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I spent last weekend at a camp in Maine, talking with people about a life in Jesus that is more than following religious doctrines or routines. Not all were impressed with my resume when I arrived. One person spoke out in an early meeting about how much she hated The Shack, even though she’d never read it. She said she had many friends who were following it instead of the Bible and it turned her off.

It would turn me off, too. Anyone who replaces the Bible with a work of fiction has some serious issues. But since I didn’t know any of her friends, to know if it was true and she hadn’t read the book, there wasn’t much I could do to help her. To her credit though, having been challenged by a friend, she came to listen to one session. Then came back for another, and then yet another. By the end she told someone, “Perhaps I need to get acquainted with the gospel again.” Both she and her husband gave me a big hug when we finished up on Sunday.  I love it when people are open to listen and not stay hunkered down in their bunker. So cool!

The friend that invited me to come and share at this camp told me a story that I don’t recall hearing before. A friend of mine (who you’ll hear from in an upcoming podcast) had recently moved to the area. He had heard about a Bible study he and another friend were helping to lead in a local church. Their study was on Obedience and they were going through all the action words of Scripture to help spur people on to a more serious relationship with Jesus. In the middle of the study the friend who had recently moved to the area leaned over to one of them and whispered under his breath, “You do know you can’t do any of this without Jesus, don’t you?”

And that’s how they found a new trailhead. That simple question worked its way down to their heart of hearts where two men began to realize how much effort they had been putting into a Christian walk that was exhausting, empty, and fruitless. They had bought into the idea that the Christian life is something they could do if they just worked hard enough. That question started them on a new journey where they would let Jesus live his life through them. That was a decade ago and their lives have been transformed. I met them early on and it was great to reconnect with them this past week.

Apart from him, we can do nothing (John 15). Even Paul said if anyone could boast about the flesh, he far more, and yet since he engaged Christ he put absolutely no confidence in his flesh (Philippians 3). We cannot live this life on our own, no matter how dedicated and radical we think we are. We can do lots of religious stuff, wearing ourselves to exhaustion. Many have tried and when they come up empty on the other side they begin to question whether or not God even exists. That’s not surprising because he doesn’t exist on the other side of our own efforts. He thrives where we cease from our own labors and let him make himself known in us.

I know it isn’t easy and it can be a disorienting process, especially in the first few years. It’s the opposite of what many of us have been taught. The hardest thing we’ll learn is to let Jesus do in us all that we cannot do on our own. He even has to teach us that. Christ in you! That’s the hope of your glory, not how wise or good you can be.

So, if you’re trying to do this on your own this would be a good time to stop. If you’re trying to build a relationship with God, this would be a good time to stop and ask him to show you how he is building one with you. And if you need some encouragement sorting through that, check out the Engage videos on this website. I made them a few years ago to help people relax into the relationship God desires with you, even more than you desire it for yourself.

You do know you can’t live this life without him, right?

May 3 does seem a bit late for spring to arrive. But we were in upstate New York after a brutal winter. Four days before we were watching snow flurries.  A day before Sara and I had taken a walk and commented on the dark, grey trees that lined the horizon. It was May, and there was not even a hint of green among the trees.

The next morning, however, as we drove Sara to the airport to begin her journey home, we were amazed how spring had arrived overnight. All the trees had popped and the, fresh green leaves of new growth shaded the country side in a beautiful shade of spring.  The rest of my time there, I got to watch spring wash over a region that had waited way too long for its arrival.

It reminded of an email I’d received a few months ago, of another spring arriving on a desperate soul.

About a year ago, I was struggling with a profound sense of feeling spiritually dead. We were attending a small “Bible believing” church and I was bored with the preaching and even more burned out from “serving.” I figured it was from a prideful heart and not “being in the Word enough” so I began diligently reading the Bible which led to questions, which led to searching and eventually back to Jesus. He guided me toward a number of resources out there, which of course I was told not to trust because these people didn’t have “sound doctrine”.  It’s a cliché but the only way I can describe it was escaping the matrix.

My husband and I were in agony about “leaving the church” and our pastor gave us the warning about following sinful desires of our heart, but we bravely and as quietly as we could stopped going. After that I found your ministry and wow! What a joy it was for us! My husband found himself saying, “I actually find myself loving people again.” I feel as if like you, we went through a pharisectomy. We very much miss the friends and community that was the best byproduct of our Sundays, but we are becoming more intentional about loving people in our neighborhood and really loving our children.

I know not all Christians experience the conservative legalism we did and God doesn’t have a prescription for His church.  Who knows where the Spirit will lead us, but I’m actually happy again and I used to think being happy meant I was somehow being sinful. When I ponder on God, I no longer feel this terrible conflict or confusion about His character, I only feel His affection and freedom.

What a story! I love to hear when people awaken out of the dreary despair of religious performance. Starting your pharisectomy is a lot like waking up to spring. To hear she’s “finding myself loving people again” and to “actually be happy again,” fills my heart with joy.

Of course we know that spring doesn’t really arrive overnight. Long before those trees burst into color on May 3, the sap was already running to the far corners of each branch and stem. One day, we could finally see it, but the process had been going on for a long time. I love that the Spirit was already drawing her into those realities before she and her husband found their way there and that anything I said had only helped affirm what God had already put in their hearts.

So if you find yourself today stuck in your own winter of your own spiritual discontent, don’t give up hope. The hunger Father has placed in you is doing its work. Just because you can’t see it yet, doesn’t mean he isn’t stirring things deep within your soul. One day it will pop out and your pursuit and patience will all be worth it.  This is in his hands more than yours. Ask him to help you relax in the moment as your own spring approaches. (If you want more detail about this process, it is the theme of my book about the vineyard:  In Season:).

It’s never easy to push away from religious performance, especially when others warn us not to and our friends no longer trust us. But it’s the road worth taking and you’ll never regret finding love and joy again.  If we could only learn to lean out of those things that make us restless, exhausted, anxious, or obligated to someone else’s expectations, and lean into those things that express love, hope, rest, and joy, we would find the journey far more engaging.

The sudden burst of spring, took my breath away. Hearing stories like this lady’s does, too. Can you imagine what it will be like when we awaken from this corrupt age into the full glory of what it means to be God’s children in a new heaven and a new earth?

Good Friday and Easter weekend are upon us.

And I returned home just in time from my ten days in Texas.  This was one of those wild trips where I met so many people and experienced so many awesome opportunities.  I did a video interview about my view of the church, and a future podcast interview with Tracy Levinson, who wrote a wonderful book, Unashamed, and appeared with Brad and I on three previous podcasts: Unashamed, Taking Shame out of Sexuality and Mutually Shared Selfishness. I also got to meet her husband, Bruce, and they graciously loaned their car to me for a week after I lost my driver’s license at LAX somewhere after I cleared security and was unable to rent one.

I also visited the George W. Bush Presidential Library, celebrated my birthday too many times with old friends and new, did my TEDx talk at ACU (which won’t appear online for a couple of months), and along the way watching God do some deep work in the hearts of very specific people. In addition, God may have found us a co-author to help with a new book I’ve been contemplating with a good friend of mine, called The Language of Healing, in contrast to the rhetoric of animosity and vitriol we see in our country and too many family relationships.  It was a fruitful trip indeed in so many ways. I always come away from such trips reminded that it’s friendships that make us rich.

After I returned, Sara and I spent an evening with a couple who have asked us to help them understand better how we live this journey. They are originally from Mexico and one doesn’t speak English very well. Because it was Easter week, we talked about the death of Christ and what it accomplished in God’s plan of salvation. They had never heard a non-appeasement based view of the cross before and it was a joy to watch their faces light up, and wrestle with the questions it triggered.  At the heart of that for me is always, Who did Jesus die for?

I grew up believing that Jesus died to satisfy God’s need for justice. God was so offended at the sin of humanity that to save us he had to exact our punishment on the most innocent human being who had ever lived. By tormenting his own Son to death, he was relieved of his anger and offense for our sins. If that saves us from the punishment we deserve, that’s still a good story, but it leaves us with a distorted view of God. It paints him as a Deity only sated by bloodlust.  That’s how many teach it, but honestly it so distorts what Scripture says and what God did.

That view has Jesus dying for God, when Scripture is clear that Jesus died for us. Those who teach appeasement, do so from Old Testament passages that see the Suffering Servant in incomplete terms. A fuller view of the cross can be seen in the New Testament by those who have been transformed by it and saw that it wasn’t truly about punishment, but curing humanity from the destructiveness of sin. They saw the cross as the basis of forgiveness, reconciliation, and opening the door to a relaxed relationship with the God who has always loved us.

Our relationship with God was not broken from his side. It was broken from ours. We’re the ones who sinned and fled into the darkness afraid of what God might do to us. But from the beginning he was at work from his side to restore the friendship he had lost and redeem us from the devastating effects of sin. As the deceived Creation we were estranged from God by our sin and shame. Jesus’ sacrifice was to reverse all of that. by becoming sin itself (2 Cor. 5:21) he was able to hold our sin before God as his consuming love “condemned sin in the likeness of sinful flesh.” (Romans 8:4)

Jesus didn’t die to satisfy God’s need to punish sin; he died so that sin might be destroyed in him.  Then, we could be restored to the relationship God had always wanted with us. The cross was about reconciliation not punishment. Sin needed to be destroyed, not humanity punished.

I love talking about this stuff with people who never heard of it before. As our friends said when they left that night, “This changes everything !”  Indeed, it does. And in ways they can’t even imagine yet. Now they will see God not as an angry deity needing to exact punishment, and one still needing to be appeased by our sacrifices or offerings today. Instead, they will see him as a loving Father rescuing his children from their helplessness (Matthew 9 and Romans 5) to sin’s power. They will know God is not one to be appeased, but one who holds great affection for his children. It’s a story that has changed my life and launched Sara and I on a new trajectory some 24 years ago.  If you’d like to hear more, I did over eight hours of teaching on this in Transition, which is available on this website for free. Also, Brad and I did a recent podcast on Does God Need to Be Appeased?

Now, don’t take that headline too literally!

I’m not. But I do hope it makes a point.

Before I get to that point, however, let me tell you how overwhelmingly grateful I am for those of you who recommend my books, websites, or podcast to others. Since we don’t do advertising here, word-of-mouth is the only way my books get passed along to new people they might encourage. Without that I’d keep writing to the same audience. Thank you for quoting them, reviewing them, or recommending them to others. Your willingness to pass it on makes a big difference in whether a book or podcast finds its way to those who will benefit from it. Didn’t most of you first hear of something that deeply touched you from someone else it had touched first?

However, the things I have written and said over the last twenty years were designed to help people discover a life in Jesus that is rich with his presence, and flows in love through them to others near them. I realize that God has given me a gift to put into words what he has already been showing others. Though they may not have found the words to verbalize it yet, they recognize what he’s been saying to them in words I’ve written. I’ve heard that over and over and I want you to know how much that has encouraged me—to know that some of the things on my heart have been woven into the fabric of Jesus’ family all over the world.

What I most hope for, however, is that those things become such a part of someone else’s journey that they no longer remember where they came from and share what they have learned in their own words, as part of their own story. Share as if Jesus had shown it to you because he most assuredly has. It may have been through the words of another, but when people actually begin to live beyond true principles and connect with him, they will incarnate his truth in their own story and not merely quote others.

That’s what I mean by Wayne Jacobsen needs to disappear. When people are excited about what they are discovering, it’s easy to refer over and over again to the person whose words or encouragement have helped them see it. “Wayne Jacobsen said…”, or Dallas Willard, or Brennan Manning.  It can be anybody, really. People who are not already partial to your story will grow weary of hearing that same name repeated again and again and will eventually be distracted from what you’re actually saying because they wonder if you’ve been brainwashed by some new guru. I’ve seen that look in someone’s eye as I’m being introduced to them. They are sick of hearing my name and we haven’t even met yet!

Now, I get why people do it. Some are not wanting to take credit for someone else’s thoughts. Others are blessed to find someone outside themselves to validate what they are learning.  “This is not just my crazy idea, I read it in Beyond Sundays.” Others are simply encouraging their friends to resources that were helpful to them. Unfortunately it often has the opposite effect of making it look like you’re just excited about another author as you chase down the latest fad. Wouldn’t it be better if you took the things you’re learning from Jesus and just shared it as part of your story? Don’t worry about crediting to me, even if you’re using my words. If they have resonated with his Spirit in you, maybe they were not my words to begin with.

I heard someone last week repeat a sentence I’ve often used without a hint of awareness that they were quoting me. They had obviously forgotten where it came from and had become part of them. I love that. Who it came through was no longer important; the truth it expressed was. I don’t need the credit and I’d much prefer that people see the truth as coming from Jesus, not from me. When your story makes someone else hungry and they are curious about the resources that have helped you, that’s a good time to recommend a book or author.

And let’s be clear here. I’m not talking about people taking other people’s words and plagiarizing them to craft books or sermons without attributing the source. I’ve had my words, stolen by others only to build their own empire. When you claim someone’s work as you’re own you’re only being advancing the kingdom of darkness with your own vanity and dishonesty.

But I hope my larger point is not lost. When something true about Jesus takes root in your heart, share it freely with others. The power is in what’s true, not who originally put it to words. Perhaps this is what John the Baptist felt when his own disciples warned him that Jesus was becoming more popular than he was. John’s response must have shocked them. He wasn’t threatened at all for he saw himself only as the friend of the groom, not the groom himself.  “The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete.  He must become greater; I must become less.” (John 3)

I love it when my input into the life of another person disappears into a deeper relationship with Jesus himself. I love it when they share about the cross or the nature of Jesus in their own words and with their own illustrations. That draws the attention back to Jesus to whom this kingdom belongs. He’s the one who wants to take shape in you. Discipleship is not a matter of following the wisdom or principles that someone else teaches, but of recognizing his work in you and following him as he loves the world through you. Don’t be in a hurry. This takes some time to see with our hearts into his world and his way of doing things. Letting him show you, however, is one of the greatest adventures of being human.

The fellowship I have with him is what I want everyone to experience and what I hope they pass on in their conversations with others.