Grace is Not Popular. . .With Religious People: A Colleague and a Pastor

Then another colleague of mine shared with me a business proposal for a company that he was planning an Internet start-up, I supposed, something that I was not interested in. When I explained to him the faith that I have received, that I trust that God is supplying all of my needs according to His riches in glory (Philippians 4: 19), he became offended and confrontational, even belittling me briefly. He then came to himself and apologized. But the fact that he could be so easily offended caught me off guard somewhat, until I factored in that he was still convinced that he could do something in his effort to get God to move in his life.

God is so much greater than our own awareness, for He has already moved on our behalf, has already prepared the Kingdom beforehand that He wants us to inhabit:

"Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:" (Matthew 25: 34)

This Kingdom which God the Father has prepared already, which He wished to give us through His Spirit, is a gift that we receive by faith in His Son and His Word! This offends the most effective and self-effectual of Christians, men and women who still are learning that their efforts are not only unnecessary, but can hinder God's grace in their lives (Galatians 5: 4)

The last case of a believer still living under law, trying to earn what God has already given and freely so, was a Chinese pastor whom I had met a few months ago. He was learning more about the gifts of the Spirit, speaking in tongues and laying on hands to heal people by believing in the name of Jesus. Sadly, he was forced out of one church, not by force, but rather because he no longer wanted to stay in a church which made tradition more important than the simple truth presented in the Bible.

I was glad to share some meetings with this man. He told me about the sermons that he was sharing with believers in China, writing out for them sermons using chat rooms on the Internet. He was also a stressed man, doing many things in his own effort. "I am very busy, very stressed, so many things that I have to do."

I have been learning about this spirit of stress and strain, and in God there is not reason that a believer should sense any fear or worry in his life. If he feeds the birds and clothes the flowers, if He gave His own Son for us, then what reason, what right do we have to stress -- to fear or worry -- about anything? We have Christ's life in us, all things have been made available to us in our spirit man (Ephesians 1: 3), and therefore we are called to rest and receive and release His promises into our lives. This was still too simple for the pastor, a step that I could not lead him to take through my strength.

I attended a healing service at a local church, a strange affair where the asceticism was unmatched, men and women who were struggling to get something from God, as if He was some stingy Father who did not want to give anything unless pressed to do so. Everything in the life of the believer operates by faith through love, God's love for us! The more that we know how much God loved and loves an ever will love us, the more that we can receive all other blessings in our lives. The problem for this congregation, as in many churches, is the utter ignorance that they have about their identity in Christ. We are sons and daughters of the Most High God, and He loves us as much as His own Son. The first matter, the most important matter, is that we learn and rest in our true identity, renewing our minds to the truth of who we are in Christ, and then we can prosper and be health.

This Chinese pastor would also share with me the ongoing frustrations that he wrestled with. Certain members of his former congregation were in straits, health problems and the like. He refused to accept that our Daddy God has everything taken care of. The more that we spend time rehearing to ourselves who we are in Christ, the more that we are willing to release all of our problems to Him for His care.

At one point, I kept trying -- there I was, getting into works -- that faith is all about taking God at His Word and letting His life unfold in our lives. Then he slammed his fist on the table, frustrated that I was not "understanding his frustration." I was surprised that a pastor would act like that, but I shrugged it off.

The last time that I met with this pastor, he was talking about an elderly couple that he had been counseling for a long time. They had been former parishioners in his previous church, now a retired couple in a local retirement/health center. As the pastor kept talking about the struggle that he felt, feeling their pain, trying to break them free of whatever bondage was in their lives, I got the sudden idea: "Take me to them! Take me to them right now!"

The pastor drove me to the retirement center, where I met an elderly Korean couple. The husband was slung over in a wheelchair, the wife was scurrying around trying to care for other patients as well as her husband. The wife was very curt and bitter toward the pastor, very upset by what she perceived was his picking at her husband, a retired pastor. "He is not a pastor anymore! He has a tumor in his head the size of an egg. You keep telling him that he is a pastor, and he is not!"

The wife proceeded to tell me how much she hated the pastor coming to visit them. I then took some time to ask her about what she believed about God and Jesus Christ.

"Oh, I have been a Christian since I was in my mother's womb. I go to church every day, pray to God."

Right then, I realized the problem. No one is a Christian the moment that they are born. We are born dead in our trespasses, and by grace through faith we are born again, receiving Christ in our lives by the power of the Holy Spirit. The life of faith is not something that we live from our mother's womb. We must "unlearn" or slough off the Old Man Adam by taking on by faith the New Man Christ Jesus, something that is not based on what we do, say, or even think. The Korean wife had no Biblical understanding of living in the Spirit of God and letting Jesus live in her. I doubt indeed if she was saved, but as long as she was convinced that what she was doing was a way to earn God's or man's favor, it was clear that there was not talking to her. Still, the Chinese pastor was convinced that it was his calling, his place to sit and listen to that woman cry and carp and complain, in my opinion a waste of time. That was the last day that I spoke with the pastor.
I believe that in time, the Holy Spirit will reveal to the Chinese pastor more of who he is in Christ Jesus, that he no longer has to strive, but rather that he can rest in who he is in Christ! I had shared with him a sermon about how God the Father is on our side through the blood of the Savior,  the blood that keeps on cleansing us from all sin! This teaching is radical for many precisely because the world tempts us to do, to strive, to make something happen, while God's way is for us to rest and receive and then release Him to world hungry for His life.

The grace of God is not popular, with church people. The learning of men, even in a seminary, can distort the simple, child-like faith which God asks us to exercise in His Son!