Another great thing that I’m doing during this interim season is working with an adult Sunday School class at my home church in Amarillo. They’re a fun bunch of folks and are somewhat in a transition time themselves. I see them coming out the other end with a lot of new vision and vigor to really reach out into their community and make something happen for the Kingdom. Two weeks ago we took up a study over the book of James which is something that I think a lot of Christ followers in the West ought to camp out in for a bit. While in essence, authentic Christianity is all about what Jesus did for us on the cross and every inch of our righteousness is totally dependent upon His grace, the reality is that a life changed by God really does work that faith out in daily life. In other words, we don’t “work” to earn our Salvation, but because we are saved from the consequences of our sin, we then “work” to serve Christ and others out of love. It’s all about living a real, transformed life with no games about it. So for our 9:30 Sunday morning crew, keep going folks and live it up this week. For everyone else, how do you live out authentic Christianity in your community?
Agree! While we have a whole lot of Christian institution in the West, the actual life of Christ is not seen very much. On the other hand, it is in the East where Christ followers are reproducing at a rapid pace while they have little or any “Church Institution” at all. It’s easy to live and push a system. It’s quite a bit harder to live a transformed life from the inside out. It’s that very life we all want, but we have to surrender our control and systems to get it.
“It’s about living a real, transformed life…” Indeed it is. While I find it very easy to get confirmation from believers everywhere that this is true and that on a conceptual level they agree, it is often harder to find believers who can articulate what a real, transformed life is or what it looks like. I don’t know that I’m an expert here, but what have found is that we spend so much time focused on Jesus the Savior and Jesus the King that we often overlook Jesus the Rabbi (teacher). Most of Jesus teaching to the Galileans was about the look and action of the transformed life. The life that is light in darkness. The life that is free from bondage. The life that is able to see the cosmos the way the teacher sees the cosmos.