THOUGHTFULLY DRIVING THE PORCELAIN BUS

A Column by John S Schroeder

December 22, 2001

"God accepts me just the way I am." I have heard this phrase uttered in churches across the nation time and time again, and as time moves forward I more and more want to stand up and say -- HOGWASH… GARBAGE… LIE… BULL&%$#! This phrase is, in my never to be humble opinion, at the root of much that is wrong in the church today.

Think about this for a minute. Would God have gone to all the trouble to incarnate, be CRUCIFIED, and resurrect just so humanity could NOT change? If God accepts us "just the way we are," it would have to mean that Jesus' entire ministry on earth was some sort of weird act of self-immolation so that God could reconcile Himself to us, not us to Him.

Ever met someone who wanted so much to hang out with you that they let you abuse them unendingly? Maybe you have been that person at some point. Do you really ever love such people? They are an entertainment perhaps, and you may love them as you love a movie, but real interpersonal love -- I doubt it. Perhaps you pity them, which means you may not be so abusive, but that is still not a real genuine love.

So, if we say that God "accepts us just the way we are," we are saying that He allowed himself to suffer the abuse of the cross just so He could hang out with us. With those words, we reduce God to the roll of the lonely friend desperately trying to find a way to make Himself fit in with us. In such thinking I do not know what is worse, being able to conceive of the Creator and Sustainer of the universe in such a paltry light, or the immense hubris required to do it.

The pop psychological packaging of "love and acceptance" may be one of the greatest evils ever perpetrated on mankind. Thinking about the harm done by such thinking in the guise of something that sounds and feels so rewarding and good makes me shutter. I am reminded of "The Screwtape Letters" in which the senior tempter advises his intern that the greatest mischief is always done with the appearance of good.

God loves me with a Love immeasurable. He loves me enough to allow Himself to be killed so He can TRANSFORM ME! And I want to be transformed. I do not want to stay this pathetic wretch that I am. I recently burned a CD with 20 different versions of "Amazing Grace" on it. It is a remarkably good listen; that song is so beautiful yet so malleable in arrangement that one does not grow bored. Listening to that CD moves me deeply. There is great liberation in singing over and over about being a saved wretch.

Let me leave you with some scripture:

John 10:10 "… I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly." (NAS)

Rom 6:1-8 "¹What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase? ²May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? ³Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? ⁴Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. ⁵For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection, ⁶knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin; ⁷for he who has died is freed from sin. ⁸Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him," (NAS)

Gal 2:20 "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me." (NAS)

2 Cor 5:17 "Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come." (NAS)

Rom 12:1-3 "¹I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. ²And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. ³For through the grace given to me I say to every man among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith." (NAS)

With Love,