Mikey V.D.’s Blog

So I like to cook, in fact I like it a lot.  I love taking something as plain as some sort of food and make it taste amazing.  

The way that I do this is by using different spices.  Not just hot spices rather many different spices, in fact we have a whole spice rack that I love.  In fact I can not imagine always eating food that had no spice… it would feel like I was not living.  There are some people however that do not like spice on their food.  Some I think are too afraid that they will be eating good food.  Other people might think that if they eat good spiced food that means that they might like it and have to have it all of the time.  Yet again some people might think that having such spice in their food might be a waste.   Now if you are like my relatives you would like basically salt as your spice, while it is a useful spice, it is a horrible alternative to real spice.

Now here is the thing that is sad.  Their are Christians that are afraid of living the true spicy Christianity.  They, like the people who do not like spicy food, are missing out of so much of life.  So what is involved with this type of Christiany?  Well it is living fo the glory of God, which means submitting to Jesus.  Most people, including most Christians, are afraid of giving up what they want to follow Jesus.  They would rather settle for some bland thing that some people call Christianity.  So here is the call to spicy Christianity- hoping that some crazy people don’t settle for the bland life, rather reach and dare to live life to the fullest, however scary that is.

So there is an idea that comes from a local church here in Grand Rapids and I want to ask what it really means and if it is incorrect what should it mean.

Some might say the best life possible is totally looking forward to heaven.  Doing nothing here on earth and just waiting for the Lord to take us away.  I would contend that this is a horrible life.  Basically waiting for Jesus to come back again while living in a metaphorical bomb shelter.

Others might say the best life possible is when we live out the correct morals.  If one does not drink, smoke, swear, wear fashionable clothes, if they read the correct Bible.  You also need to act fake to everyone and act like life is going good.  This is not the best life possible, it is moralism and moralism makes a crappy god.

More recently some might say the best life possible is when we live out the actions of Jesus, when we care about social justice.  Is that really the best life possible.  Don’t a lot of non Christians do that already.

May I suggest that the Bible shows that the best life possible is when we give our lives for the glory of God.  Let me say that again a different way, the best life possible is living for the glory of God.  It is when we realize that life is not about us rather it is about Jesus recieving glory.  This changes the way we worship, the way we sing, the way we teach, the way we use our resources, the way that we evangelize… it changes everything.

So if you want to live the best life possible live your life to show the glory of God.  Sacrifice what you want for what God wants.

So I have a tendency to critique the baptist fundamentalist and emergents on this blog.  Now I will attempt to critique both on the same issue.  So get ready to be offended by me.

You can’t live out a certain set of morals and be saved by them, it is by the grace of Jesus that we are.

Now some of you are going yeah go get them, for you there is this.

You can’t just live a certain way and earn your salvation either.  Translation you can’t live the “way” of Jesus and be saved without the grace and power of the cross.  Just because you are kosher and care for the poor doesn’t mean that you have life.

Now most of the rest of you are mad.

I find it ironic that the emergent church which has been a huge critique of fundamentalism has fallen into the same trap that they did.  Just because you changed the “works” that have to be done to be Christian doesn’t mean that you aren’t doing the same thing.

Now don’t take me the wrong way on this.  I believe that most of the things that these two groups do are correct, however their motivation is false.  We can make ourselves righteous by that which we do, we are righteous only by the grace of God.  See I believe that not sleeping around, not stealing, giving to the poor and the such are good things, however these need to be a reaction to the grace of God, not what I have to do to please God, when we try to please God through our works and making ourselves righteous we are saying “Jesus your death on the cross was not enough for me.”  In reality we try to make ourselves god.

See the only way to live is under the grace of God and in the power of the cross.