My article for the latest edition of mgpc’s monthly church newsletter, Connexions:
Perhaps in the evenings lately you’ve been watching the show featuring over-weight people weeping a lot. Or perhaps you’ve been watching the one featuring over-weight minor celebrities weeping a lot.
Those of you who don’t can imagine the sort of thing that goes on: some form of exercise is being undertaken complete with personal trainer alongside barking out commands ‘not to stop’; ‘to try harder’; ‘don’t give in’; ‘become a success’; ‘reach your goal’. You await the ubiquitous refrain popularized in Adam Sandler movies ‘You can do it!’
Tears ensue, either during the activity, or upon completion of the activity, or for those who hold out, when they’re reminded about the difference their weight loss will bring to their unhappy lives. There have to be tears.
Now those of you who have known me over the journey here have watched me puff up and shrink down a few times now, so you should know I have some sympathy with these folk.
They’re making a worthwhile attempt, that if sensibly followed up, should at the very least make their lives longer and less stressful.
My main reason for referring to these shows is because I think they mirror the way some people perceive Christianity.
This would see Jesus, or even the church, as a personal trainer, always telling us to try harder or that our current effort is not good enough.
If you thought of Christianity as a philosophy or a set of religious teachings aimed at improving lives that’s really all it could be.
And we’ve all heard of people who have been coming to church for some time but struggle, or stop coming altogether, because they don’t think they’re good enough.
It’s sad if people outside the church think this way and it’s tragic if people inside the church fall prey to such notions.
It’d be like a hospital where the patients lie in beds with doctors and nurses yelling at them to hurry up and get better.
A hospital is a far better image for a local church than a gym.
Instead of telling us to try harder, Jesus keeps telling us that he’d done everything on our behalf. Instead of straining to achieve acceptance, with all the damage that causes, we have to relax and rest in his completed work on our behalf.
A church is not a group you join when you’re good enough; it’s a gathering of people who know they are not good enough and trust in Jesus’ goodness.
Jesus is not a personal trainer, he’s the one who has made all the effort, and received all the penalties, in our place.
The biblical place for effort in our Christian lives is letting go of all our fruitless and damaging attempts at being something and do the serious work of resting in all that Jesus has worked for.
— Gary.
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