I was reading a book written by Dean Sherman (his website is still under construction) and in it he was talking about the gift of attraction. If you have ever heard him speak you know that he has a way of making the profound quite simple in a very funny way. He made light of the fact that many Christians reading the book might become a bit shocked that he would talk about physical attraction as a gift from God, because we are so often taught that attraction equates with lust and therefore is a sin. This got my mind whirring away about how we pervert God’s gifts and what causes us to do so.
I believe the root cause is legalism, whose root cause is pride and the idolatry of self – in other words, rejecting God to worship oneself.
God saves us. That’s the gospel in a very small nutshell. To explain it a little bit more, God saves us through faith in Jesus Christ. More? God so loved the world that He gave us His only Son, Jesus, through death on the cross, that we who believe might have eternal life. And, even our belief in Jesus is a gracious gift from God.
No matter how much I expand on the above good news, it never includes any action on my part except belief (which then of course spurs action), and even that very belief comes as a gift from God. Why is that so important??? Because of the first three words of my explanation of the gospel – “God saves us.” I cannot, and never will, save myself.
Unfortunately, humans tend to misunderstand and pervert the ways of God.
“It just can’t be that simple!” thinks the individual seeking God’s love.
“If we don’t make rules for people they will do whatever they want,” believes the pastor.
“I don’t deserve it!” cries the sinner.
“I surely must do something and make others do so as well, or else God won’t love me,” thinks the priest.
So, we begin to add to the gospel. It may start slowly, but it grows. And it might not be said overtly, but ask any young person in churches across the world today what is demanded of them in their church to be a “good Christian” and you will get answers like these:
“I have to dress a certain way. I can’t have tatoos.”
“You have to go to this church and be baptized. Everyone else is missing the boat.”
“I can’t cuss. I can’t drink. I can’t watch R-rated movies.”
“I can’t be attracted to girls [or boys]. I can’t look at girls [or boys]. It might make me sin.”
“I’ve got to pray a lot and read my bible a lot and stay clean cut.”
Thinking about this idea of attraction, I definitely remember what I felt when I was a teenager and what I still feel today. And, it becomes easy to make rules for others and ourselves that say things like (1) I won’t have a friend of the opposite sex; (2) I won’t look at a girl who is dressed provocatively; (3) I won’t watch any movies that might contain nudity; (4) I won’t go on the internet unless someone else is in the room; (5) I won’t be attracted to anyone but my wife, and so on indefinitely. I can make up rules to try to keep myself from lusting.
BUT, what you begin to see in those rules is something very interesting. The rules are literally rejecting gifts that God made. God made two sexes and made physical attraction. God gave us the creativity to make this amazing technology called the internet that links people all over the world to one another and to vast sums of knowledge. God created us to relish relationships and to love Him and one another, without regard to gender. As we begin to write laws for ourselves that go beyond God’s grace, we literally reject His gifts and pervert what He has made for holy purposes.
Consider this scripture from Galatians:
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!
Galatians 1:6-9.
We need to receive God’s gifts, believing that He is the source of all good things and of love. When we really believe that it results in a love response to Him. Rules fall away and in their place we can act upon our love for an amazing and all-loving God. If we don’t really believe He is the source of all good things or that we must do something to earn His favor, then we are rejecting Him and building a religious system unto ourselves. And in that there is no hope.