtown. In my opinion, the voices from the right and the left, if I can simplify it to that degree, are both missing the mark fairly significantly when it comes to the message of Jesus Christ, which is the message of grace. It’s the culmination of a problem that’s been developing for some time as the church collective has tried to make itself culturally relevant, and as a result has adopted certain stances that don’t square with what the Bible teaches.

On the right, we end up with a civil religion that claims the United States as a land with which God is particularly pleased (or at least, with which he used to be pleased!), based almost solely on our ability to meet a particular set of standards that he has set. On the left, God is presented more as an unconditional lover without standards. Since any particular moral standard will only serve to alienate, we are much more likely to emphasize God’s love and tolerance of us, even to the extent of doing away with–or at least downplaying–any particular biblical teaching that seems cruel or outdated.

The inadequacies of our respective theological position are generally teased out in the face of crisis. I won’t pretend that my view, then, is the superior view. I offer it simply as a reminder of what I believe Christ taught, and what we should keep in view even as the prevalent theological views tend to swing from right to left, missing the central ground of grace. And that, as it turns out, is the problem.

The imaginary Christian America of the conservative right and the reality of the secular America that we live in today both suffer from the same problem. Morality without grace and immorality without grace both lead to the same destination: oppression, brokenness, and fear. Only grace leads to freedom.

This is the what makes the message of Jesus so compelling. Jesus didn’t capitulate to the moral, religious crowd who believed that their own merit made them superior. He also didn’t agree with the immoral, irreligious crowd who opted to obfuscate the law in favor of creating their own standard, and, in so doing, validated themselves and their actions.

This compelling message is seen in one of the most famous passages recorded in the Bible, when we see the religious leaders bringing a known prostitute to Jesus to see how he would respond. The religious law said that she should be killed by stoning for what she had done. Would Jesus uphold this law, thus proving that he approved of their religious efforts, validating them? Or would he confirm what they already believed about him, that he was some sort of rebel teacher that was threatening upheaval of the whole religious system, and thus, their power?

In the end, Christ did neither (although his response did threaten the religious establishment). To the religious crowd he offered a solution: if indeed this woman has violated the standard of God, then let anyone who has kept it in full throw the first stone. His message is clear. If any one of you can claim to be perfect, and in full accordance with how God has called you to live, then you are free to take aim. All the stones were dropped, and the crowd dissipated. (Notably, the older ones leave first. The longer you have been trying to earn your own salvation through religious activity, the more quick you are to realize how often you fail!)

Jesus then turns his attention to the prostitute. “Where are your accusers?” Since they had all left, so Jesus says the woman is free to go, and he would not condemn her either. Instead, he said, she should “go, and sin no more”. By letting her go without condemnation, he did not ignore the law of God, but rather validated the fundamental principle of it. Namely, that it functioned as it was supposed to, by revealing that this prostitute, and all who come into contact with God’s standard, fall desperately short and are in major need of grace and mercy.

The grace in the story comes in the form of Jesus himself, who being the only perfect one in the story, had earned the right to cast the first stone, but rather chose forgiveness over condemnation, and mercy over judgment. This is the message of grace: that Jesus bears the condemnation of God so we can receive the mercy of God. Thus, in opposition to the both the religious and irreligious, the way of grace is made known.

The religious path to salvation is to uphold the standard of God, and seek to achieve it based on our own merit. We stand in condemnation and judgment of all around us who have not earned as much perfection as we ourselves have. In this way, our pursuit is validated; we are validated.

The irreligious path is just the opposite, albeit with the same result: self-validation. If God’s revelation tells us that we don’t measure up, we should rid ourselves of that revelation and put in it’s place a standard by which we do measure up. There has never been a man who would create as his own reality a world where he is not fully capable and qualified to achieve the highest perfection. And in that self-created reality, our pursuit realizes it’s goal: we are validated.

Jesus path rejects both as valid means to achieve what it is that we are looking for (validation), and what we truly need (salvation). The path of grace upholds the standards of God as perfect, but rejects our efforts at attaining it, since they cannot produce the desired outcome. On the other hand, it affirms our sense of self-worth while rejecting the means by which we seek to attain it. In it’s place, it inserts the love of Jesus as the creative force that offers us salvation, restores our worth, and validates our existence.

We stray from this third way–the way of grace–when we seek to earn the love of God through our own merit, believing ourselves to be worthy of even the slightest amount of God’s pleasure based on our own efforts. We also stray when we seek to create our own reality, where God’s standard is seen as irrelevant at worst, or unimportant at best. In both cases we will be left with pervasive failure, brokenness, and ultimately oppression (in the case of the religious path) or depression (in the case of the irreligious path–for what is depression except for self-oppression?)

The way of Jesus, and the way of grace, removes the burden of achieving the perfection of God from us because we are given the perfection of Jesus for free. As a result, our worth and our value, stemming from the love of God, is renewed, increased, and validated. It is something we cannot earn, and do not deserve. And yet, we live in it’s reality because of our trust in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

That’s the gospel.