I found this book through a tweet @realrobbell posted a few days ago. I don’t have the book and I can’t even find it on Amazon… but the introduction is breathtaking. And by that I mean it will literally take your breath away.
Frank argues that the God presented in traditional evangelical Christianity is, quite frankly, difficult to love. This God does not give evidence of a truly loving heart, and this makes it hard for his children to love him.
But there is a truer, better God…
I hear this God’s liberating word in the living spirit and the dying gasps of the shabby human being who was nailed, two thousand years ago, to a splintered pole in Palestine. Unlike the “bad-news God” of evangelicalism, this human God feels genuine warmth for me—in the words of the familiar hymn, “just as I am”—and my heart instinctively reciprocates. In the embrace of this human God, my fear of God and my religiously-inspired enmity toward myself begin to find relief.
If that didn’t take your breath away, read it again.
Every other week I meet with a small group of guys for breakfast. This morning Jeremy, who was leading the discussion, said that the heart of Christianity should be Christ. Simple right? The problem is that so much of our lives, our church experiences, our doctrine and theology are focused on things other than this human God.
Throughout the Gospels Jesus is depicted as the perfect embodiment – the incarnation — of God and his Kingdom. By definition, therefore, God looks like Jesus. This is His essence. And we participate in God’s Kingdom to the extent — and only to the extent — that we look like Jesus.
Christ’s life is an example of the very way in which we are supposed to live.
To be honest, that is easy to write, but that is very hard to pull off. It’s easy to say the church has lost its focus and has not always done the best job of modeling Christ to culture, but where are we supposed to get the power to do this? From following Christ’s example?
NO!
If Christ only came as an example of the reversal of the world’s values he wouldn’t be any power to us at all - he would actually be a burden. He would make us feel terrible trying to live up to his standard. Even this human God can be a "bad-news-God."
But that is not the gospel! The gospel shows us that everything Jesus did, he did to reverse fortunes with us. That is why he can say 'though you are weeping now, you will rejoice' because he took the weeping you deserve. He can say 'you will be comforted' because he was thrown away. He can say 'you will be satisfied' because he was utterly dissatisfied.
In other words, Christ took our place. He put us where he deserves to be, before the thrown of God, and he put himself where we deserve to be, utterly cast out.
So, the only way to actually receive this power is to become ‘poor in Spirit’, to begin to rely completely on Christ. Then we can say along with the apostle Paul, who after being set free from the “bad-news-God” and caught up in the embrace of this human God, ‘I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.’
When our hearts are captivated by the love of this human God, we will instinctively reciprocate.
It is a stunning book. One of the few I have ever read that when I was finished, turned back to the first page to re-read. You can get it directly from http://www.dougfrankbooks.com/
Posted by: Jay Goldstein | September 23, 2010 at 11:33 AM