Tag: grace

Hope for the Perfectionist

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry Blog2 Comments

 

            Perfectionism, in my humble opinion, is one of the greatest maladies affecting the church today.  One of the reasons for this is that it perpetually goes un-diagnosed.  After all, the church servant who will go over and above putting in hours to make the ministry team successful is hailed by others.  The pastor who will drop everything at any time for a parishioner receives accolades as one who cares.  The teacher who crafts a lesson in such incredible detail awes her students.  It goes beyond the walls of the church, as well.  The woman who keeps a perfect physique garners the respect and attention of both men and women.  The man who works tirelessly for the company and his clients may receive awards and promotions, and the praise of his boss.
 
            But it all has a steep price:  the inability to distinguish between excellence and perfection, and the cost of becoming hopelessly depressed.  Perfectionists constantly “should” and “ought” themselves to death.  Their work, no matter how good, is never good enough.  “I should have done better.”  “I ought to be able to do better.”  “I must be, do, and look better.”  Instead of viewing life’s opportunities as challenges to be welcomed, the perfectionist sees life as one unending insurmountable mountain to climb, never quite reaching the top.  The constant companions of perfectionist people are disappointment, condemnation, frustration, and perceived failure.  It is an internal world of self-deprecation based on the lie that I can’t just be good enough – I have to be perfect.
 
 
 
            People might like to always have a perfectionist doing the work (which is why they continually get asked to do everything!) but, to put it both biblically and bluntly, perfectionism is sin.  Perfectionism is a nice shiny way of saying legalism.  Legalists rigidly overemphasize external results, do’s and don’ts, rules and regulations, and have expectations for themselves and others that can never be attained.  Sound familiar?  The perfectionist fits right into this sinful way of thinking.  In other words, the legalist/perfectionist has a fragile spirituality dependent on personal performance.  They have such a finely tuned sense of guilt that it is literally impossible to ever meet their own standards.  No wonder many perfectionists struggle mightily with anxiety attacks and depression.
 
            There is only one antidote to perfectionism:  unconditional approval from God.  That is, grace is the elixir of life.  Grace is the only thing the perfectionist can’t work to obtain.  God’s grace is freely given, not dependent on abilities, and un-repayable.   God’s loving acceptance of us has nothing to do with our worthiness.  Recovery for the perfectionist can only occur by a radical acceptance of grace.  Perfectionists have been so programmed by themselves to impossible performance and conditional love that this extreme gift of grace is hard to take.  Change won’t happen overnight, and that’s okay.  It’s okay because God deals with us according to grace, not by earning spiritual merit badges.  The renewal that brings transformation of the perfectionist mind is typically a process.  Here is a really radical idea and thought for the perfectionist:  enjoy the process.  When you have caught yourself going back to the pig sty of perfectionism, instead of beating yourself up, go ahead and laugh at yourself and your own fallibility.  Perfectionists take themselves way too serious.  Anytime they can lighten up, it lights up the face of God (in a non-performance sort of way!).
 
            Jesus said that we should come to him because he will give us rest (Matthew 11:28-30).  He said that his yoke is easy, and his burden is light.  It isn’t anything like the heavy yoke of legalistic perfectionism.  So, take that good news from Jesus and enjoy a better way to live.  Jesus will never leave you, nor forsake you, even when you screw up.
 
Arise, my soul, arise; shake off thy guilty fears;
The bleeding Sacrifice in my behalf appears:
Before the throne my surety stands, before the throne my Surety stands,
My name is written on His hands.  –Charles Wesley

Good Friday

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment


            What makes Good Friday good?  For Christians all across the world, this day reminds us that the grace of God in Christ makes Good Friday good.  The good news is that when Jesus died on the cross, it was neither simply a terrible act of violence nor just another crucifixion by the Romans; it was a courageous rescue operation that broke our bonds and set us free from the tyranny of the world, the flesh, and the devil.  
            What has God liberated you from?  Do you have and enjoy freedom in Jesus Christ, or are you still in bondage and need to be freed?  One of the harshest masters in our culture is the enslaving master of shame.  It locks us in an inner prison of the soul and makes sure that we do not tell our secrets.  Shame’s slaves are legion:  a well-respected mother secretly struggles with alcoholism, afraid to divulge what really keeps her going throughout her day; a much-loved man keeps looking at pornography, with no one suspecting his dark insatiable lust; a woman cannot bring herself to share with anyone that years ago she had an abortion, and barely a day goes by without the guilt raging within her; a family is too ashamed to ask for help, and are wondering how they will pay the bills this month; a couple suffers in agonizing silence, lonely and too scared to speak to anyone in the church for fear that they will be labeled as weak and unspiritual.  And on and on the examples can go.  
            All these people live in the icy grip of shame, which is why they keep up appearances on the outside, but on the inside are hurting and dying a thousand deaths.  A load of guilt has kept them hostage.  They are ashamed because they feel they have not lived-up to others’ expectations of them.  And that sense of not measuring-up has enslaved them.  
            But here is what makes Good Friday good.  This good news, the greatest story of all, of Christ’s crucifixion tells us that Jesus not only bore our guilt, he bore our shame.  Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of God.  Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart (Hebrews 12:2-3).  Because Jesus did not allow himself to be bound by any shame, he freely took our place.  He took on the shame that should have been ours – the cruelty, the rejection, the mockery, and the sheer humiliation of shame – he took it all for us.  And since Jesus became shame for us, there is no need for us to be ashamed of anything anymore.  Our addictions, our failures, and our sinful secrets were crucified on the cross with Jesus.  By faith in this substitutionary sacrifice on our behalf we experience real and genuine freedom.
            We are all to come to the foot of the cross and find forgiveness, love, and healing in Jesus’ name.  Christian author Richard Foster has said:  “By living under the cross we can hear the worst possible things about the best possible people without so much as batting an eye.  If we live in that reality, we will convey that spirit to others.  They know it is safe to come to us.”  Good Friday is good because it frees us from our pride and self-centeredness and allows the new community of Jesus-lovers to help others break their bondage to shame and guilt.
            Grace is neither just a word, nor simply a nice idea – it is a powerful spiritual reality to be lived and experienced.  Today is the day of salvation.  Today is the day of forgiveness.  Today is the day to let go of our crushing burdens and tell our secrets in Jesus’ name.  Today is the day to rid ourselves of bitterness and the petty nursing of grudges against others.  Today is the day to repair that damaged relationship and apologize for being such an obnoxious and stubborn sinner.  Today is the day of salvation.  Jesus is waiting for you with outstretched arms.  See the wounds on his hands and his feet – wounds that heal and bring new life.

Aliens and Strangers

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment

 

          It isn’t on the top of the New York Times best-seller list.  It isn’t featured on holiday book lists for Christian stores.  It is a topic that gets scant attention in church literature, and not much focus in a lot of sermons and preacher podcasts.  It isn’t much discussed in leadership team meetings, and might only get mentioned in the narthex after church in a gossip session, oops, I mean as a “prayer request.” I am talking about ministry to people who are “different”. That is, the stranger, those that are not in the mainstream. It may be the depressed and withdrawn teenager, the gay individual, the one who is shunned for not being cool, or is just not “right in the head” in some way, the ones who dress differently, and, of course, the unattractive, the not very smart, the inarticulate, the social misfit, and sometimes even the handicapped. Or they might be actual persons from other cultures and nations. The list could go on. My point here is that in building a ministry, these people are usually not included. After all, we don’t perceive that they have anything to offer us.
 

          This is, quite simply, contrary to the gospel of grace that we preach. A persistent theme throughout Scripture is that of the alien. God told the Israelites to remember the stranger because they once were aliens in Egypt (Exodus 23:9; Leviticus 19:33). Jesus ups the ante by telling us to actively love such persons (Matthew 5:43, 22:39). Paul takes this further by exhorting believers to show hospitality, which is, literally, the love of strangers (Romans 12:13).

Here are some questions that ought to penetrate our ministry paradigms: Am I in touch with my own strangeness and alien nature? Do I have the capacity to see the image of God in others very different from me? How can I become a voice for the voiceless? Will we struggle to be hospitable to all people?

James said that true religion consists of caring for orphans and widows (James 1:27). The reason he points these two out is that, when we minister to these type of people, they have absolutely no means of reciprocating and giving back. So, here is grace at its finest: just as God in Christ died for us while we were yet sinners, so we can mirror the very character of the Lord in extending ministry with no strings attached to those who are in need.

Perhaps we need a different evaluative grid of our personal and corporate ministries. How about if we base our measurements in grace? Who are the strangers God has placed in your life? How may you show hospitality to them?

Addiction – Going Back to Egypt

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment

With a miraculous hand and outstretched arm, God brought judgment on the ancient Egyptians for keeping the Jews in bondage and, through Moses, led the Israelites out of Egypt and on their way to the promised land.  There was just one little glitch to the plan:  Israel would have to take a rather circuitous route to get there.  Even after another miracle of walking through the parted Red Sea, Israel experienced a failure of faith.  On the first sign of hardship in travel when there was no water, they grumbled and complained.  “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children die of thirst?” (Exodus 17:3).  In fact, they complained about everything to the point that when Moses went up Mount Sinai to meet with God, the people became impatient and hatched a plan to go back to Egypt.

It is easy to read the narrative of the exodus and see a bunch of stupid, ungrateful people in light of all that God had done for them.  A return to slavery looks pretty foolish when we see it in other people.  Yet, this is what the addict needs to see in himself each time he goes back to repeating the addictive behavior:  it’s a return to Egypt, to the bondage of self-soothing through a familiar activity.  Getting mad at himself and feeling bad about the behavior is just that; it doesn’t bring him into the promised land of freedom from addiction.  To set out on a biblical course of change, people caught in vicious cycle of addiction vitally need to begin defining and identifying themselves as more than an addict.

God has redeemed us from the slave market of addiction through the cross of Jesus Christ.  Just as he brought the ancient Israelites miraculously out of Egypt, so in Christ God has brought an exodus to us and set us on a road to the promised land.  In Christ we have been chosen to be holy and blameless; we have redemption through the blood of Jesus; we have been adopted into God’s family through Christ; and, we have been given the Holy Spirit to come alongside and help us live on the holy road that God set for us (Ephesians 1).  However, there is a hitch to it:  you must believe all this.  The road to the promised land of freedom requires faith, and that faith will be tested and tried.  It won’t be easy.  The Christian life is a road that must be traveled with others, and not a spiritual lightning bolt that erases all addictive desire.

We are forgiven.  Forgiven of all those lapses into addiction.  It is grace that saves through faith.  And it is grace that we must all focus on, or we will be sorely tempted to go back to Egypt.  Here’s the deal:  whatever wins our affections will control our lives.  Addicts are addicts because they are controlled by their beloved behavior, whether it is alcohol, pornography, food or smoking.  The only way out of such a destructive relationship is to be moved in the affections even more by the grace of Jesus.  And that only comes when we make the choice to swim in the gospel of grace through thinking about it, meditating on it, and talking about it more than we do our addiction.  In other words, know, really know, what God in Christ has done for you and take the narrow road of genuine faith in Jesus.

This is where the church comes in.  It is always better and more effective to walk with someone rather than walk alone.  Pyramids of pride keep us apart from one another in a cycle of shame, but Christians were meant for community, not isolation.  Affections for Christ are more fully stoked in the furnace of similar affections in others.  So, don’t go back to Egypt.  Don’t spend your time and effort fashioning a golden calf.  Spend it on pursuing grace.  It may take awhile to get to the promised land, but there can be joy in the journey.  Journey well, my friend.