Emphasizing Identity Over Behavior - The Ekklesia is Changing 05-28-2023

 There’s no way around it: what you do matters immensely to how people perceive (and receive) you.  As St. Paul said, "You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men" (2 Cor 3:2).  Those not yet awakened to their fully reconciled standing with Love Himself will read our lives, which are living epistles, long before they pay any heed to the scriptures we quote or even the God we adore.  Indeed, our lives often scream what the still small voice of Father only whispers.  For these reasons, how we treat people, and ourselves, is if significant importance.  So all that to say this: as you read what follows, may no one lay upon me a false charge of having no concern for behavior.  That is categorically untrue.  


But in our desire to see behaviors change we have turned the life-giving message of accomplished, reconciled grace perfectly depicted in the person of Jesus Christ as somehow secondary to human conduct; as a mere means to an end.  Oh yes, lip service is paid to redemption, reconciliation, the Spirit’s indwelling, and related concerns of our union with the Trinity.  Yet these are all taught as but servants of our true god, behavior modification.  In some ways we have made the ekklesia a glorified self-help program; ‘12 Steps to a Better You’.  Pastors no more shepherds of the flock but gurus of co-dependent seekers.  


When we emphasize behavior over identity, we are engaging in a form of narcissistic witchcraft that elevates the will and conduct of mankind over the word (graphe) and Word (logos) of God.  By harping on what people should or shouldn’t do, rather than boldly declaring who and Whose they are, the faithful live in a vicious cycle of approved one minute and disapproved the next.  The ultimate effect of this is isolation as the result of a false perception of separation from Father.   Unworthy, corrupt, useless, inconsistent, ever-failing are all attitudes of self-perception that flow out of this heresy.  


Behavior modification is the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Eat of that diseased sustenance long enough and you will, slowly but surely, poison yourself!  


But praise the Lord, the Ekklesia is changing!  A covenant people are awakening to a fuller measure of Trinitarian union and inclusion that cares far more about Whose they are than what they do.  Sermons are beginning to harp on your inherent worth and value as the beloved of the Creator, not rightness or wrongness of your actions.  By emphasizing nature over behavior, an empowered people are starting to perceive themselves through the glory-colored glasses of Oneness and belonging.  And this truth transforms them!  It heals to the core what the religious system was content to just haphazardly bandage up  week after week.  The triage model of ministry is being replaced by the superior approach of preventative care.  For you see, a healthy, whole person has far less need of the services of an emergency room than someone routinely consuming the wrong food (message).  


Lasting change comes from an increased awareness of Jesus, not magnifying our human failings.  


If we’re going to emphasize behavior, let’s keep it centered on Christ’s behavior…not our own.   


#grace

#ministry

#finishedwork

#Godislove

#AllMeansAll

#keepitsimplesaints

#lovewins

#ugma

#faithhopeandlove

#reconciliation 


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