Paul the apostle of the gospel of grace and peace wrote that anybody that didn’t agree with his particular take on his gospel should be accursed.
Well, while I don’t feel quite as brash toward today’s legalists as Paul did to the ones of his day, I did want to point out that apparently there was more than one “gospel” that was being preached. We at Mike Williams Media have made no secret that we preach a distinct gospel from the one that is widely heard and seen in our culture know as Evangelical Christianity (EC).
We preach a gospel of inclusion. EC preaches one of exclusion.
We preach of an all-powerful Christ. EC preaches a limp Christ, dependent on people making the “right” choice and then having the wherewithal to convince others to make a series of similar “right” choices. EC is “pro-choice”. MWM is “pro-life” — the life of Christ.
An acquaintance of mine recently had to resign as “senior pastor” of a 6,000 member Southern Baptist Church where I used to attend before being converted to the gospel. He had to stand with his wife before three packed services and admit to having had an intimate relationship with a woman other than his wife. I wished someone would have stood up and said, “you without sin cast the first hymnal”.
But he was being judged with the same judgement he had judged.
I ran into him and began ministering the gospel of grace and peace to him.
His EC church has these “love waits” seminars where they cajole young people into coming forward and committing “before man and before God” never to have sex before marriage. So, I asked the defrocked clergyman since Jesus had clearly equated thinking about sex to doing it, why they didn’t ask the teenagers to commit to not only not doing “it” but also to not think about “it” before they got married. His reaction, like so many others, was one of bewilderment. EC is bewildering.
The reason they don’t ask the kids to not think about “it” is because even they know it’s not possible. And who would come and pay for expectations so high that they were impossible? And yet that’s exactly what millions of Americans contributing billions of dollars do. They keep institutions financially afloat that preach that righteousness can somehow be achieved and maintained through a combination of human action and God’s will.
I say to this EC crowd, “BS!” (Maybe I am getting some of that Pauline brashness!)
Righteousness is a product of God’s grace and God’s grace alone.
The reason I believe this gospel is because I just was tired of being an illogical hypocrite. I was shown it was not expedient to hold myself and everyone else up to a standard that only Jesus Himself could attain. I was tired of being a judge when that was the job God had assigned Himself.
I believe THIS gospel because it assigns maximum honor to Jesus Christ.
For more of this gospel, click on www.gospelrevolution.com.
For Mike Williams Media communicating love,
Glenn Klein