Free from religious performance

After many frustrating years of “trying to be a good Christian”, I gave up. So much work, so many setbacks, and so much hypocrisy (my own) finally brought me to do myself and everybody else a huge favor— I just quit.

I wouldn’t be honest if I told you that I never get religious any more. I still have returned to the struggle at times, re-entered prisons of my own making, and played the silly games that people who want to be “good Christians” play. But I don’t enjoy the games any more, and I don’t stay very long in the prisons before I miss the fresh air of freedom. Freedom is a beautiful word, and a beautiful feeling, and a beautiful experience! I would rather be free than rich, or smart, or good, or religious. I would rather be free than famous or successful. How else can I express how valuable it is to me? Okay, try this one: it is better than being in love.

The freedom of which I speak is not rebellious, or defiant, or angry. It is simply knowing what I am and what I’m not, knowing what I can do and what I can’t do, knowing that my relationship with God is based on grace and acceptance rather than on my attempts to perform the impossible. Amazing grace…how sweet the sound!

I used to go to a lot of “seminars” and “conferences”. I loaded up on books and tapes, tried to find “the key” to an obedient life, an effective ministry, a happy family, and so on and on. Conferences on “the deeper life”, “church growth”, “the Christian home”, “end time prophecy”, “soul-winning evangelism”, “prayer” and “fasting” ( I hated that one! ), finances and family, substance and style, preaching and planning, holiness and healing, sex and stress (I’m not kidding), and more. Christian “experts” in their chosen fields told us all the rules to follow to be a great success as a really great Christian. It was enough to make you either throw up or go crazy, and I think I did both!

Eight years ago I was preparing to go to another one, this one called “Born Free”, to be held in a huge church somewhere in the Atlanta area. On the way there my wife and I had a big argument in the car. You know, the usual thing about how she thought I was supposed to ask directions, when I KNEW that I could find it if I only drove around long enough! We arrived late, upset and still a little angry. Finding my seat, I began to listen to the speaker, a well-known author and teacher named Steve Brown.

During the first few minutes I heard Mr. Brown say something like this: “If you are trying to get everything right about God and the ministry you won’t find it here.” That surprised me quite a bit. He went on to say that he didn’t have many answers and didn’t know anybody who did! He said that he himself really messed up a lot, and we would too, and that it was okay! He said that he was probably wrong about half of the time, but he didn’t know which half! He said that God was doing fine before we came along, and He will do fine after we’re gone. He said that God doesn’t really need us, but He really likes for us to come to Him, messed up as we are– not so that He can fix us, but just so that He can love us! He even said that when we really “blow it”, God is neither surprised nor angry. Finally, he said that there was nothing good that we could do to make Him love us more, and nothing bad that we could do that would make Him love us less!

Imagine what was going through my mind as I heard these words! Could it really be true? Yes, instantly I knew that it was! For years I had secretly believed that something like what Mr. Brown said could be true, but nobody had ever told it to me without reservations and warnings which served to “keep us in line”. These “reservations and warnings” ruined the whole thing. There is no such thing as “freedom, but… ”. Either we are actually free, free to do right or wrong, free to obey or to disobey… or we are not free at all. Jesus said that we are “free indeed”. I think He meant it! He went to a lot of trouble to secure this freedom for us.

Some well-meaning Christians will tell you that this teaching is dangerous- that it invites sin, and that it can get out of hand and you will go too far. Yeah, maybe so. But since nobody else, either inside or outside the church, can give you real freedom, you will soon come running back to the One who can.

Becoming free has really made some strange changes in my life since we made that trip to Atlanta eight years ago. I can get drunk, I can cheat, I can do all kinds of immoral things. I can quit church altogether, and I can indulge in drugs, porn, you name it. I CAN, but I don’t ! I can’t say exactly why, but I think that it has a lot to do with WANTING to please the One who has set me free! The “Born Free” seminar taught me “you will never get better until you know that you don’t have to get better.” Mr. Brown was right when he said, “obedience will never produce freedom, but freedom will produce obedience”.

Some of the results of becoming free are really a lot of fun to me, and I love telling you about them. I laugh more. I don’t always have to be right. I don’t have to be agreed with. I don’t have to be admired as a “good Christian”. I don’t have to look good. I can be more honest and real. I can admit my many faults and failings, and can even talk about my sins, if only I had the space to tell you! [NO, Teth, I DON’T want more space, thank you!]

My point is that I can “lighten up” and quit pretending, since I’m truly free. I don’t need to protect my reputation, worry about what people think, or prove that I am the greatest. I think I am becoming less of a pain in the behind. My obsession with perfection is now dead. When it died, I buried it and laughed on its grave. I also stopped going to all those “conferences”!

If you have become weary of trying to do it right like a “good Christian”, I invite you to do what I did. Give it up. Quit. Put your burden down and join me in an ancient spiritual song:

Free at last, free at last! Thank God Almighty; I’m free at last!