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I’ve been called a heretic before. I imagine that most people who teach or write about Scripture and theology have been condemned as a heretic at least once or twice.

A person might get condemned as a heretic for not believing in the Trinity, that Jesus was not God incarnate, or that the Bible is not inspired or inerrant.

Others might get condemned as a heretic for questioning whether or not Genesis 1-2 teaches creationism, or whether there will be a future rapture of the church.

There are all sorts of ways of getting condemned as a heretic.

In times past, believing some of these things above could have gotten you burned at the stake.

Ironically, if one commits the greatest heresy of all time, nobody will even raise an eyebrow, point a finger, or call you to account.

Nobody has ever been fired from their job, burned at the stake, or excommunicated from church for believing the greatest heresy ever.

And what is this great heresy that nobody cares about?

The greatest heresy of all time is the lack of love toward others.

Why do I say this is the greatest heresy?

Because love is the only thing that matters when it comes to Biblical and theological knowledge.

In fact, I would argue that love is the litmus test for true biblical and theological knowledge.

If what you believe about God and the Bible does not lead you to love others more, then what you believe is not true.

Speaking the Truth in Love

In Ephesians 4:15, Paul writes about speaking the truth in love. I used to think that while one could speak the truth but not be loving, it was impossible to be loving without being truthful. When I preached through Paul’s letter to the Ephesians about 15 years ago, I taught that if one has to choose between truth or love, one should always choose truth, for there is no such thing as a loving lie.

I still sort of agree, but I would never state this idea the same way now.

I now believe that if one truly knows the truth, they will also be loving. If there is no love, then there is no truth.

If truth is truly true, it will also be loving. If truth is not loving, it is missing most of the truth that makes it true.

The Love Chapter

What Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13 is most instructive.

He says that if we have all knowledge – you know, if we can recite the Bible forward and backward, and can argue theology with the best theologians in the world, and can read Karl Barth, and can debate about infra- supra- and sub- lapsarianism, – but have not love, then we have nothing.

You see? Without love, there is no truth. Without love, knowledge counts as nothing.

In this way, the lack of love is the worst heresy we can have.

A Lack of Love is the Greatest Heresy of All Time

But what makes the lack of love even more heretical, is that a lack of love often leads religious people to do horrendous and hurtful things “in the name of Jesus,” which makes these actions not just heretical, but satanic and evil.

If two people are performing the exact same hateful actions, but one is doing it “in the name of Jesus,” it is the second person whose actions are more evil and satanic than the first.

If I hate a person because I’m mean, well, then that’s just mean. But if I hate a person because “Jesus told me to hate him,” this is not just mean, this is satanically mean.

This is why the lack of love – especially the lack of love from people who claim to follow Jesus – is the worst heresy in all.

When we hate and hurt and kill “in Jesus name” – we are the greatest arch-heretics the world has ever seen.

Which is worse: to teach others that Jesus was not God, or to burn such a person “in the name of Jesus” for not believing that Jesus is God?

While the first person might be wrong about the nature of Jesus, the second person is completely wrong about everything related to Jesus, for if they think that Jesus wants them to burn people who don’t understand Him, they haven’t understood the first thing about Him, and should incinerate themselves first.

So Do You Love?

So stop asking if you know the truth. The real question is, “Do you love?”

Truth leads to love and love indicates truth. If you have love, then you know the truth. If you know the truth, it will lead you to love.

And stop asking to see a church’s doctrinal statement or inquiring about whether or not an author, blogger, or teacher is “doctrinally sound.” The real question is this: “Are they loving?” If so, you can almost bet that they are living in truth as well.

So stop seeking the truth. Seek love instead, and you get truth thrown in.

2 Keys to Understanding the Heart of God

By Jeremy Myers

7 Comments

There are two ideas I have been mulling over the last couple years which are central to understanding the heart of God, and which most Christians do not seem to understand. These two keys are based on God’s omniscience, that fact the He is all-knowing. While it is amazing to think that God knows everything, I think we have not grasped what this means when it comes to heart of God.

These keys are summarized by some quotes I heard from somewhere … (I cannot recall where or from whom … sorry).

There is no person you would not love if you only knew their story.

I think this quote might be from Darin Hufford, though I am not certain.

It is often easy to judge and condemn other people when all we see is their outward actions or behavior.

We all tend to hate people who treat us with spite or anger.

We even get frustrated at loved ones when they do not do what we think they should in the way we want them to.

But God, who is the only being in the universe who knows everything about everyone, loves each and every person unconditionally.

When a person is rude to you, you get angry in return. But if, like God, we saw the fight they had with their spouse that morning, or the way they had been treated by their boss when they showed up late, or how the person they had encountered right before you had cussed them out, we would be able to love that person in spite of their rudeness, because we would know their story. We would know what led up to them being rude.

You do this with yourself all the time. If you are rude to someone, you might feel bad about it afterwards, and you might even apologize. But you probably also know everything that is going on in your life which caused you to react rudely toward someone else. Since you know your own story, you are often able to keep loving yourself despite the things you do.

Since God knows everything about us, He is able to understand what led up to our bad behavior, and He loves us anyway. He loves us in the midst of our bad behavior, because He knows what led up to it.

This is the first key to knowing the heart of God. The second key is like it:

To know all, is to forgive all.

I think I might have heard this from Greg Boyd, but again, I cannot be certain.

This second idea is almost exactly the same as the first. God is willing and able to forgive us for everything, in part because He knows all the events and circumstances which led up to whatever sin we committed.

It is not that we get to blame others for what we do, or even that God lets us off the hook for our sin, but that God forgives us for what we do, partly because He knows what led up to it.

Since God is omniscient, He alone knows everything that happened to the rapist which caused that man to become a rapist. He is still at fault for what he did, and made some terrible choices en route to such a terrible crime, but God is able to forgive the rapist because He knows what led up to the man committing such a terrible sin.

So How Then Should We Live?

You and I do not know everything about everyone. So does this mean that we do not have to love them or forgive them?

No, it means that we do need to love and forgive them, for we know that God, the one being who does know everything, loves and forgives.

Our job is to unconditionally love and freely forgive others, despite not knowing everything about them.

If we leave omniscience up to God, we can love all and forgive all, just as God loves and forgives us.

The Murder of Abel and the Murder of All

By Jeremy Myers

15 Comments

I have a new eBook coming out soon. The following post hits on one of the themes I write about in this book. To get this new book when it comes out, make sure you have subscribed to receive my blog posts and eBooks by email.

There is a reason why the very first murder in the Bible is a fratricide – a murder between brothers. What is that reason?

Because every murder is a murder between brothers. When Cain murdered his brother, Abel, it represented every murder in history.

When one person murders another person, they are murdering their brother or sister. Every homicide is fratricide.

But the significance and symbolism goes deeper still, especially for those of us who have never murdered anybody.

The Cycle of Murderous Revenge

The blood of Abel cries out from the ground for justice, for revenge. This is the cycle of murder which is behind every murder as well. Most murderers do not think of themselves as murderers, but simply as vigilantes of justice. Their murder of another person was justified. They were righting a wrong, killing a criminal, or invoking vengeance upon some injustice. Every murderer is able to justify his own murder.

This we also see in Genesis. After Cain kills his brother, Lamech get injured by a boy, and retaliates with murder. But he feels his murder was justified, and says that if anyone tries to re-retaliate against him by killing him, vengeance will come upon them seventy times over (Gen 4:24). The cycle of vengeance and retaliation goes from hurt to murder to mass-murder, and eventually, to the place where “the entire earth was filled with violence” (Gen 6:5, 11).

But the cycle of violence did not stop with violence covering the earth. Whereas a rivalry between brothers led to the murder of one (Genesis 4), and the rivalry between all people led to murderous violence among all (Genesis 6-9), humanity eventually turned their rivalry upon God Himself and sought to place themselves upon His throne (Genesis 11:1-9). But the only thing that ever resulted from all this murderous rivalry and violence was death (Genesis 5), death (Genesis 10), and death (Genesis 11:10-32).

This is why the only proper response to murder is forgiveness. Without forgiveness, murder leads to a cycle of violence that ends only in annihilation.

But who can have the courage (and wisdom) to respond to murder with forgiveness? Nobody! At least, I do not think I have the courage to forgive those who murdered one of my loved ones, or to forgive those who attempt to murder me. In this world, the only way, it seems, to keep from being murdered is to be stronger than the one who wants to murder you, and to murder him before he murders you.

And yet, we do have Jesus as our perfect example of how to treat those who murder us. As Jesus was being murdered on the cross by His brethren, He asked God to forgive them.

This is why the author of Hebrews says that Jesus “spoke a better word than the blood of Abel” (Heb 12:24). And what word did Jesus speak as His own blood was being spilled by His brethren? Though the blood of Abel cried out for vengeance from the ground, as the blood of Jesus poured from His veins on the cross, He cried out, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!” (Luke 23:34).

Can we do this? I am not so sure.

A Second Look at the First Murder

Maybe it begins by going back to look once again at the first murder, the founding fratricide. If we look at what happened when Cain murdered his brother, we may be able to get a glimpse of our own hearts also when we have murderous hate for others.

If we go back and look at why Cain murdered his brother, we discover that it was because Cain was trying to please and appease God. His parents had “stolen” God’s fruit, and Cain, as the “promised seed,” was the one who would get his family back into God’s good graces. So He became a farmer and when he received his harvest, he tried to give God back His fruit.

And God’s answer to Cain was, “Sin is crouching at your door, and it will destroy you.” What sin was that? The sin of trying to make amends with God!

In essence, God looked at Cain’s offering of fruit and said, “I don’t want the fruit. You do not understand. I am not angry at you. I do not want sacrifices and offerings. I just want you. I want to live life with you. Go ahead, keep the fruit for yourself. Eat it. Enjoy it. It’s yours.”

But Cain believed that God’s justice had been violated, that His honor had been destroyed, and Cain believed that something must be done to restore God’s honor, and make the world “right” once again. Cain believed that justice must be served, that order must be re-introduced, and that satisfaction must be made.

Most importantly, Cain believed it was his responsibility to make things right, to restore order, and to serve justice. This feeling is the foundational emotion for murder.

For when Cain saw that God had a good relationship with Abel, Cain believed that Abel would become the one who would rescue his family from exile. He didn’t like to have a rival, and so he murdered his brother.

In this way, God’s promise that eating the forbidden fruit would lead to death was fulfilled in the first generation of humans after Adam and Eve were exiled from the Garden of Eden. And it was a murder of brother against brother. This murder of brothers began a cycle of contagious violence, murder, and death that spun out of control and enveloped the whole earth.

As such, it is not an exaggeration to say that violence is the most prominent theme in the Old Testament text. No human activity is mentioned as frequently in the Old Testament as the activity of violence. Raymund Schwager states that the Old Testament books “contain over six hundred passages that explicitly talk about nations, kings, or individuals attacking, destroying, and killing others. … No other human activity or experience is mentioned as often” (Must There be Scapegoats? p. 47).

Yet there is something more troubling than this.

Does God retaliate against violence with more violence?

For all the mentions of human violence, references to divine violence appear almost twice as often.

Again, Schwager provides the statistics: “The theme of God’s bloody vengeance occurs in the Old Testament even more frequently than the problem of human violence. Approximately one thousand passages speak of Yahweh’s blazing anger. … No other topic is as often mentioned as God’s bloody works. A theology of the Old Testament revelation that does not specifically deal with this grave and somber fact misses from the very start one of the most central questions …” (Must There be Scapegoats? p. 55).

What are we to make of this?

How can Jesus call us to bless and forgive our enemies when it appears from Scripture that God does the exact opposite? Furthermore, how can Jesus be the exact representation of God, when everything Jesus taught about God seems to contradict what we see about God in the Old Testament?

A straightforward reading of the Old Testament text seems to indicate that as violent as humanity can be, God outdoes us all; God is more bloody and violent than all humanity combined.

And if this is the case, is it any wonder that humans are murderously violent — just like their God in whose image and likeness they are made?

Between the violence of humanity and violence of God, it is obvious that “violence is the most central theme in the Old Testament” (Must There be Scapegoats? 66).

But maybe, just maybe, despite all our scholarship, studies, and sermons, we have missed the main revelation of the Bible. Maybe, just maybe, the Bible we want is not the Bible God gave us. Maybe, just maybe, the Bible is not a book of spiritual devotion or “a morally reassuring manual of religious piety” (Bailie, Violence Unveiled, 135).

Maybe, just maybe, we have completely ignored the main truth of Scripture.

The Most Ignored Truth in Scripture

And what truth is that?

That we are the violent ones, and there is no violence in God at all.

That God appears violent because we have made Him to be the scapegoat for our own violence.

That God appears violent to us only because we do not want to admit our own violence and so blame Him for it. In our scapegoating violence, we have made God the universal scapegoat for all violence.

We have, each one of us, killed our brothers. And the blood of every victim in Scripture and in history cries out from the ground. And when God appears and says, “What have you done?” we reply, along with Cain, that we are the victims, that we are the ones God has wronged, that if He would treat us more fairly, life would turn out better.

In our hearts, we secretly desire to become God. We secretly know in our hearts that if we were running the world, we could do a better job than God. In our hearts, we secretly believe that God has wronged us, not treated us fairly, and shows favoritism to others. And so we grow in our resentment towards God. We secretly wish that we could replace God.

With this secret desire in our hearts, we set out to “be God” to the world by doing the things He doesn’t seem to be doing. We try to make things right. We try to enact justice. We try to retaliate against wrongdoers.

And when God whispers into our hearts, “Be careful! Sin is crouching at your door!” we try to protect ourselves from this sin by “righteously” killing “God’s rivals,” who are really only our rivals.

When we place ourselves up as the bringers of peace, as God’s spokesman in the world, as the ones who will restore humanity to the garden, and then God seems to favor someone else who is “doing it all wrong,” we get jealous and envious, and we set out to kill and destroy them so that we ourselves do not lose our privileged position.

This desire to be God leads to a rivalry against others, which leads to murdering our rivals, as we think God should do.

And thus goes Scripture and history. We behave violently toward others. God says, “What have you done?” and we say, “Don’t punish me. It was you. You drove me away. If you would only treat me fairly, I would not have had to do what I did. I got a bad hand in life. I was not treated rightly. If I had not done what was necessary, I would not have received what was rightfully mine.

So we have always blamed God. We blame Him for not running the world correctly. We blame Him for not killing our rivals, and we blame Him for not setting things straight in the world.

And if God were a human, taking all this blame, He would set out to prove His innocence. He would set out to kill us in retaliation for trying to take His place, for trying to be a rival to God, for questioning how He runs the world, and for killing others in His name when He had nothing to do with such murder.

But this is not what God did when faced with all the blame for our sin and shame. God did not behave like a human would, but He showed us how a human could behave.

And He did this in Jesus. In Jesus, God bore the blame. God took the shame.

Though innocent of any wrongdoing, God, in Jesus, let us blame Him for every wrongdoing.

And then He let us kill Him in God’s name.

Why did we kill Jesus? To set things right. To restore order. To defend God’s righteousness. To bring justice.

We were the ones who had the plan to set things right and bring humanity back into Paradise, but the teachings and example of Jesus messed everything up, and when it appeared that God favored Jesus more than all our religious rules, regulations, and restrictions, we knew that He had to be stopped.

We brought our unwanted and unneeded and unasked-for offerings of fruit in order please and appease a God who was not angry at us in the first place, and when we saw that our brother, Jesus, was accepted by God, we became jealous, and so we killed him.

And yet though the blood of Abel cried out from the ground for vengeance, the blood of Jesus cries out from the cross for forgiveness.

In this way, while the sin of the first man, Adam, brought about the murder of brother against brother and a never-ending cycle of retaliatory vengeance, the offering of the second Man, Jesus, also brought about the murder of brother against brother (and of man against God), but in so doing, Jesus offered a word of forgiveness, which put an end to the need for retaliatory vengeance. Of all the murders in the world, God alone could have righteously retaliated for the unjust murder of His innocent Son, but instead, He forgave, showing that the only way to peace, love, and unity is through forgiveness.

So have you been wronged? Follow the example of Jesus. Stop the cycle of retaliation by offering forgiveness instead of vengeance.

Only in this way can both Cain and Abel come together and bring their human family back to the garden.

Waaaaa! I’m not getting fed!

By Jeremy Myers

36 Comments

Over at the “All About Eve” blog, Eve asked me about getting fed as a Christian. I gave her a summary of the posts below, which were written by Vince Antonucci in 2008. These posts are classic Vince. (I hope he doesn’t mind me reposting them here … on his blog, they take up about 400 posts … so I compiled them all and put them here for your reading enjoyment.)

Oh, and full disclosure … I used to be one of those “I’m not getting fed!” Christians, and I encouraged this sort of attitude in the church I pastored. Why? Because I prided myself in being a pastor who provided good feeding. I praised people who came to my church from other churches because they wanted good preaching. I used to say, “We don’t steal sheep; we just grow the grass.”

Of course, today, I have a completely different view of preaching and church growth and how discipleship occurs … some of these changes I attribute to Vince Antonucci (who wrote an endorsement for my book Adventures in Fishing for Men.). Of course, though Vince pastors a church for people who don’t like church, even his church is too churchy for me. But that’s the point.

Maybe churches are not supposed to be a place for those who want to get fed. Maybe the Sunday morning “church” serves a particular role and particular function within the body of Christ to meet the needs of a particular group of Christians for a particular time. But beyond that, the Sunday morning event becomes unhealthy.

Let me be more specific: It is important to be fed spiritually … when you are spiritual baby.

But as you mature as a Christ-follower, you will hopefully become a self-feeder. That is, you will learn to feed yourself.

If a college professor has the same student in his class for 37 years, that professor is a failure. At some point, the college professor needs to pull that student aside and say, “You have learned everything you can from me. You have passed the class. It is time to move on and get started with life.”

So also, if parents continue to feed their children for 48 years after they are born (barring any special mental or psychological factors, of course), that parent is also a failure. At some point or another, those parents must show their children the door, saying, “It is time to be an adult on your own.”

I know that I have been negative in the past on the “institutional church” structure, but if there is one thing the institutional church does better than anyone else, it is the mass feeding of spiritual babes. I would LOVE it if the portion of God’s church which meets regularly on Sunday morning could make this a primary goal of theirs. They would bring in spiritual babes, teach them the fundamentals of the faith, and then kick them out the door. What if churches, instead, of trying to hold on to all the members from birth to the grave, instead held a “graduation ceremony” every year for those who had been there for 4 or 5 years and who were ready to launch out into the world as spiritual adults?

As the church, our goal should not be to feed people, but to mature people, which means they can feed themselves.

Anyway, here is Vince Antonucci’s (now famous) blog series, “WAAAAA! I’m not getting fed!”

But one warning first … Vince’s style in this series is … well … confrontational. Feel free to complain in the comment section below or directly to him on Twitter @vinceantonucci.

WAAAAA! I’m not getting fed! (Part 1)

I thought I’d share a few thoughts on the battle cry of my least favorite people, the church hoppers, shoppers, floppers, and stoppers … “I’m not getting fed.”

We’ve heard that quite a bit over ten years of Forefront, and I’ve gone through kind of an evolution of my thoughts on this topic.

For a long time I blamed myself and felt guilty about not being “deep enough” and thought maybe it was because I only attended seminary for nine months and can’t read Hebrew or Greek. (One ironic thing, though, is that I would sometimes “use” (i.e. steal heavily from) other people’s sermons, and often it would be guys considered “deep” preachers, or it would be a series from a church’s mid-week or “deeper” service, and people would still say it wasn’t deep enough.)

Then I started to blame the Forefront context. When you’re trying to reach people who are far from God it’s obvious. So, for instance, on a Sunday morning we’ll have some goofy videos (mostly for people who aren’t Christians) and we’ll carefully explain communion (mostly for people who aren’t Christians) and we have a rockin’ style of worship music (mostly to connect with people who aren’t Christians) and then we have a sermon. And even if the sermon is “deep” and really good for Christians, I think some Christians simply cannot see past the context it falls within. They realize that several other aspects of the service were not primarily intended for them, and that this church is passionate about non-Christians, and so it’s impossible for them to believe the sermon IS for them, even if it is. They’re wrong, but I understand it – it’s difficult to take anything seriously when it’s preceded by a dancing gorilla.

But as I talked to other pastors I realized almost everyone hears this complaint.

Even preachers who aren’t as shallow and uneducated as me, and even churches that don’t feature iPod Suppository commercials before the message. So I used to totally think it was I was to blame, or my church was to blame, and to some extent I still believe that’s partially true, but not as much as I did.

This caused me to take a closer look at the types of people who complain that they’re not getting fed, and increasingly I believe the problem lies in them. In the next few posts, I’ll explain why. Until then, leave big tips for your waitresses.

WAAAAA! I’m not getting fed! (Part 2a)

Last time we started a series on people who say, “I’m not getting fed!” and I promised we’d start to look at the type of people who make that complaint.

Babies.

Babies complain that they’re not getting fed. When my kids were babies, my wife and I had to feed them. I had never been around babies and so this was brand new for me. Suddenly I was pretending a spoon was an airplane and a cheerio was a chug-a-chug-a-choo-choo! When we didn’t feed our babies on time, they let us know it. They cried. As they got a little older they learned not to cry about their displeasure but would verbalize it, “Ma-ma, I’m hungry. Da-da, feed me!”

Babies complain about not getting fed. My son is now nine and now when he’s hungry he asks, “Dad, can I get something to eat?” My answer, of course, is, “You’ll eat when you have a job and can pay for your own food!”

Only babies complain about not getting fed. There should be a progression in life, and in spiritual life, from needing to be fed, to feeding yourself, to being able to feed others.

And so when someone in a church says, “I’m not getting fed” my thought is, “Then you BETTER be a baby.”

It never is. The people who complain about not getting fed are never new Christians. Never. Isn’t that funny? The people who complain about not getting fed are never the baby Christians, but always the older, supposedly more mature Christians.

Can you picture if I, at 37 years old, called my mother every month or two and complained, “I’m not getting fed!” Or if I e-mailed her and said, “Sorry, but I’m leaving this family because I’m not getting fed. In fact, I haven’t gotten fed in some time here.” Sound absurd? Well, it’s the freakin’ reality in most churches in America!

I illustrated this in a sermon once. I started my sermon by carrying a baby up with me, and fed it a few spoonfuls of baby food. At the end of the sermon I asked for a volunteer. One of the Navy Seals in our church raised his hand, so I brought him up, sat him on my lap, and got ready to spoon feed him baby food. It looked totally absurd. And, again, that’s the freakin’ reality in most churches in America!

WAAAAA! I’m not getting fed! (Part 2b)

Earlier today I posted about how only babies need to be fed by another person, and only babies complain about not getting fed.

This reminded me of when I was a brand new baby Christian … (I was twenty-years-old) … and I was immediately put in a situation where I had to feed others. The reason was that I was leading people to Christ and, compared to them, I was the “long-time Christian” (even though I had only been a Christian for a few weeks!).

I had no choice, at least not that I knew of, and so I studied the bible like a mad man, put together studies and lessons, and gave them (as crappy as they may have been) to others. You’ve heard of the blind leading the blind, well this was the baby leading the babies.

And what I learned is this: A person grows WAY MORE from feeding others than they ever grow from being fed. So, I guess, if you want to really be fed – feed someone else.

Sometimes babies can feed others … but only babies should need to be fed.

WAAAAA! I’m not getting fed! (Part 3)

Picture this: Tonight you’re watching the local news and you’re startled by the report: Every restaurant in your area is closing down. Not just your favorites, not just some, but ALL OF THEM. You would obviously be disappointed. Going out to eat is fun. And often the food you get in a restaurant is better than what you make at home. It’s also nice to have a night where you don’t have to make your own meal. And not having to pack your lunch everyday is a convenience you enjoy. So, of course you’d be disappointed.

But what if the next day a friend came up to you, “Did you hear that all the restaurants are closing?!? What will I do?!? I’m going to starve! I’m not kidding, I will die because of this! I can’t live without restaurants!” And you’re friend is serious. He’s not joking or exaggerating.

What do you think of your friend? That he’s got some serious problems, right? That he is ridiculously lazy, right?

Well, in my not so humble opinion, when a Christian says, “I’m not getting fed” this is truly what they’re saying. I mean, sure, it’s nice to go to church and get some bible fed to you. We all enjoy being lazy once-in-awhile. And most preachers can give you a better bible study than what you can do on your home at home.

So there’s nothing wrong with going to church and “getting fed.” But if you’re dependent on it, if it’s the only way you can get fed, if you don’t know what to do without it, you’ve got some serious problems and you are ridiculously lazy.

People who say, “I’m not getting fed” are lazy. Seriously, think about it. The people who say this only get 30 minutes with their preacher a week, but they expect their preacher to feed them. They have 167 ½ hours the rest of the week, but their spiritual sustenance is supposed to come from their preacher, in only 30 minutes. They can’t figure out some other way of getting spiritual nutrition the rest of their week despite living in a country where we can legally own bibles (and the average home has three!), where Christian bookstores are all over the place, and where the internet provides a never-ending supply of spiritual resources.

So, what kind of people say “I’m not getting fed”? Thumb-sucking babies, and pampered-pouting lazy Christians.

Tomorrow I’ll tell you how I really feel. Until then, save me the aisle seat.

WAAAAA! I’m not getting fed! (Part 4a)

So I’m doing the greatest blog series in the history of the world. The series is on what pastors hear so often, “I’m not getting fed.” Last time I asked: “Who says this?” and answered, “Thumb-sucking babies and pampered, pouting lazy Christians.” Today I have one more answer: Christians who miss the point.

What do I mean? Some people misunderstand “spiritual maturity.”

What do you think are the signs of a person who is truly spiritually mature? This is something I’ve studied and thought about a lot, and here’s what I’ve come to. The three greatest signs of spiritual maturity are: (1) Intimacy with God, (2) Obedience to God, (3) Serving other people. The way we’d say that at Forefront is, “Love God, Love People.”

Jesus said that all the commandments hang on this. Loving God is a relational thing and leads to intimacy with Him. (So it’s sharing His heart, and sharing my heart with Him.) Jesus also taught us that to love God is to obey His commands. (So one way to measure spiritual maturity is how quickly you obey God.) Jesus also said He came to serve and we’re to follow His example. (So getting past self-centeredness and learning to put others before ourselves is what we’re after.)

We could argue about this (I guess that’s what the comment section is for) but I’m sticking with my answer, because it’s what I’ve found in the Bible.

Unfortunately, this is NOT EVEN CLOSE to the definition most American Christians have for spiritual maturity. How do they define it? I’ll tell you later today. Until then, I’ll give you $5 if you can get yourself on Cops.

WAAAAA! I’m not getting fed! (Part 4b)

So how do American Christians define spiritual maturity? I don’t know how it happened (but I’d be interested to find out*) but somewhere along the line we have equated spiritual knowledge with spiritual maturity.

We see this in all kinds of ways.

Who is in the person who leads the small group? Well, the person who knows the most, of course.

Who is revered in your church? The person who knows the most, of course.

Bible college professors are held up as spiritual giants. Why? Is it because of their intimacy with God? No. Because of their obedience to God? No. Because of their service to other people? No. We don’t know any of those things about them. What we know is that they know a lot. And that’s enough.

We believe the person who knows the most about God, the most about the Bible, is the most spiritually mature. And the only problem with that is that it’s wrong. Knowledge does not equal maturity. I have known lots of people who know lots about God and the Bible and are not remotely Christ-like. (And, by the way, I can think of someone who knows a ton about God and the Bible, could it be … Satan?!?)

Next time I’ll talk about how this misunderstanding of spiritual maturity has wreaked havoc for Pastors and churches and Muppets and people who press olives in Greece and …

* (this is a footnote!) – Do you think it’s possible that part of the reason we’ve defined spiritual maturity as knowledge is because that way we don’t have to obey? Instead of obeying what we know, we just learn more!

WAAAAA! I’m not getting fed! (Part 5a)

I said last time that in America we’ve (wrongly) equated spiritual knowledge with spiritual maturity. We think that the more you know, the more godly you are.

Because we’ve created that culture, we have Christians whose goal is to know more and more, and that’s why they come to church on Sundays. So … if our sermons don’t stuff more Greek and Hebrew and obscure (and probably useless) bible history into their heads, they’re not happy. (And many, many preachers are worshipping these people by giving them exactly what they want.)

So, actually, for these people, “I’m not getting fed” really means, “To feel spiritually mature (and superior) I need to expand my store of virtually useless bible information so I can impress my friends and win Bible Jeopardy and you’re not giving me the facts I need!”

This is SO ridiculous.

I also think it’s a MAJOR reason why so many Christians feel spiritually empty inside. It’s because they’re approaching Christianity like it’s something to be studied, rather than lived – and God becomes someone to know about, rather than to know.

Okay, I have to rant on this more, but I’ll do it a little later (in fact, two more coming today). If you don’t want to hear any more about this, I’ll understand if you stop reading my blog – but you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. So good luck with that.

WAAAAA! I’m not getting fed! (Part 5b)

So earlier I started going off about how people define spiritual maturity as spiritual knowledge and how they end up feeling spiritually empty (and thus say, “I’m not getting fed!”) and it’s because they’re approaching Christianity like it’s something to be studied, rather than lived – and God becomes someone to know about, rather than to know.

Think of it this way. Let’s say my marriage is going poorly. So my wife and I go to a counselor. We tell him we don’t feel close at all and want more out of our marriage. So he says: “Here’s what you need to do. Each of you should hire someone to do a 30 minute presentation on the other each week. Attend that seminar, learn all the facts you can about each other, and your marriage will be great.” Good advice? No. The stupidest thing you’ve heard since you learned that Brittany and Jaimie Lynn Spear’s mother is putting out a book on parenting? Maybe.

The way to make a marriage better is … quality time together, really talking, listening to each other, having date nights, serving each other, submitting, finding common interests.

So when Christians don’t feel close to God and want more out of their relationship with Him the answer is a “deeper” sermon on Sundays? Are you kidding me?!? The answer is that you need to get “fed” by your preacher? Really?!?

“You should go to a church with deeper messages.” Is that good advice? No. One of the stupidest things you’ve ever heard? Maybe.

If thing with God really is a relationship (or anything like a relationship) than what we’re after is not knowledge, its intimacy. And you can’t get intimacy through a sermon.

Wait, I have another way of saying this. I’ll tell you later.

WAAAAA! I’m not getting fed! (Part 5c)

Okay, this is like the 400th post in this series (sorry) but we’re talking about what spiritual maturity looks like and why people say, “I’m not getting fed” and how if you’re not feeling close to God or where you need to be spiritually, there’s no way my 30 minute sermon can help you.

Earlier I used a marriage as a metaphor, here’s another one: If you feel woefully out of shape physically, and once a week you attend a seminar on how to work out, or how to eat healthy, but then the rest of the week don’t live any different, can you complain about the seminars?

Of course not! A seminar can’t get you in good shape, you have to DO what the seminar is talking about, and you have to do it consistently.

And so … stop giving me your “I’m not getting fed” crap and go home and spend lots of time face-to-face with God, and you WILL grow in intimacy with Him. And then you’ll realize that there’s something far better than knowing about God, and it’s knowing God.

(Sorry, I lost it there for a minute.)

WAAAAA! I’m not getting fed! (Part 6)

So I’ve gone on and on about this “not getting fed” thing and I have to start wrapping it up. Here’s the question: What do we do when someone says, “I’m not getting fed”?

Well, I have two answers.

First, we need to make sure that we’re teaching people HOW to feed themselves. I’ve made it quite clear this last week or so that I don’t think it’s my job as a pastor to “feed people” on Sunday mornings. But I DO believe it’s the churches job to teach people to feed themselves. And so, when someone says, “I’m not being fed” I need to ask myself, “Have we taught this person to feed themselves? If not, then I have to take a lot of the blame for this, and I need to do something about it.

At Forefront, we’ve tried to make sure we’re teaching people how to feed themselves. For instance:

We do a sermon, or an entire series, almost every year on how to read the Bible. In 2007 we did “The Bible for Cavemen.” In 2006 we did a 3 part series called, “Off the Shelf and Into Myself”…
In our “Next Steps” class we have a session on how to have a “Quiet Time” of bible reading and prayer.
Each week in our program we provide six “ready-to-do” Bible studies that give you a passage to read, about six questions to help you dig into and apply the verses, and a study note or two offering background/context information.
This year we made and are going to distribute a “Pursuit” book, a spiritual growth handbook that teaches six spiritual disciplines, including bible study (why to do it, how to do it, etc.).
We had a guru at this kind of stuff come in and do sessions with our staff, and a session with leaders in our church, on how to develop intimacy face-to-face with God.

(I’m sure there’s more we could do — what are some of the ways you all are teaching your people to feed themselves?)

So when someone says, “I’m not getting fed” the first thing I do is ask myself: Have we taught this person how to feed themselves? If the answer is no, I’m the problem. If the answer is yes, well, we’ll talk about that next time.

WAAAAA! I’m not getting fed! (Part 7)

I think this is the last post in this insanely long series on the issue of people saying, “I’m not getting fed at this church.” Last time I talked about how I think it’s the church’s role to equip people to feed themselves, and if we’re not doing that, I need to take some blame for a person in our church who isn’t being fed.

However, if our church IS equipping people to feed themselves and a person still says, “I’m not getting fed,” – what would I say?

“Let me show you the door.”

Yes, I suggest that they find a different church.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve reached a point where I suggest that they find a different church. That may not be the most compassionate or pastoral thing to do, but I’ve got a bunch of people who want to experience intimacy with God, and want to obey Him, and want to serve people and change the world, and I need to spend some time with them, not with a lazy baby who wants me to help them succeed in bible trivia.

I hope I don’t sound too self-righteous, but it’s kind of like Nehemiah, when people were complaining about what he was doing and asking him to give them time and he said, “‘I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?’ Four times they sent me the same message, and each time I gave them the same answer.” (Nehemiah 6:3-4)

I’m sure some people thought, “That’s not very Christ-like,” (yes, I know that there was no such thing as “Christ-like” back then) but Nehemiah was a man on a mission, and you weren’t on the mission you were off his radar.

Jesus told people that if they wanted to follow Him they had to carry a cross. We tell people that if they want to run with us, they have to feed themselves. Will that turn away some Christians? Definitely. Do we want to turn away Christians? Definitely.

I want to have a church full of two types of people: the lost, and missionaries to the lost. When someone goes to a foreign country to be a missionary, they aren’t going over there to get fed. They are going on a mission, and realize that they’ll have to feed themselves. If you’re gonna be a part of Forefront, you’re going on a mission and must realize that you’ll have to feed yourself. And if that ain’t you – don’t let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya.

Waaaaa Responses to Your Waaaaa Comments

There have been so many comments and questions on this series that I promised I would try to respond to some. First, let me first say that I don’t consider myself some kind of Christian Yoda who knows all, so I’m just sharing my thoughts, not the “right answers.” Second, I don’t have a ton of time right now, so I’ll only be able to respond to a few and only give short answers. Third, I may post a few of my favorite comments later during the day. So here we go:

“Why should people bother coming to church (on Sunday mornings) if the pastor isn’t supposed to feed them?”

Answers: Wow, there’s a lot. And I think this question actually shows how we’ve gotten confused about church… so: (1) I’m not saying the pastor shouldn’t feed people or that it’s wrong to get fed at church. I’m saying that it should be something extra for Christians, not what they depend on for their spiritual sustenance. Just like going to a restaurant is a nice change of pace to get fed on a lazy day and get some food you wouldn’t get at home… (2) I think we want to be a part of something bigger than ourselves, and meeting with other Christians on Sundays helps us with that – singing together, fellowshiping, etc. (3) Sunday mornings can be one of the places where the pastor gets to teach people how to feed themselves. (4) This is like saying: “If a basketball coach isn’t going to teach his players how to play basketball during half-time, why should the players even go into the locker room?” Well, maybe the players need to be inspired? Maybe they need to be reminded of what they already know? Maybe he needs to get in their face? Maybe they need some encouragement? (5) I could keep answering this question forever, I’ll stop.

“Does Forefront spend as much time developing Christians into missionaries as it does reaching out to non-Christians?”

Answer: No. But we need to. Please pray for us that we do a better job with this.

“Maybe lazy Americans … or single moms … or you name it … need to be fed by their preacher because they’re lazy … or don’t have time … or you name it.”

Answer: I feel for people who don’t have time or whatever, but the issue is one of intimacy with God. If I’m too lazy or too busy to spend quality time with my wife, we’re not going to have a great marriage. We could go to a weekly 30 minute seminar on marriage (or a weekly counseling session) but if we don’t spend decent quantities of quality time together outside of the seminar (or counselor’s office) we’re still not going to have a great marriage. So … even if you go to a church with the greatest preacher ever, if you don’t spend a lot of time with God outside of Sundays, you are not going to have a great relationship with Him. And it’s about a relationship with God. Now we can trick ourselves and pretend it’s about knowledge, but it isn’t.

“Why does Forefront produce people who have a ‘I’m not getting fed’ attitude?”

Answer: I think we produce less than most churches, but yes, we do have some. Why? Maybe because (1) We’re all naturally selfish and lazy (including me!) and so it’s easy to fall into this kind of thinking for anyone, and (2) Christian culture is so pervasive even our people get bitten by it – we live in an odd time where you can be exposed to other church’s preachers on the radio, podcasts, Christian books, etc. and so the church you go to is not going to be the only influence on how you think and approach God & Christianity.

“The last time I checked, God doesn’t talk back. Not lately, anyway.”

Answer: I disagree. God still speaks to us today. If not, it wouldn’t be much of a relationship, would it? God still speaks, the issue is whether we’re listening…

How to Test Your Religion

By Jeremy Myers

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Dear World, I am sorry. Will you forgive me?

By Jeremy Myers

15 Comments

We Christians owe the world an apology.

I, at least, owe the world an apology. So here it is:

Dear World, I am sorry.

About what?

About so many things …

… But the one thing I am sorry about the most is presenting to you a picture of God which you found repulsive and repugnant and worthy only of your rejection.

If I had done a better job of presenting God as He really is, as the God revealed to us in Jesus Christ, you might have loved Him instead of hated Him. You might have seen how much He loves you. How much He likes you.

Instead, I told you that if you do not do certain things that he wants, he will torment you forever in hell.

You could not love or worship a god like that. (Who truly can?) And so you rejected this god.

You figured that if this god really existed, and if he was going to send you to hell anyway, you might as well “live it up.”

I told you that God loves you, but his love has strings attached. His grace has limits. His mercy eventually fails. But you knew better. You knew that this was not true love, not free grace, not real mercy. And so you rejected this god.

You figured that if this god really existed, and since you could never really be sure of his love for you, you might as well live any way you wanted.

I told you that God would forgive you of all sin, but I added conditions to this forgiveness. God would forgive you “if” you did this and this, “and” as long as you kept yourself from that, “but” only when you felt this or that.

You figured that if this god really existed, it did not appear that you could ever know real forgiveness, so you decided to stop trying and go sin all you want.

I told you that the kind of people god wanted in heaven were the types of people who sat in pews on Sunday morning, who dressed in “proper” clothes and spoke “proper” language. Everybody else was headed for hell.

You figured that if god only wanted certain types of people in his presence, and you could never be one of those types of people, you might as well follow all your friends to hell.

I am sorry for all those things I told you.

Not a single one of them was true.

Not one.

I lied.

The truth, as I see it now, is the truth you have always known to be true.

The truth is what you always tried to tell me was true, but I never listened. Because I was the Bible expert.

The truth is that you were right all along, and I was wrong. You hated the god I was proclaiming because that god was a god of my own making. I invented that god. And you knew it. Thanks for being patient with me while I came to the same realization you knew all along.

You see, I have recently come to understand that everything you hated about the god I proclaimed, you hated because you were listening to the voice of God better than I was. The true God hates that false god also. The true God hates the god I was proclaiming.

So in rejecting the god I was proclaiming, you were more godly than I.

And I am sorry for condemning you for it.

I have come to see the truth of your position because I have come to see the truth of Jesus.

You have always liked Jesus, because you knew that if God existed, He would look like Jesus. You always knew that if God was like Jesus (as I claimed), He would be loving and compassionate. Full of justice and mercy. He would be kind and generous. He would laugh a lot. He would tell good stories. He would go to parties. He would hang out with people that religious folk labeled as “sinners.”

But the god I was proclaiming looked nothing like Jesus, and so you rejected him.

And as a result of rejecting the god I proclaimed, I condemned you.

So I am sorry.

I never accepted the Jesus you knew to be true, because your Jesus didn’t fit with my conception of god. But now that I see that Jesus truly reveals God to us, and now that I see that the god I was proclaiming was a god of my own making, I have come to see that the Jesus you knew is the Jesus who really exists, and therefore, is what God is really like as well.

So I now see the truth you have seen all along.

What truth is that?

The truth that God loves us. Period.

The truth that God forgives us. No ifs, ands, or buts.

The truth that God likes us so much He wants to hang out with us and our friends. Just as we are.

The truth that God doesn’t care so much if we sit in those pews on Sunday morning. In fact, He may prefer that we don’t.

The truth that God isn’t concerned about our sin. He only cares about sin because it hurts us. And since He loves us, He doesn’t want to see us hurt.

And regarding all those silly rules about what to wear (and not wear), what to say (and not say), and where to go (and not go) … the truth that God doesn’t give a rat’s ass about those things. Those aren’t His “rules.” He never made those. We made those. Yes, we religious people. We invented those rules to make ourselves feel better. To make ourselves think we were better than you. When we’re not.

So we’re sorry.

No, I’m sorry.

And if you ever want to tell me more about Jesus, I would love to learn.

Christianese – Learn the Christian Lingo

By Jeremy Myers

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We Christians have our own language. Some call it Christianese. Others call it just plain creepy.

Grace has no But

By Jeremy Myers

22 Comments

A man I work with recently asked if I had received an email from another coworker. I told him no, I had not. He said this, “I’m not calling you a liar, but …”

I cut him off and said, “Yes, you are! You cannot say you are not calling me a liar, and then proceed to challenge the truthfulness of what I just said. The word ‘but’ negates everything that came before it.” I offered to let him view my email account just so he could see that I was not lying. He declined and left my office.

The word “but” is an amazing word. We use it all the time to say contradictory things.

In fact, almost any time you hear someone say “I’m not ________, but …” you can almost guarantee that whatever follows the “but” will be the exact opposite of what preceded it.

The phrase “I’m not a racist, but …” will always be followed with a racist statement.

The phrase “I don’t hate gays, but …” will always be followed with a homophobic statement.

The phrase “I know God loves everybody, but …” will always be followed by a statement that maybe God doesn’t love everybody.

The phrase “I hope this doesn’t come across as heartless, but … ” will always be followed by a statement that is heartless.

One phrase I hear a lot from people is this one:

“I believe in grace, but …”

Such a statement will always be followed by a statement which shows the person does not believe the first thing about grace.

Grace has no but!

Pastors and Christian Bible teachers are notorious for giving confusing messages about grace. We preach that God loves people unconditionally, that Jesus will never leave us or forsake us, that we can come to God just as we are, and that nothing can separate us from God’s love. This is well and good.

Then we often follow up this teaching with the impression that maybe there are conditions to God’s infinite love, that maybe Jesus will forsake us, and that God doesn’t want us exactly as we are, and that there are some things that will separate us from the love of God.

I call this adding “buts” to grace.

This occurs whenever we say something like,

“Grace is free, but…”

“God forgives all our sins, but…”

“God loves you unconditionally, but…”

“God will never leave you nor forsake you, but…”

“Eternal life is by faith alone, but…”

You see?

These “buts” completely negate whatever came before it.

So stop adding buts to your theology.

Grace has no but, and neither does love, mercy, and forgiveness.

Those who add buts to grace do not know God or His grace. There are no conditions or limits to grace. Grace is infinite and free. Period.

You sound Angry, Bitter, and Critical

By Jeremy Myers

12 Comments

My neighbor’s name is Carissa. She is twenty-one years old. And she is beautiful.

But she has a very … strange relationship with her boyfriend. His name is Kirk. It is not that Kirk is abusive … not really. I suppose you could say he is controlling and manipulative, but I don’t even know if that is exactly accurate. Something just seems “off.”

He wants to know where she is at all times, even though she hardly ever knows what he is doing most of the week.

He demands to know where she spends her money, and also requires that she contribute a portion of her money to their “date fund.”

Their “dates” are really something closer to appointments. They go on one date per week, from 7:00-9:00 PM every Friday night. If she is late or has to cancel, Kirk wants to know why. If she doesn’t wear the right clothes on their dates, he chides her for not looking her best. He constantly reminds her that if she wants their relationship to work, these dates are critical.

But they do the same thing every week for their date. He picks her up at 7:00 sharp. They listen to music on the way to a restaurant. He only lets her pick from 20 “date approved” songs. And they go to the same restaurant every week. He orders food for her without asking what she wants. What he orders varies from week to week, and while it is occasionally the cheapest thing on the menu, it is never the most expensive.

During the meal, he asks her how her week was, but doesn’t listen to her answers. He does most of the talking. When the meal is over, they go for a walk around a local park while holding hands. Then, at 8:50 PM they get back into their car so that he can drop her off at her house by 9:00 sharp. He gives her a kiss on the cheek and says, “I’ll see you next week! And remember, I’ll be thinking about you all week long.”

That’s their date.

During the week, Kirk sends her emails and text messages, but they all sound identical to the ones he sent last week. “I’m thinking about you!” he texts. “Can’t wait to see you this Friday! How’s your week going?” But when she texts back, he never replies.

I could go on and on about this strange relationship Carissa has with her boyfriend.

But last week something happened …

This relationship has been going on for several years now, and I have gently tried to tell her that she should dump this guy and look for a new boyfriend. She always says that I don’t understand what they have together. That their relationship is fine. That he loves her and she loves him.

But last week, as she told me how great her relationship was, I must confess I got a little upset.

I said to her, “You could do so much better! You are young, beautiful, creative, talented! There is so much you could do. So much you could experience! So much of life you are missing out on! This guy Kirk … I don’t know what his deal is … but he is not right for you! He doesn’t really care about you, despite all his lame texts and empty emails and pointless dates. He apparently just likes to show your picture to his friends and say, ‘That’s my girlfriend.’ But that’s not a relationship! Get out! Leave him! I hate this guy. I hate what he does to you! He is not good! He doesn’t make you shine! He doesn’t honor you, respect you, or treat you like the princess you are! He does not love you. He is only using you.”

And do you want to know what Carissa said to me?

She looked at me with sort of a shocked, hurt, confused look on her face, and she said, “You sound angry … Are you bitter about a bad relationship from your past? … Why are you so critical of my boyfriend?”

I was stunned.

Angry? Bitter? Critical?

I don’t want to be any of those things …

Was she right?

I do often get upset at things when I shouldn’t. And I have had rocky times in my past relationships. My marriage isn’t perfect. And could it be that I was frustrated at my own failures as a husband and was unfairly and critically projecting these onto her boyfriend?

Maybe I should just back off and raise up my hands and say, “You’re right. I’m sorry. I know very little about your relationship. I wish the two of you all the best.”

But then I realized something.

If Carissa were my daughter, would I feel any different?

No! In fact, my love for my daughter would only amplify my feelings. If Carissa were my daughter, I would absolutely, definitely, be angry, bitter, and critical. Love would demand that I be angry, bitter, and critical.

Why? Because my daughter deserves better! Since I love her, I am required to fight for her. To hate how she is being treated. To be bitter that some jerk is treating her like trash. My love for her requires me to be critical of him, his ways, his tone, his attitude, and his complete lack of genuine love for my daughter.

So absolutely I was angry! Angry about a fake relationship that was passed off as the genuine thing!

You better believe I was bitter! Bitter that someone else’s daughter was getting treated so callously!

And of course I was critical! Someone needed to be critical of this guy so that hopefully Carissa would see that how she was being treated was not right and that she deserved so much better!

I told her these things, but she didn’t hear them. She was convinced that she knew better and that my “anger, bitterness, and critical spirit” were causing me to only see the bad things in her deadbeat boyfriend.

She admitted that her boyfriend and her relationship with him wasn’t perfect, but said, “There’s no such thing as a perfect relationship.”

“That’s true,” I told her. “But there certainly are better relationships than the one you’ve got.”

“I used to think so too,” she replied. “But now I realize that those sorts of relationships are only in movies and books. We all long for those sorts of relationships, but the sooner we realize they don’t actually exist, the better off we’ll be.”

I understand where she is coming from. I do. I was in bad relationships when I was young, and nobody else could tell me they were bad. I had to come to that realization on my own.

And like her, I believed that there were no relationships like the ones in movies and books. But I have also started to see in my marriage to my own wife, that unless you believe that your relationship can get better, and work toward that goal, it will only get worse.

So I trust that Carissa will soon learn that her boyfriend is not good for her. I hope that she will leave him and will find the relationship she longs for her in her heart but doesn’t believe actually exists.

I hope she will eventually learn to see that although I was angry, bitter, and critical, it was only because I loved her, and wanted something better for her than what she has.

… By the way, this entire story was a parable.

I do not have a neighbor named Carissa. I don’t even know anyone named Carissa.

But I do have a neighbor named “Christian.”

… And she has a boyfriend named “church.”

This post was part of the May 2015 Synchroblog on the topic of anger. Here are other contributors to this month’s topic:

Mark Votava – Becoming Dreamers Again
Carol Kuniholm – God’s Economy: Managing Anger Assets
Clara Ogwuazor Mbamalu – The Easiest Way to Control and Manage Anger
K.W. Leslie – Anger
Glenn Hager – The Many Faces of Anger
Paul Meier – The Value of Anger
Pastor Fedex – Chain Reaction
Michael Boden – Anger is Not a Godly Emotion
Kathy Escobar – underneath anger.

Letter of the Law vs. the Spirit of the Law

By Jeremy Myers

3 Comments

Earlier this week I wrote a LONG post about the place of the Mosaic Law in the life of the Christian. It was over 6000 words. Yikes! Here is something a little more light-hearted, but still on the same topic.

The greatest heresy of all time is the lack of love toward others.

Speaking the Truth in Love

The Love Chapter

A Lack of Love is the Greatest Heresy of All Time

So Do You Love?

To know all, is to forgive all.

So How Then Should We Live?

The Cycle of Murderous Revenge

A Second Look at the First Murder

Does God retaliate against violence with more violence?

The Most Ignored Truth in Scripture

Grace has no but!

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