Obssessive Christianity Disorder

In his book, The Naked Gospel, my friend, Andrew Farley, writes about a debilitating disorder that is spreading among many Christians.  It's called by the same title as the first chapter of his book, Obsessive Christianity Disorder.  Let me share a few excerpts from that chapter.

MEDS, THERAPY, AND A MENTAL HEALTH FACILITY - THESE WERE the solutions I was offered. One counselor suggested that my condition wouldn't change for the rest of my life and that I'd always need medication.  As desperate as I was, I just didn't buy it. There had to be some other answer to my problem.  After trying several Christian therapists, each of whom employed a different approach, no one could alter the patterned behaviors I was stuck in.

After all, obsessive Bible study and street evangelism are not your run-of-the-mill symptoms. (p 19)

Soon all of the exertion with no payoff took its toll. I began spiraling into a deep depression.  A few months later, I found myself lying on the floor of my apartment, sobbing for hours on end: "God, I'm doing everything I'm supposed to do, and I still don't feel any closer to you. In fact, I feel worse than ever!  How could this have gone so wrong? I can't see any way out.  Help me!"  (p 22) 

It's been seventeen years since I lay sobbing on the floor of that apartment. Today, I wouldn't trade my relationship with God for anything. In fact, I would wish my relationship with him on everyone! Through my desperation, my surrender to God for real answers, and my willingness to leave behind everything I had presumed before, I was introduced to the "naked" gospel. (p 23)

Maybe you can relate though your story may have different details.  It's a story we hear every week at Grace Life International. Christians living in a state of "have to Christianity" instead of "want to Christianity."  And the solution is that same "naked gospel" with no man-made additives.   We share this to help other Christians experience the internal rest God always wanted us to have from the start.  After all, we are human beings, not human doings!

Andrew Farley has written four other books, is a pastor, a nationally known respected teacher, and has his own radio program on Sirius XM radio.  He will be the keynote speaker at Grace Life International's 20th Anniversary Celebration on October 3rd.   I invite you to be our guest that evening.  You will not only hear him speak but will have great fun as well.

To sign up and for more information, Click Here

Believe it! It's the Gospel.

Live Free In Christ,

Mark Maulding, President and Founder

www.GraceLifeInternational.com All Content Copyright © 2015 Mark Maulding but feel free to pass it on!

Crucified: Sin is Not Your Master

Several years ago, I was praying for our Father to provide another car.  My transmission was going out and I needed another car for all of my ministry travels.  After speaking to a Sunday School class, someone called me who had been there and said, “I think God wants me to give you my car.”  I replied, “I think He does too!”

When I picked up the car and was driving home, I noticed an envelope in the arm rest.  When I opened it, to my surprise there was $500 to pay for my tag and taxes!  I had been given so much more than I realized when this man gave me his car.

The Gospel is that way, too.  When we received Christ, we got so much more than we may realize even now.  One of those blessings is that we died with Christ so dramatically that sin is no longer our master.  Romans 6:7 says, “For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin.” NLT Sin here does not refer to “sinning” but to a power that once ruled over us before our death with Christ.

Why does this matter?  First, the tempting thoughts you have cannot originate with you.  They will sound like you with personal pronouns such as I, me, my, mine but they aren’t from you.

Second, you now have a choice.  You can either obey the thoughts Sin inserts in your mind, or you can obey your new Master, Jesus Christ in you.

The next time you are tempted, remind yourself that Sin is not your boss! Jesus in you is!  Listen to Him!

Live Free In Christ, 
Mark Maulding, President and Founder 
www.GraceLifeInternational.com 
All Content Copyright © 2014 Mark Maulding but may be shared with others!

Grace for the Legalist

    When I was a legalistic Christian, I understood grace to be the power God gave me to obey the 10 Commandments. Rather than grace being relational, it was the power to keep the rules. This stinking thinking meant that the more rules I kept, the more pleasing I would be to God. The more pleasing I was to God, the more I believed He would bless me for my obedient performance.     

  

   I was so much of a legalist, I believed I needed to obey the dietary laws of the Old Testament in order to please God. I recall one time when Ellen and I were first married, we were on vacation at her grandfather's beach house. We went out to eat at the local seafood restaurant only to realize that every item on the menu was forbidden by the Old Testament dietary laws. We left frustrated, angry and hungry!

   When I had a revelation of Christ in me and my identity in Christ according to Galatians 2:20, I experienced incredible healing and freedom. However, I also believed that I now had the power to keep the 10 Commandments and couldn't understand why I kept failing at it. This is the exact same thing  the Apostle Paul wrote about in Romans 7:14-25. Here he shares his own testimony of his habitual faliure to keep the law in his attempts to stop sinning.

   God continued to reveal more of what the entire Gospel really was and I soon began to see in the Scriptures that Christians have zero obligation to keep the 10 Commandments. Not only can it not save a person, it cannot prevent a Christian from sinning, nor can it help them grow spiritually.

   Romans 7:4 says that when Jesus died on the cross, we were united to Him so that we died to the Law with Him. If you die to something, it means that you no longer have any relationship to it. For example, if I died today, I would no longer be obligated to keep the laws of the United States.

   2 Timothy 1:9 says, "Realizing the fact that law is not made for a righteous person." The only righteous people are those in Christ. That means that the 10 Commandments are not made for us. Instead of the Law, we are now under grace.

   As I understood this, my freedom grew. My intimacy with God grew. My love for people grew. My freedom over sin's power grew. And I even lived a life more pleasing to God than when I had lived under the Law. Grace transformed this legalist into a gracist!

   To all the legalists out there, God's love and grace is what you need and really want deep down. You just may not know it yet. Your Father loves you and His grace has placed Christ in you and you in Christ. Let go of legalism and embrace grace. It may feel strange at first but it's the only way to live a victorious Christian life!

Live Free In Christ, Mark Maulding, President and Founder www.GraceLifeInternational.com All Content Copyright © 2013 Mark Maulding

Free to Live a Life that Pleases God

   If you previously burned out because of religious legalism, you may think that phrases like "pleasing God" are no longer necessary. In fact, you may consider the very idea of pleasing God simply another form of legalism. I understand what you mean. I, too, was a casualty of legalism, burning out emotionally, mentally and physically. It got so bad that when I read my Bible, my stomach hurt because I was focused on all the things I wasn't doing to please God that I thought I should be doing. After I began experiencing the freedom we have in Christ, I struggled with the idea of pleasing God because of my previous motivation. My incomplete understanding of the Gospel had tricked me into trying to please God so He would accept me more.

   Paul fiercely defends our freedom in Christ in Galatians. In fact, 5:1 says, "It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery." Our freedom from obligatory law-based obedience is clear. We must never go back there. On the other hand, we may be tempted to use our freedom for selfish motives which can actually be destructive. Galatians 5:13-14 warns against this saying, "You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other."

   It is incredibly easy to confuse pleasing God with earning God's acceptance as I once did. That is why we are so passionate at Grace Life International about helping people gain a greater understanding of the Gospel. The Gospel of grace is clear that God unconditionally accepts all who are in Christ because He has made us righteous. That is settled. When the Holy Spirit turns the light on so we see we are in the room of grace, it frees us to live a life that pleases God from acceptance not for acceptance.

   Here is the New Covenant or Gospel expression regarding this. "So we make it our goal to please Him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it." 2 Corinthians 5:9.

   If one of my three sons said "Dad, you are a great father and I really love you", I would enjoy that. But if I later said, "Son, I want you to take out the trash" and he said, "I'm not going to do it because I know you love me", I would wonder if his declaration of love for me was genuine. When we love someone, we want to please them, especially our Heavenly Father.

   As you read this, you have some choices to make regarding living a life which pleases God. You can dismiss it as legalism. You can do it to try to get God to love and accept you more. Or being confident of God's acceptance, you can let Christ live through as you, to live a life which please God, demonstrating your love for your Abba Father.

   We are free through God's grace to live a life which pleases God. How else can we, who have a new nature from God, express the very life of Christ in us?

Live Free In Christ, 

Mark Maulding, President and Founder 

www.GraceLifeInternational.com 

All Content Copyright © 2013 Mark Maulding

How to Have Enough Faith

     If I had enough faith, I would be healed!   If I had enough faith, God would give me a lot more money! If I had enough faith, I would not be depressed! If I had enough faith....You fill in the blank.

     How many of us have heard that if we have enough faith, God would have to come through and bless us in some way. I have and years ago I fell into the deception. And like many of you, I came away feeling disappointed, confused and guilty. I concluded, "I must not have had enough faith". Have you been there?

     A good friend of mine, went down that road with her husband who had cancer. She believed every promise she could believe about his healing. She did not waiver. Yes, he received medical treatments but over time he progressively got worse. The day he died, she was so resolute in her faith, she was certain God was going to raise her husband from the dead. Yet, God did not do this. I don't know that I have ever met anyone who believed God more diligently than she did. Like many of us, in the end, she was confused and befuddled.

     This teaching that if we only have enough faith, God will somehow bless us is a form of legalism.   It is simply a different flavor of it. The essence of legalism is if we do A, then God is obligated to do B. It is sort of like playing a slot machine. If I believe enough, my faith will pull God's arm down and I will win a big prize.

     Because we live under grace, I believe there is a different way to approach God's promises. First, let me say loud and clear, we are to believe in God's promises 100%. But here is where being under grace takes the pressure off of us and our relationship with God. As we are believing God's promises, we then take any course of action regarding His promises that He leads us to take.  Finally, we leave the results up to God.  

     Do you sense the freedom of this?  Every Christian has enough faith to believe God's promises.  We may not always feel like we believe, but we cannot trust our feelings.  The results of our faith are not up to us having enough faith but up to God Himself.  Read Hebrews 11 about those who had faith.  Some received the fulfillment of the promises they believed.  Some did not.

Until next time, remember, He loves us!

Live Free In Christ, 

Mark Maulding, President and Founder 
www.GraceLifeInternational.com
All Content Copyrighted © 2012 Mark Maulding

Do You Live by Principles or a Person?

Many years ago, when the earth was cooling, I was sucked in to the black hole of legalism. I was in love with Jesus Christ as a teen at age 19. A friend's mom invited me to attend a seminar with her that she just thought was great. What should have been a question for me to consider was the fact that she seemed always to be depressed.   But, with no one to mentor me, I paid my fee and went to this large arena for an entire week.

Day after day, I heard that God has hundreds of principles in the Bible that He expects us to live by.   If we are having struggles in any area of our life, it is because we are not practicing God's principles.   It was very convincing as story after story seemed to validate that we really are bound by God to live by principles. Little did I know that I was being ambushed by legalism. I had a great zeal for Jesus but no understanding of the gospel of grace. It reminds me of the scripture, "My people perish from a lack of knowledge." (Hosea 4:6)

If we fast forward, by the time I was 30 years old I was a mess. For over 10 years I was so passionately focused on obeying God's principles, that I lost sight of my first love, Jesus Himself.   The results for me were large doses of depression, discouragement and eventually disillusionment.   I finally burned out totally.

Our story with God is supposed to be written with the ink of love.   When it is not, we can drift into living by Biblical principles and completely miss the relationship God has always intended for us to have.

The good news for me is  that God's love for me was and is much greater than the deception I had embraced. When I could no longer do the principles, our awesome loving God met me, bringing me back into a deeper way to the love relationship I experienced when I was 19. This time, I knew enough about the gospel of grace to leave legalism forever.

I am not saying there are not principles in God's Word. He has the best way to live in our marriages, to manage our finances, etc. But those are only doable when we are living from the relationship with the one who loves us and lives in us, the person of Jesus Christ who is our life!

How about you? Are you drawn more towards principles or the Person who lives in you?

               Until next time, remember, He loves us!

Live Free In Christ, Mark Maulding, President and Founder
GraceLifeInternational.com

 All Content Copyright © 2012 Mark Maulding