Bargain Theology!
Are you a victim of “Bargain Theology”?
Bargain theology is that heretical teaching that God is waiting to fix your life if you just get it right.
You know, serve a little in church, do your quiet time, memorize Scripture some, pray a little, or give some of your money to Christian work.
The problem with bargain theology is that God isn’t bargaining.
He doesn’t want to fix your life; He wants to give you a new life–eternal life.
He doesn’t want the stuff you do for Him; He wants you.
He wants to change you on the inside and launch you into a messed up and hurtful world.
It’s called grace, and it’s not a bargain.
It’s free.
But it’s not to make you a little better, a little happier, a little more Republican.
It’s to give you what you need to overcome the evil and broken places in your heart and to stand against the evil broken places in this world.
I can’t understand why more Christians in churches don’t get it.
I got it from the very beginning.
Oh yeah, maybe that’s because I didn’t meet Jesus in the stained glass confines of safe religious platitudes.
I met Jesus on the street during a revival.
We called it the Jesus Movement.
Do your remember it?
Hi Pastor Ed: yes, we’ve been involved with churches that preach bargain theology. They don’t understand the gospel and preach a false jesus. They often come as a package with a large group of ‘name it and claim it’ ahderents who beccome so disillusioned with ‘god’ that they leave the church forever, or seek out one that strokes their egos. For them there is now the emergent church, whose growth is largely fueled (imho) by fringe christians who couldn’t be good enough for the god they were told about.
So very sad, but all part of the great apostasy, and now one of my oldest friends is trumpeting Brian McLaren as the guru who will lead the ‘church’ out of the ‘wilderness’.
Time is short, I think.
tim holman
Sad, isn’t it? Grace is there, but the church hides it.
I like your message.
We think along the same lines….I think:
http://www.keeperofthevineyard.blogspot.com/
Shalom
I’m reading your blog and you’re right. We think along the same radical, sold out for Jesus lines. Blessings.
Home run! Great slugging with that awnesr!