The Practical Pursuit of the Wrong Things

“The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” – Stephen Covey

The mid-90s were a transformative time for the Church in the West. Ever since Rick Warren dropped the Purpose Driven Church/Life on the masses, many across Christendom have developed a mission-oriented effort at achieving things in their walk with God. What may have started with a question like, “What is God’s will for my life?” continued with a self-centric methodology and quest for personal purpose unlike anything Christendom has experienced.

In our postmodern pursuits, the West redefined what it looks like to be driven by a mission for the sake of the Kingdom of God. An industry of purpose was born, and Christians were led to live impactfully and intentionally within their spheres of influence. It called for an introspective perspective, a global mindset, a nuanced savvy into the culture, and a personal vision for who we really are and what we are called to do as the Faithful of God.

We asked purposeful questions like, what are the right pursuits for followers of God? How does purity mark our experience? How does the Word of God tell us what we are supposed to do? Are we really good? What do we say about all of the evil in the world? Are we striving to be without sin? What about the hypocrites, heretics, and hyper-religious? How do we reach more people or the right people? Should we be known by our disciplines or our open doors? What’s our mission statement, and is that more important than what we believe? Is it better to act right or believe right? Do others see the vision that we are putting forward? How can we distance ourselves from past errors while keeping the traditions that grew strong under that leadership? Should we separate from culture or seek to impact the culture?

The questions are endless. It’s as if contemporary Christians were charged with updating the methodology of the faith to reinvent the ultimate truth of our existence to make it relevant to a world more impacted by nuance, sensation, and multimedia than truth, beauty, and goodness. Has God truly done the ultimate thing to reconcile humankind to Himself, or does he need a culturally relevant image consultant to make Him more palatable to the masses? Is it any wonder why so many people approach the faith today as if God needs to prove Himself worthy of their belief?

This self-centric reality has blanketed the 21st century. With the rise of deconstruction, consumer-based faith engagements, and emerging church movements, the pursuit of Christ has become more nuanced and humanistic than in the world and not of it. And yet, the Apostle Paul, who charged us to follow him as he followed Christ, relayed that he had been crucified in Christ, and it was no longer he who lived, but Christ living in Him. He preached the death of self for the life of Christ.

Still, many believers have transformed the messages within the Bible to fit their passions and pursuits. The Great Commission to disciple others has become a springboard for church planting. The preaching of the Gospel at the Areopagos has become the pattern for a collective exchange of ideas, inspirational speakers, and heightened emotional experiences, producing an abundance of intellectualism, charisma, and prosperity but devoid of substance, depth, or lasting community. The exhortation of Micah to live justly while walking humbly with God has transformed into a partnership of orthopraxis, social justice, and political activism. Jesus’ overturning tables in the Temple has inspired self-righteous judgments on the Faithful, ministries of criticism or theological correction, and movements of anti-religious extrapolations of a subversive, counter-cultural, anti-establishment Savior. The Christian life has been reinvented, repackaged, and refined to fit a personal worldview, an individualized will, and bespoke missions of purpose on Earth.

In the efforts to exert our influence in the world around us, many believers experience a great deal of frustration and confusion, marked by a lack of hope, peace, and power. Much of the Church lives in the impotent state of a form of godliness that Paul relays to Timothy. This is especially true in the digital experience that many have traded their community-oriented experience of the Church for. With the levels of deconstruction that blanket personal journies of faith, the self-centric perception of purpose, value, and meaning overwhelm the message of the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Greater and greater numbers of people are trading God for whom He revealed Himself to be for a deity of their own creation that they familiarly call “Jesus.” This god votes the way they vote, sees social issues according to their purpose, transforms the good of His purpose to the good of their own purpose, and is vehemently opposed to any authority that stands to correct their subjective perspective. As a result, they have no more hope than their unsaved friends. They have no more peace or release from anxiety than the echo chamber they listen to. Their love is unbound to meaninglessness, and their grace is reserved for those they deem acceptable to receive it.

The reality of Christ is that of transformation — the renewing of our minds in Him. He did not come to make good people better. Jesus’ message was never to reform yourself to the place of acceptability. As He shared with Nicodemus in John 3, humankind is dead and in need of being born again into life. They are suffering under a weight from which they cannot provide their own salvation. His hope was not semantics. His truth is not nuance. His peace is not metaphorical. The godliness accessible to His people was born out of reconciliation to the Father, not their ability to perform well enough to deserve that distinction.

Jesus did not come to Earth to produce relevant representation. He came washing feet, healing sickness, calling for repentance, and sacrificing Himself for the sake of a wayward humanity. His reality is the agent of change. His will is to be sought out more than our own. His Spirit is what empowers His people to accomplish His purpose. He is the main character of the story. As Paul said, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ living in me.”

When we live out of His power and purpose rather than our own, the glory is focused on Him. We are not currying favor or influence for our own mission because our lives are but a breath in this world. In the same way that Jesus submitted to the will of the Father, we submit to Him. We pursue Him because He pursues us. We seek to share that with others because of the transformation we have experienced in Him.

Far too many are either engaged in a ministry of criticism and correction or a crusade to win people to their perspectives. They condemn the actions of the lost by the standard of the redeemed. They pinpoint theological discrepancies and judge believers as unsaved. They evangelize ecumenical movements rather than faith in Christ. They want to be the authoritative hammer for God, correcting others, exacting justice, and delineating their salvation. Like the Pharisees of Jesus’s time, far too many people are steeped in human authority for their personal mission on God’s behalf. And yet, the words of our Savior are clear:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

We are not here on Earth to rival the Crusades with a great commission of putting others asunder for the sake of Christ. We are not the exhortational force of Godly living within the political systems of this world. We are not the great objectors to the errant arguments of psychological sensation. We do not stand on the street corners condemning humans for their inborn fallen nature and the reciprocity of a life lived in that state. We are called to be as Christ would be to others. We are called to love. We are called to serve. We are called to put on the mind of Christ. We do not give hope; we show Christ, and He gives hope. He provides peace, which transcends understanding.

Paul amassed a ubiquitous influence in the early church, yet when he put forth the division of Christ as: Did I die for your sins? He focused all on the person of Christ. The focus is not the denomination, a town, a sect, the preacher, or a ritual: The Father brought Christ to be the answer to humanity in need. The disciples did not preach their own saving grace; they spoke of Christ.

This is a lesson for those who frame the authority of their following as a tradition of apostolic succession. It is the power of Christ that those apostles preached, not their own authority. Nowhere in scripture do Apostles teach of their own authority — only authority in Christ. The priesthood of all believers is in Christ and with the indwelling Spirit of God.

The array of things we ascribe to the purpose and pursuits we undertake on behalf of our faith frequently point in other directions than the Almighty. No one will come to know the Father, his love, the forgiveness of sin, nor acceptance by a Holy, intimate Savior because of a newly constructed and good-looking building. The building does not know Christ, so why would it reveal His mysteries to those in need? The unsaved are not impressed by apologies for hypocrisy in the faith. Antitheists aren’t looking for a relevant Christian podcast to listen to or a friendly environment of welcoming and happy theists.

Investing in people was the methodology of the Savior. Christ did not apologetically reason to others their need to experience Himself; He loved them as they were, amidst their flailing about to comprehend their existence. He did not come with a new casuistic law to bring reform to a people gone awry. He did not come to bring back the good old days of Eden, where a sinless man experienced the holy God. He came amidst turmoil, Roman rule, divided sects, hated Jews, cultural racism, and over-zealous religion which put others asunder who did not fit their mold, and He loved them. He had compassion for the people who were under these thumbscrews of society. He brought hope in Himself; He knelt and washed feet; He spoke of forgiveness; He brought healing to the suffering; and He gave his life for the hope of humanity’s restoration. It is the reconciliation of one to Christ which brings hope.

As a community of believers, we should be a decisive force in showing the hope that Christ brought. People need the hope that we know in Him. They need the love we experience in Him. The world needs the forgiveness of the Almighty, which brings purpose to our existence and gives us a future with Him. We can’t do this when we are stuck on our own missions for His sake. We are not here to build our kingdom or display our version of His Kingdom. We are here to share Him and to disciple others in who He revealed Himself to be. They need the indwelling Spirit’s intimate connection the same way we do. Like Christ, we need to wash feet, help those in need, love extravagantly, and point others to the Almighty, that is calling them to be reconciled to Himself.

Let us pursue Him and show his grace to all. As an outpouring of what we know and emulate in Him, others will see us and have hope that the community of the Faithful is a place where they long to be a part of its reflective connection to the Savior of the world. To look more into the transformation that happens when we deny our own purpose to seek Him, click here. We are all here to build His kingdom His way. Let us be faithful to do so according to His will rather than our own.