Can we truly be “real” AND be saved?

Just be ‘real.’

It is such a simple concept, and yet one of the hardest realities to actually live… being ‘real.’  I find that people who have been in church for years, cannot accept reality, and the younger people who are desperately searching for something ‘real’, can be so open to it.

My goal is to be real, while not losing sight of who God is.

Religion takes away who we are.  Covers it up and creates a persona of perfection that is false.

However, I find there is a tendency when moving out of legalism to not only be real, but to throw the baby out with the bath water.  I understand that when we have been indoctrinated so far to one side of an issue (ie. our behavior must be appropriate to be accepted in ‘church’) and we finally realize this is killing us, the knee-jerk response is to move as far from that position as we can.  So we move to what we perceive is complete freedom.  (Yes, I know this from my own life, as well as observing others).  The pendulum has now gone from one extreme to the other.

Now we no longer have to ‘behave,’ so we use our freedom to discover all the ways we can mis-behave.   We attempt to see how close we can get to the cliff without falling off.    I think in some ways this process can be helpful in loosing the grip of legalism, but it can be self-destructive when taken to extremes.  When we moved from an abusive and legalistic church, we found ourselves in a small congregation that believed you could “live like hell, and still get to heaven.”  We began experimenting with our freedom.  And I must admit, it felt really great.  However, over time we discovered that Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 6:12  to be true.

“Everything is permissible for me”—but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me”—but I will not be mastered by anything.

What can happen is that we create a new rule that says I can do anything.  Sure, but not everything is helpful, nor good, nor beneficial to us, and sometimes our freedom can harm others.  Some things can harm us physically, emotionally and spiritually, so we eventually find our way back to a middle ground that rejects legalism and religion,  and encompasses love and grace, while using some good old fashioned common sense.   I hope some of this makes sense to anyone besides me, lol!  I’m still stomping around in this issue, trying to figure out exactly where I stand on all of this.  It will take me the rest of my life to finish this journey, and I’m finally becoming OK with that.

But in this process we must reject the temptation to judge someone else’s walk.  It is simply not up to us to decide whether they are “good-enough” or “behaving enough” to be acceptable.  I have friends who land on either side of this issue.  Some who are bound up in religion…. and others who walk the wild side well beyond my comfort zone.   And yet they love Jesus.  Can that be enough for us?

This post started out with the question of whether we can ‘be real AND be saved.”  Absolutely.   I believe we can be real if we drop the perfection seeking, behavior management program that we ‘think’ we are supposed to be following, and follow Jesus instead.  More than this… I think we MUST learn to be real and authentic people, if we want others to be able to see Jesus in us.  I suspect that the religious cloak prevents anyone from really knowing us, and from seeing the things at work inside of us, and it is also an turn-off for many who are looking for something ‘real.’  Perhaps this statement is too strong… but it is where I stand at the moment.

I guess my entire point is this… we need to be real, authentic people who are so in love with Jesus that we spill that out over all the people around us.

Love God, Love People.   To me, that is the crux of the matter.

This was long… my apologies… but if you have thoughts, I’d love to hear them.