“Jesus told them, ‘you’re all going to feel that your world is falling apart and that it’s my fault.’” (Mark 14:27 MSG)

Ever feel that way?  Like the closer you get to God, the more chaos it brings? Not exactly a great church-marketing strategy.  But the reality is our western, capitalistic church mindset wrongly equates God’s peace with ease, and His blessing with comfort, wealth, and the fulfillment of our personal, self-promoting dreams and desires.

The closer Jesus got to fulfilling his ultimate purpose, the less circumstances made sense to those around Him. And we see this reality unfold with uncomfortable clarity through Jesus’ disciples.

These men invested three years following this fascinating, controversial figure.  He added purpose to their normal, everyday lives, set them up with a new life trajectory, with meaning.  And then just as it seemed all their visions and desires were about to be fulfilled, He’s arrested, tried, and crucified. He died.

Chaos. And it almost seemed as if that’s what He wanted, like He willfully allowed it to happen (um, because He did).

Jesus rocks our worldview. He shakes our assumptions and perspectives to the core.  We like power, control, comfort, predictability. Yet we find following Jesus (really following Him, not just making Him part of your culture or weekly schedule or to-do list check-off) requires us to give all that away.  He replaces it with indescribable peace, joy, and purpose, but the cost is everything.  Everything.

And most days I’m just not willing to pay it. Just being honest.

Have I just brought Jesus into the dialog to make my love of self more palatable, justifiable, culturally acceptable, easier to swallow? Or am I really willing to give up control, power, perspectives, my way of seeing the world?

Following Jesus is the most peacefully destabilizing decision you will ever make. He will undoubtedly make you feel like your world is falling apart, and that it’s all His fault.  And although something in you is begging to run away, to keep control, to stay in power, there’s another part of you that longs for the adventure, that wants desperately to surrender to His game plan, that knows stepping into the uncontrollable chaos is actually the way to real life.

It was communist leader Karl Marx that said “religion is the opiate of the masses.“  That quote used to stir such animosity in my American-Midwestern-Evangelical belief-structure.  But honestly, I believe he was right.  Before you unsubscribe, let me at least try to explain.

In the interest of that transparency and vulnerability that my buddy Nathan and I so often wax eloquence about, we’re coming off an unbelievably crappy week (yeah mom, I said crappy…thought about using stronger words, but I’ve already opened by agreeing with a Karl Marx quote.  I thought that was enough potential controversy for one post).  Let me see if I can quickly recount the circumstances for you and then at least attempt to make a coherent point:

TUESDAY: I have a brain MRI in attempt to explain the “abnormal” findings of an EEG.  I recently started having strange, foggy, forgetful episodes (my wife says I’m just using the diagnosis as an excuse for manly irresponsibility, but I do have a real doctor’s note) and have been diagnosed with a “risk for complex, partial and secondarily generalized seizures” (hey, why go half way?).  The good news: the MRI showed no tumor (and a functioning brain…ba dum dum).  The bad news: anti-seizure medication for the foreseeable future.

WEDNESDAY: My beautiful wife of 14 years has a biopsy on her thyroid gland.  Not atypical for the Midwest, she has developed multiple nodules that had to be tested for malignancy.  Twenty-five needle sticks to the neck later, we find the growths are benign (thank you God) but the test takes it’s toll (she wants to have a word with all you doctors who told her the procedure is a “piece of cake.” You should be nervous.  Yes, I’m serious).

THURSDAY: My four-year-old son Austin heads to the eye specialist for a follow up on his infant-diagnosis of optic nerve hypoplasia, an incurable underdevelopment of the optic nerves that in extreme cases can result in blindness and brain defects.  He’s fortunate in that his symptoms are mild, but this day begins long-term patch therapy and a trip to Target Optical for his first pair of glasses (he just wants to be cool like his dad).

FRIDAY: Our two year old Boston Terrier, Disney, runs across the street in front of my in-law’s house like she’s done a million times before.  Unfortunately, her timing for this innocent adventure intersects with a traveling mini-van.  Two hours later, her little body succumbs to post-surgical internal bleeding.

We’ve definitely had easier weeks, and I’m well aware that many of you have had much harder.  But I noticed something interesting in the hours and days that followed our emotional roller-coaster of experiences.  I wanted an explanation, to understand, to make sense of the events that had transpired.  I had lost control, and I wanted it back.

On my left shoulder sat the skeptic wondering “where has God gone?”  Didn’t He see what we were going through?  Didn’t He know what sacrifices we were making for Him?  How could He allow us to face such difficult circumstances?  Doesn’t He care?  How can a loving God…?  You know what I’m saying.  You’ve asked it yourself (yeah, I know).

But on my right shoulder was the whispering religious zealot.  “You’re doing such a great work for God that the Devil must be on the attack.”  Or just the opposite, “what unknown evil have you stumbled into that is causing God to punish you in this way?”  Here, have a trite quote or an easy answer to dull your pain.  God is good all the time.  Where God guides, God provides. And I bet you can think of dozens of other “knicknack sayings” aimed at eliminating the tension, deadening the pain, and avoiding the heartache that just far too often comes from living in a broken, fallen, messy, sinful world.

The reality?  We want to explain God. If I do A, He does B.  If I say this, He’ll do that.  If I…then He.  We want control, to be in charge.  Go ahead, admit it.  It’s cathartic.  But we really don’t want to serve a God like that.  A God we have figured out.  A God we can throw in our briefcase, in the diaper bag, with the golf clubs in the trunk of the car and just pull Him out when it’s raining, when we don’t understand, when we need to rub the lamp and get our three wishes.

Sometimes God is a mystery.  And we live in the constant tension of despising our lack of control and celebrating that there is a God who is willing to take it. He never said we’d always understand, but He promised to never make us walk through the heartache alone.

I don’t want a belief system – a philosophy – that gives me easy answers I can frame and hang on the mantle, an opiate created to dull my pain.  I need a Savior willing to embody my suffering, to redeem it, to shape me deeply through this far-too-often unexplainable journey, and to both weep and celebrate with me all along the way.

So far, this week’s been pretty uneventful.  I’m OK with that, too.

I’m not sure who this last series of posts are really for – one of you out there actually taking the time to read them, or me the guy writing.  Perhaps this is just part of my own personal therapy.  But until this topic gets out of my system, we’ll continue to unpack it in this forum.  Love to hear your thoughts and personal stories.

I’ve been following Christ for a long time.  In fact, in my 35 years of life on this earth, I don’t remember one day I would have said I was “away from God.”  And for the past decade I’ve pursued Him passionately:  reading, listening, learning, praying, discussing, growing.  Some would even consider me a “professional Christian” (after all, that’s what pastors are, right?  We get paid to follow Jesus).

But after all these years, I’m noticing an interesting phenomena.  Knowledge is not my friend (or at least it initially seems that way on the surface).  The more I learn, the more I dig, the more I uncover about God, the more overwhelmed I become at the complete disaster that I am.  Knowledge has simply illuminated my failure, my innate inability to be Godly.

But if you’re like me, your gut reaction to this revelation may be as follows:

The more you learn, the more you realize the distance between where you are and where you should be.  That realization instinctively leads to immense effort to close the gap.  But the harder you try, the more you fail, and the more you fail, the more frustrated, fearful, or depressed you become.  And honestly, that’s where a lot of us live our lives each and every day (even many of us who have known Christ or been in and around the truth of the Gospel our entire lives fall victim).

So here’s where I am personally (and perhaps I should be embarrassed to say this as a life-long Christian, and a full-time pastor at that).  I’m going back to the basics.  Don’t let knowledge and revelation lead you towards effort, let it drive you to repentance.

Effort is your broken, sinful, human attempt to close the un-closable gap.  Repentance is your submission to the only true Gap Closer.  Effort leads to consistent frustration and failure.  Repentance allows the supernatural life of Christ to ignite inside of you.  Effort leads to  religion.  Repentance leads to Jesus.

I ran into a guy at the gym this morning that I’ve known informally for a few years.  He’s about 70 years old, former biker (actually, I’m pretty sure he’d still qualify as a biker), shaved head, more tattoos than bare skin, and could still out-duel me on any of the weight machines in the facility.  He could take me.  We both know it.

We’ve talked off and on over the years about life, about God, about church, his family, the multitude of tragedies he’s endured. He’s one of the most transparent guys I’ve ever talked to, not afraid to drop an F-bomb even in the “presence of a pastor,” and there’s something very refreshing about that.  He’s raw, he’s honest, and he tells me exactly what he thinks regardless of how he imagines I will interpret it.  I wish more people were like that with me. I bet God wishes we were more like that with Him, too.

This morning he was fighting some major depression, enough for him to pull me away from my workout and my iPod for a longer, more serious dialog than our usual niceties.  Waves of despair have been plaguing my friend, crashing into deserted islands of hopelessness that have led to serious thoughts of ending it all.  But honestly, that story isn’t new for him.  It wasn’t so much the details he was sharing as the vernacular he was using that really caught my attention:

“I determined a long time ago I was going to hell, but I still cry out to God, I still ask Him to help me.  But I know He won’t hear me because I’ve just done too many awful things. I try, and try, and try to please God, but I still screw up so I know He hates me.  I know He will never respond to me. I’ve tried, but I just can’t get it right.”

The sad reality is that none of us, myself included, are all that far away from my biker friend from the gym.  Whether we grew up in the church pews or in a life of debauchery, all of us struggle with the innate impulse that we must try to appease God.  We all fight the lie that God’s approval, His love, His willingness to hear our prayers is somehow tied to our goodness, to our self-rightouesness, to our ability to get it right.

Why?  Because that’s likely how we love others and how love was modeled for us…conditionally.  Even those of us who grew up in the greatest of family environments likely wrestle on some level with believing that unconditional love exists, from other human beings, let alone a holy, omnipotent, righteous Creator God.  It’s unnatural, it’s illogical, it’s counter-intuitive to accept that God loves us and will respond to us right now, as we are, through the person of Jesus Christ if we’ll submit to Him.  It does require something of us, it’s just our surrender not our effort. (For the record, neither are easy, but only one is effective).

So I’ll leave you with the verse I left my biker friend with standing over the curl machine early this morning (and a verse I have to remind myself of regularly):

“Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.” (Romans 12:1 MSG)

Stop trying.  Start embracing.

So many people I know, myself included, are unpacking their religious baggage.  Religion is that outside-in, behavioral-based, systematic approach to God that is heavy, burdensome, and overwhelming.  It sneaks in stealth, quietly transforming our passion for Christ into a subculture of rules & expectations, a way of life, instead of the Giver of life Himself.

It feels good, liberating in fact, to rekindle the truth of the Gospel…that Jesus is a person, not a system…a relationship not a religion.

But I’ve noticed something.  A natural propensity, an impulse.  As many of us who grew up in the system find freedom from it, our gut reaction is to run away – to sprint far from the old rules, templates, and culture that held us in bondage.  And in doing only that, it’s possible to completely miss the point.

Run.  But don’t just run from. Run towards.

The Gospel is about freedom, but that freedom only comes through submission.  Not to a culture, a template, or a religious system, but to the person of Jesus Christ.  This life is still about the pursuit of God, it simply comes through surrender to Christ and not a set of behavioral modifications or striving in your own efforts to live up to some unachievable standard.

So as we continue to shed our religious weight, don’t just flee from rule-based self-righteousness.  Sprint full-force towards the open arms, into the heart and character of the Savior, Jesus Christ.

What are you running towards?

Religion is dangerous.  Sounds strange coming from a guy who co-leads a church, right?  But I’ve been around the block enough to have seen the immense damage religion can do.  Religion isn’t what God is about.  Religion is a spirit – a strong one – and it keeps people in bondage to a system, a structure, a culture instead of modeling a real, tangible, personal connection with God.

Religion is oppressive power cloaked in spirituality.  It’s stealth.  Religious people pray, read and reference their Bibles, and talk about God-things.  They hide behind pious imagery and position, but they reproduce death.

In Jesus day, the priests and teachers would stand in the synagogues and quote the prophetic scriptures about the Messiah coming to earth.  They longed for Him.  They prayed for Him.  But when Jesus literally walked into the room they hated Him.  Hated.

Jesus came to bypass their system.  God incarnate, walking among us, connecting with us in a personal way.  The religious system lost its monopoly, it’s power threatened.  And given the choice between finding the eternal fulfillment of all their internal longings or maintaining their religious system and power, they violently chose their structure and their culture over real life.  Religion always brings death.  Just ask Jesus.

The problem?  Religion is still on the loose today.  It’s rampant in nice churches, in classy spiritual leaders, in unsuspecting Christians.  It hides in the dark corners, waiting to war for it’s systems and cultures and destroy any hint of real life whenever it emerges.  Can you identify it?

Religion is oppressive.  Jesus is freedom.  Religion is about control.  Jesus is about empowerment.  Religion condenses serving God into a set of behaviors.  Jesus interacts with our lives in a real and intimate way.  Religion preserves itself at all costs.  Jesus gives His life away freely.

Which would you rather have?