In fact, I’d say that many, if not most, Christians come to Christ through some sort of issues. It was anxiety and its many varied toxic side effects that originally draw me to Christ. I know I can’t make God do what I want, when I want and I know that I can’t always avoid those things I consider to be bad and negative.Īlthough I’ve matured and improved as a person over the years, I still struggle somewhat with anxiety. It’s comforting to know that God is in my life, although I know that I can’t use clever formulas and principles to control my life circumstances. Ironically, the Gospel seems to be, to a great extent, an anti-religion message. In fact, you might find that as you embrace this grace message – you become less and less of what you were told a Christian should look and act like. Hence, the fantasy aspect to Christianity: trying to be someone you’re not, whilst anxiously striving to attain unrealistic standards – standards of behaviour and lifestyle. The church portrayed the Christian life as a continuous striving to be, do or have something you don’t already experience. The more you progress and mature in the grace message, the more you realise that it has a lot to do with permission to be yourself.
What would be unrealistic would be for me to consider running a 50 mile ultra-marathon – at this stage, at least. A realistic goal for me would be to run a half-marathon (13 miles). I’ve been running now for 2 years and have competed in about 4 10k races (6.2 miles). Whilst I believe in miracles, they are, by definition – rare. I believe in goal setting, but in the institutional church – it was always over-the-top, with the miraculous sprinkled in somehow. I wonder if this is the reason why so many grace Christians, who were so active on forums and social networking media, have suddenly become so silent. I do believe in this, to an extent, but it does seem to foster a great deal of fantasy and unrealistic expectation. Even grace believers have been told, by the likes of Joseph Prince, that they can “just rest in the finished work of the cross”, as a means to prosperity and “victorious Christian living”.
The Charismatic movement during the nineties and the Word of Faith message, created a prosperity and believing-God-for-something attitude that still persists to this day. There seems to be a lot of expectations that people attribute to God, the Bible and the Christian life in general. The church has kept people bound in a religious vortex from which they are unable to escape. The Gospel should be something that you do eventually “get”, without the need to constantly learn and debate with other people. Its no surprise really that many of the Christians I began this grace message with on Facebook, are now silent when it comes to discussions about grace – or they’ve even deleted their account.