The Better Christian I Became, The Further From Jesus I Felt

A closer look at the surprising tension between spiritual achievement and spiritual transformation

Photo by Joel Muniz on Unsplash

The longer I’m a Christian, the less interested I am in being a good one.

That probably sounds strange, perhaps even a little heretical. After all, isn’t becoming a better Christian supposed to be the goal?

Yet the older I get, the more I notice that Jesus seemed remarkably comfortable around people who knew they weren’t good enough, while reserving his harshest words for those who were convinced they were doing just fine. Which makes me wonder whether we’ve sometimes confused following Jesus with trying to impress God.

That’s why these words from Rachel Held Evans resonate so deeply with me:

This is what God’s kingdom is like: a bunch of outcasts and oddballs gathered at a table, not because they are rich or worthy or good, but because they are hungry, because they said yes. And there’s always room for more.”

• Rachel Held Evans

I wonder, what part of the above quote stands out to you? For me, it’s the part that says “not because they are good.”

One of the main points that Jesus made about all people is that none of us is more worthy than anyone else. We all have infinite dignity and worth just because we exist.

The great truth of the creation story in Genesis 1 is that humanity has been made in the very image of the Creator. We all have the divine fingerprint in our DNA. Nothing we’ve ever done, nothing we’ll ever do, can influence God to love us more or think more highly of us. The unchangeable fact is that God delights in you simply because you exist.

I remember many years ago when a good friend of mine became a father for the first time. He told that me that when he looked at his newborn son, he felt so proud of him. His son was merely days old and hadn’t done anything to merit his worth to his father. But his father was still unbelievably proud of him.

Often, we try to be good out of an insecure attempt to impress God. But the good news that Jesus’ followers realized was that when you haven’t done any good, when you’ve been a tax collector or a prostitute, or been caught in the act of adultery, or caught lying to your spouse again and you feel shame because you think you’re not good enough for God, it’s then that we need reminding that we’re still welcome at God’s table.

If you’re anything like me, you might suffer from impostor syndrome. But the good news is that when you’re convinced that if the people closest to you really knew what was going on inside you they would surely abandon you, so you hide your failings from them, it’s then too that we need reminding that we’re still welcome at God’s table. Even moreso, we need reminding at those times that Jesus has a special spot reserved for people like us.

That’s why one of Jesus’ shortest parables, probably the shortest, is also possibly the most powerful. The parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee in Luke 18 says it all about the acceptance and graciousness of God. When the tax collector beat his chest and howled, “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner”, God wrapped his arms around him and said, “It’s ok; I love you son”.

Photo by Jackie Hope on Unsplash

The verse that sums up the Christian message

Probably my favorite verse in the whole Bible is 1 John 4:19 — we love because God first loved us. When we love out of a full tank, out of a deep knowing that we have inherent worth, it’s then that we can truly love.

The American author, Keith Giles, says this about living out of a sense of the deep love of God for us:

“What Jesus wants us to do is to stop trying to live for Him and start allowing Him to live in us. Until Jesus is alive in you — living and breathing within — you are not really alive anyway. Remember, Jesus told us: ‘Apart from me you can do nothing’ (John 15:5), and we are told that ‘Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God, does not have life.’ (1 John 5:12). So, let’s not ask ourselves ‘What can I do for God?’ but let’s ask, ‘What could God do through me if I was totally and completely surrendered to Him?’. That’s the Gospel of the Kingdom: One life totally surrendered to His rule and reign.”

Trying to be a good Christian to impress God doesn’t work. It never has and it never will. In Romans 6, Paul encourages his readers to present themselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life. It’s about living out who we already are. It’s letting Christ work through us and not playing the guilt card on ourselves. Freedom in Christ means not having to strive to be good in order to impress God. It’s about trusting that you’re already inherently loved, and relaxing in that. As another Christian author, Frank Viola, says,

“The Christian life is becoming what you already are. It is not working towards victory, it is working from it.”

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There are no “good” or “bad” people

Nothing you can do can make God love you more or convince God to love you less. That’s what we humans tend to do, so we categorize people into overly simplistic labels of good and bad.

Keith Giles adds that,

“we tend draw the line between good people and bad people. If we do good things, God will accept and love us, but if we do bad things then God will hate us and punish us. But…Jesus never drew those distinctions between good people and bad people. Instead, Jesus seemed to always draw a distinction between proud people and humble people.”

What matters, then, is not “being good” or “being bad”, but coming to God with humility.

I don’t know about you, but I reckon that’s good news for the person who struggles with a sense of unworthiness. As Paul says in Romans 5:20, where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. So much of evangelical church culture is about sin-management. We think we’re being all holy and close to Jesus when we’re like that, but we’re actually being just like the Pharisees.

The Gospel of Jesus is not about performance-based religion or spirituality. It’s about grace-filled peace. That’s why Jesus invited those who saw themselves as unworthy, who were weary and heavy laden, to come to him and relax in his goodness. As the author, Rob Bell, says,

“Your deepest, darkest sins and your shameful secrets are simply irrelevant when it comes to the counterintuitive, ecstatic announcement of the gospel. So are your goodness, your rightness, your church attendance, and all of the wise, moral, mature decisions you have made and actions you have taken.”

So, stop trying to be a good Christian. You’re not impressing God at all. God is already impressed with you.

As I write this, the words of the beautiful Psalm 23 come to mind: God invites you to lie down in green pastures, leading you beside still waters and restoring your soul. That’s the place out of which we can live with energy and passion for a world that is in dire need of it.

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