As a past military chaplain, as well as a civilian who currently spends a great deal of time discussing theology with others, I run into one system of theology more than any other. Some call it Calvinism. Others refer to it as Lordship Salvation.
Whatever name it goes by, one of its tenets is that all true believers obey the Lord. Sure, they say, a believer might stumble on occasion. After all, everybody sins. But such failures are temporary. They will never be too bad or go on for too long. Nobody ever defines how bad “bad” is or how long “long” is, but the basic point remains: True believers will do what the Lord commands them to do. That is the kind of life every Christian will live.
It always amazes me that those who hold to this theology don’t see the problems with it. It requires a great deal of self-deception; one must be blind to the amount of sin in his life. He must be able to say that his sin is not too bad and that he doesn’t struggle with it for too long. It reminds me of an Iraqi leader during the war in his country. He was being interviewed as his country was burning all around him. But he told the newscaster that all was well and that Iraq would obliterate the US and her allies. That happened over thirty years ago, and he is still the butt of jokes. He has become a byword for somebody who is clueless about what’s going on around him.
I suppose all of us can relate to that situation to a degree. We can all deceive ourselves and become blind to the contradictions in our lives. We can see the things we want to see and ignore the things we want to ignore. Fortunately, such matters are rarely as drastic as the situations involved in a war!
Sometimes, however, we are forced to see what we don’t want to see. The Scriptures can do that for us. This is certainly true when we hold to the wrong theology.
Luke 6:46 is a case in point. If a person says that all Christians obey the Lord, Christ’s words slap him in the face. The King is talking to the disciples (v 20). He tells them to do several things (vv 21-45). I suppose some of these believers thought they were doing all of them. Maybe they concluded that while they might mess up now and then, it wasn’t too bad, or they didn’t sin for too long.
But the Lord strips away any such self-deception. He says, “Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things I say?”
Could He have made it any clearer that believers can disobey Him? When we read the things He commanded believers to do in Luke 6:21-45, it is clear that many believers do not do what He commands. He tells them (among other things) to be humble, to rejoice when they go through difficulties, to love their enemies, to pray for those who mistreat them, to forgive those who sin against them, to not be critical of others, and to see others as better than themselves.
Who can look at that list and say, “I have all those things covered. I am not too bad. When I mess up, I don’t do it for too long”? I can’t help but picture the Iraqi leader saying, “All is going great,” while Baghdad was burning to the ground.
Christians do not automatically live godly lives. If that is what your theology says, look around. You will find that you are trying to shove what you see in your life and the lives of others into your theology. It doesn’t fit. You are as big a joke as that Iraqi leader.
If you have believed in Jesus for eternal life, you have that wonderful gift. But obeying Him is not automatic. He Himself said it to His disciples. Go to Him and ask for His grace and strength to live a life that honors Him. If you do, you will be seeing things as they actually are.
