Faith for This Moment by Rick McKinley

Author:Rick McKinley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Christian Living/Spiritual Growth;Christianity and culture;Christian life;REL012120;REL012070
ISBN: 9781493415250
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2018-06-24T16:00:00+00:00

Walking the Tightrope

This is why Lesslie Newbigin writes about the need for conversion in the church. If we are going to bear witness to Jesus, we first need to kneel before him, repenting collectively for how we have sinned. We need to have an open and honest talk with God, confessing our lack of love, repenting of our self-concern, and then trusting his Spirit to lead us moment by moment to show us the path to faithfulness.

A helpful way to picture discernment is to think of the gospel as a tightrope. The tightrope is suspended with the church on one side and the culture on the other. The way, the truth, and the life is the tightrope. If we fall off on the side of the church, we become separatists. We tend toward self-protection and sectarianism, fearful avoidance in our relationship with the culture in which we live.

To fall off in the other direction is to become syncretistic, meaning we affirm the culture’s opinions and norms over Christ and Scripture. Falling off on this side makes us appear more culturally relevant, but we lack any distinction from the culture.

The only way to faithfulness is to keep coming back to the gospel for ourselves. Being the people of God is fundamentally a commitment to follow in the way, the truth, and the life of Jesus. Following Jesus doesn’t mean we agree with the ideas of Jesus or what we might think Jesus thinks. It is a fundamental commitment to a relationship with him in which we submit to his teaching and model his life. It is an ongoing relationship that continually takes us deeper and deeper into his life and teaching, which simultaneously makes us more deeply engaged citizens and neighbors—citizens and neighbors willing to bless as well as resist. To stray from this commitment in either direction is sin. Period.

Which is why the people of God need continual conversion. We are always falling off on one side or the other. Claiming that we are a Baptist or a Lutheran and resting confidently in our church affiliation doesn’t relieve our need for further conversion. Just because we affirm the culture’s views on sexuality doesn’t mean Jesus agrees with us. While falling off in one direction may mean we need to confess a lack of love, falling off on the other side may mean we have rejected Christ’s teaching in some way that we need to repent of.

The best way to learn discernment is by inviting the Spirit of God to search our hearts and then confessing our sin to Jesus, who graciously receives us and forgives us.

Repentance is not a shameful act; it is a spiritual grace that Jesus gifts to his people. Faithfulness is not just the absence of sinning; it is also recognizing our sin and turning away from sin and to Christ in repentance. As the people of God in exile, we will need to be humble of soul and spirit because we have a lot to learn in this new world.

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