On Weakness Christianity
There are two religions calling themselves evangelical Christianity today: Strength Christianity and Weakness Christianity. Strength Christianity is that religion which places both feet squarely on the Bible and proclaims, “I am strong. I sought the Lord. I’m a believer. I’ve turned away from sin. I read my Bible and pray every single day. I’m for God!” Weakness Christianity, by contrast, places both knees squarely on the Bible and says, “I am weak, but the Lord has sought me. I believe, but help now my unbelief. I fail and am broken by my continued sinfulness. Have mercy on me, Lord, and grant me favor, for apart from you I can do nothing.”
Those who pursue Strength Christianity will never find joy in God, for they will never find God. Our Father refuses to be approached in that manner. They will find only increasing religious pride and secret hardness of heart. On the outside, they will project a picture of righteousness. They’ll have it all together. They’ll be spiritual. But only on the outside.
For those who stumble across the rare jewel of Weakness Christianity, however, there is provision beyond what we can possibly imagine. Our suffering, our failures, our weaknesses and disappointments all gain an incredible spiritual significance. God never says he’ll be glorified in our religious accomplishments. But he does promise that his power will be made perfect in our weakness (2 Cor 12:9).
Neediness is the heart of biblical religion. When we honestly lay our brokenness before God, we’re surprised to see a radically different message in the Bible. While we had perhaps expected a to-do list from Holy Writ, a program to make us righteous, or a divinely sanctioned self-help book, we instead see a shocking message that centers on our God and his grace to his broken people not about us and our performance and expected rewards. And when we approach God in brokenness—Weakness Christianity—we find a radically difference vision for prayer. Prayer is not something we do—a performance designed to get something from God. Instead, it’s merely a free and honest confession of our neediness to God and our spoken reliance upon him for each and every blessing. When you stumble upon Weakness Christianity, you realize that true religion is all about God’s grace, not about our devotional consistency.
Perhaps this has never happened to you. But I’ve found contemporary Christians are often more concerned about my â??relationship with God’ than with my relationship with God. Whose idea was it to define the sum total of my relationship with God as my devotional consistency? Your quiet time is not your relationship with God. Your relationship with God—or, as I prefer to say, God’s relationship with you—is your whole life: your job, your family, your sleep, your play, your relationships, your driving, your everything. The real irony here is that we’ve become accustomed to pigeonholing our entire relationship with God into a brief devotional exercise that is not even commanded in the Bible.
Greg Johnson, Freedom from Quiet Time Guilt
(Note: I did not write this.)
What about all of the many upon many versus that say how wonderful the believer is through the accomplishments of Jesus Christ! Its post like these and sermons that follow this that keep people bound in sin not knowing wht God has called them to be. It reminds me of the old church hymn “what a worm am I.”
Your comment has absolutely no relevance to the post above. Did you read it? It’s about accepting our weakness and acknowledging our need before God to establish a true relationship.
Do you have a name, or are you going to continue using the Greek name for “dispensation?”
I think that there are both strengths and weaknesses in this argument.
I think the the author has a firm grasp on the idea of the modern church placing a heavy emphasis on tradition and rhetoric, rather than earnestly seeking God. There is an ever-growing contingent (mostly because of our human pride) that is more likely to say“Look what I can do for God!” rather than, “Look what Jesus has done for me!”
Believe you me I understand what this guy is talking about. I am familiar with “cracker box devotionals.” I grew up on them. From the time I learned how to read, I couldn’t walk out the door of my church without some little daily booklet of biblically based fluff that consisted of a candy coated short story, peanuts and a little scripture nugget prize (which may or may not have been applied in context). I know and am close to people who use them faithfully, that from all outside apearances are dead in their walk with Christ, and it’s painful to watch. They “don’t need” God because they’ve put him right where they want him — in a sanctimonious little pamphlet in their nightstand drawer.
At the same time, though, I would go so far as to say that a quiet time is NOT optional for a Christian advanced in their walk. — and before you hit the reply key to tell me what a heritic I am, read on ;D This, perhaps is not the “quiet time” at first conceptualized by the author. For the mature Christian (if there is such a thing) it is not spiritually comfortable to go for more than a day without spending time with the Lord. Does that mean you must do “that half hour every morning of Scriptural study and prayer”? Not neccessarily. Why can a quiet time not consist solely of prayers of thanksgiving? or of Worship? Or of appreciating God’s creation? (a point that the author makes toward the end of section 5) In my experience (which, of course, is limited to me, but it’s all I have so bear with me ;D) if I do not dilligently set aside time each day to enjoy God and spend time with him, my quality of life severely decreases. This isn’t the “smite me” syndrome, I don’t get stuck in traffic jams or become the victim of freak accidents because I’m spending time away from the Lord — in fact, sometimes it’s several days before the full effect comes back and smacks me in the face, but spiritually I feel dry, empty and frustrated. In my own sinful nature, I’ve allowed myself to wander away from the shepard, and I need the time I spend with him. By setting that time aside, I’m keeping my priorities alligned. I’m saying that NOTHING is more important to me than the time I spend with the Lord — not out of pride, duty or obligation (as is argued by the author) — but rather out of genuine need for him. By not setting that time aside I would be robbing God of the time we could spend together.
In the human mind and conceptualization there may be a fine line between prideful, duty driven, traditionalism and needful, Spirit-driven time Spent with the Lord, but spiritually they are light years apart.
– Finer, though (and this is where I think the author somewhat enters touchy territory), is the line between “living my Christianity in my day to day life” and “living my day to day life, in spite of my Christianity”. Once you stop specifically meditating on the Lord it is so so so very much easier to become distracted by the things of the world. Did you honestly mean that you’d pray for that person when you said you would? Did you really spend that workout appreciating how you are fearfully and wonderfully made or about how much you’ve been able to acomplish at the gym? — It seems small, tiny, unimportant, but, if you’re saying that you’re “living out” your quiet times, how much, really, are you? Is God teaching you a lesson about self-control when you have to stop at the millionth yellow light, or are you just annoyed about not getting to work on time? What is the benchmark that you hold your life to spiritually if you’re not consulting God regularly through biblical study and prayer? Christian friends? Christian Authors? Warm fuzzy feelings? All fallible.
I agree that grace is a huge part of our relationship with Christ — without it, a relationship is not even possible, but, should we continue doing evil that grace should abound? Certainly not! So then, let us not become weary of doing good, or of diligently praying or spending time with the Lord! God does answer prayer — whether or not it is an answer we like. Returning to the begining of the article where the man was dismayed about the direction of his daughter that he had been praying for for three years — the author was correct, the instructors should not have told him that he was not doing enough — but that he should continue to seek the Lord until there was an answer. God says “no” just as audibly as he says “yes.” — but that’s a topic for another discussion.
Thanks for the thought provoking read ;) and thanks in advance for forgiving me for coming on your blog and writing the Great American Novel XP
Chris,
Posted about this here.
Also, when you say, “contemporary Christians are often more concerned about my â??relationship with Godâ?? than with my relationship with God”, maybe you meant to write, “contemporary Christians are often more concerned about my â??relationship with Godâ?? than with God’s relation to oneself.”
Either way, if your point is that in our day the Church has taken the whole, “It’s not about religion, it’s about a relationship” thing like, WAY too far, then I think you’re right. However, my relation to God is the very same relation as His relation to me .. so your statement is sort of a tautology. Nevertheless, your point is well taken that “Your quiet time is not your relationship with God.”
I also agree with the person above me that “quiet time” as it were, is extremely valuable.
And for the first poster.. I could even understand where he is coming from, but I don’t think that Chris is trying to keep people “bound in sin” or that his article, if taken to heart, will keep people bound in sin. Nevertheless, Chris, don’t get too frustrated with comments like that, but try to understand what he’s saying. His statements weren’t TOTALLY irrelevant.. and with the right questions from you, you might even help him understand what you wrote better, so he won’t think that your points will keep people bound in sin.
FYI — I didn’t write that article. I just included it, because I thought it had interesting observations.
Glad you posted this; I liked it a lot.
I need your e-mail address. It’s probably on this site and I’m too tech-dumb to find it. Shoot me a quick ‘hi’ at bethany.burkey@colorado.edu, okay? I wanna talk about the M.E.
In reading a book by Brother Lawrence, I have learned that it is right to take God with you everywhere you go. Heck, not just Brother Lawrence, but it even says it in the Bible all over the place.
I know personally, I had to recognize that strength comes from weakness. In a society that teaches us about being independent, and self suffient and not needing others. It was personally hard for me to realize a dependancy on God, and that it wasn’t a bad thing to need and depend on God.
In fact, I recently had a discussion with a non-believer in that it is a common misnomer that “God helps those who help themselves”. God loves everyone. Whoever, started that, I’m curious. I’d like to say…really where in the bible does it say that…cause I sure haven’t found it, and I’ve read from front to cover, but NIV version only. Maybe it says it in a different translation :) somehow I doubt it, doesn’t seem to mesh with God’s Charachter.
Anyway, I’m not sure you could really call it weakness. It doesn’t seem like the right word. Seems like one is accepting the truth, and just being honest. We need God. It’s that simple. Occum’s Razor. Oh, and God is Love. Which is in the Bible.
Okay, this has nothing to do with the above post, but is the Larry Knight who just posted today the Larry that I worked with at the Wilmington-Stroop library? The one who knows Susie? If so, this is Sarah Cooney and Susie told me in Feb. that she knows you and that your a Christian now, which is awesome! Anyway, I thought I’d just ask and not contribute whatsoever to the intellectual discussion above. I have some thoughts I could post, as always, but I just finished a bunch of apartment hunting (which I’ve been doing for days) and need to do something that doesn’t require too much brain power. :)
That is the same Larry Knight.
That is the same Larry Knight.