The Problem of Faking
Dec 4th, 2008 by ljkim
We talked about the problem of “faking” on Sunday. In the Gospel economy faking is the worst thing you can do in the church… When people fake love or fake niceness or fake depth or anything that has to do with God, even though it’s not malicious, it’s the worst thing you can do. Why? Because the Gospel tells us we’re sinful, unloving, self-centered, capable of being immoral when it suits our needs (i.e., when it suits our idols see previous posts) , BUT that God’s unlimited power is present to forgive and heal us of these things. Is there something you don’t care about that you “know” you *should*? Don’t fake care, but admit and confess you don’t care enough about it, ask God’s forgiveness, articulate why you know you should care, and ask God to forgive you then change you… and He will. In a world without God’s heart-changing (and world changing) power, you are limited by your abilities…but in a world in which God’s unlimited power is available to good work, you are only limited by how deeply you’re willing to confess, and not fake it.
Part of the problem is that faking is second nature to us. Don’t know what everyone’s talking about? Don’t know that Africa is a continent? The natural thing is to go ahead and fake it. Silly! But when it comes to faking it with God, it’s a big problem. “Faking” is at the root of every problem in the church. We fake forgiveness, we fake care, fake love, fake devotion, we even fake confession, fake humility…
“Sure we say we are God’s family, but you don’t mean we should really treat people like family…” “Sure we’re supposed to forgive enemies and love them, but you can’t really mean we should…” “Sure we will live forever in heaven, but you don’t mean I should waste this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity…” “Sure we’re supposed to give our lives to Jesus, but you don’t mean we really give up stuff…do you?”
It’s okay not to believe, or to be unable to forgive… It’s okay when we sin. We take it, confess it, and rely on God’s power to change us or teach us, etc… But what makes this impossible (undermines God’s power) is when we go on and fake it pretending we’re fine as we are… The person who never admit he’s unforgiving will never learn to forgive. The person who never admits she doesn’t really believe in eternal life, will never have the opportunity to be convinced. They will go on faking, unchanged.
G.K. Chesterton once said ‘the problem is not that Christianity has been tried and proved wanting, the problem is that it’s never really been tried’ (my paraphrase). The whole point of CityFellowship Community Church is, we want to actually try the real thing. No special slant, no gimmicks, we just want to do this for real, live as God’s family, love God, love our neighbors…for real… Confessing as we go, and relying on His unlimited power to enable us.
Anyway that’s not why I started writing this post. But I think it’ll have to wait…
[About the photo, here's another photo that has absolutely nothing to do with the post... Although that pumpkin being inflated does look kind of fake.]
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