what's in a name

Another sleepless night and I argued myself out of writing this during the night while the brain waves were over-active...hoping I would actually fall asleep. Instead I'm writing it now.

a friend of mine has a quote on his page that says "Going to church does not make you a Christian anymore than going to McDonald's makes you a hamburger." Just how much meat are we bumping into every Sunday, or even during the week? So my mind was racing all night defining a "Christian." Better yet, my mind went back to the bigger questions: Who is God? What is He like? What does He require? Is there a difference between belief and trust, and what does it mean to really surrender?

It's interesting, I remember sitting in church every Sunday as a high schooler, hungover, thinking "I know I'm not supposed to date unbelievers...and I like my party life right now...so what I'm really looking for is an apathetic Christian like myself. Any takers?" Pretty great right?

I'm listening to Andy Stanley's messages about the ten commandments again. He stresses the fact that the laws were not given as a condition for salvation, but as a confirmation of a relationship with God. They were given to His people. Catch it? They were already His people. Then why were they given? That's not what I'm writing about. :) But you can find it if you look. :) Anyways, Andy clarifies the 3rd law stating that "You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses His name." Now, in recent history we did the same thing that Israel did. They created other laws to secure themselves from breaking the law (i.e., not even saying "gosh"), and hence today we think it means "thou shalt not take the name of the LORD in vain." Well what is "vain?" Doesn't even really make sense for us today. We lost sight of what the commandment was really all about. I mean really, in a list of the 10 most important commandments and God is going to put "IN vain" at #3 above "thou shalt not kill?"

What the commandment really meant goes back to "misuse." DON'T ASSOCIATE GOD'S NAME WITH SOMETHING GOD IS NOT ASSOCIATED WITH. In other words, don't leverage the name of God in order to accomplish something God has nothing to do with. Don't use God to accomplish your means. Don't use the name of God to get your way. Don't somehow try to use God's name in order to do something that God has nothing to do with. That is misusing the name of God. For instance, if someone does something that gets them in trouble, but they use your name as permission--that's misusing your name. "Justin said it's okay" when I didn't say "it's okay" is misusing my name, improperly leveraging my name to accomplish something they want. Okay, i'll back off on the preacher language.

I'm not promoting legalism--quite the contrary. I'm promoting grace, but I don't promote the misuse of it. Even from the beginning of time we immediately look for the loop holes to get around His requirements, in His name. Remember when Jesus showed up, walked into the temple one day and, the maddest He got, He walked in to see them selling animals to poor people for a huge profit--abusing the laws so that they could obey God?

Where's this fit in today, and specifically how does this apply to what I started with? I guess I'm referring more to the excuses we make for the sin in our lives. I remember a friend saving my friend from a decision stating "that's not a mistake you want to make." There's a difference between mistakes and our consistent sinning. We often have a tendency to make excuses for our sin, IN HIS NAME. Have you heard this one: "it's okay because we're in love." "We'll eventually get married anyways." "God wouldn't give me these desires if He didn't want me to do it." Or simply, "His grace is sufficient." Well...unfortunately that's not what God says or desires.

I make mistakes. Lot's of them. So I'm not writing this to be arrogant and preachy. I'm very susceptible to temptations with the best of them. My bottom line is this: what's in a name? As I ponder how consistency plays into character, the more I realize how big the pursuit of it is. So what's it mean to be a Christian? Remember, He doesn't force us to be one. But if we call ourselves Christians, we represent Him, and we should know who He is in order to do it. Even the people trained to identify the messiah crucified Him. They missed Him entirely because they made a profession out of dodging the will of God and the name of God, and they missed Him.

This is why, if you're not a Christian, or you are but you're out there doing your own thing...maybe you got your system worked out, it's not uncommon. I did it, probably still do it. We decide who we think God is and should be--what God wants and what we want. We use what we think about God to get our way. We use God. We're not discounting God, but we're not surrendered to Him. And we've missed Him. And we might know it, but we tend to play games with it.

I guess I'm writing this because I lived there for so long. All of a sudden I realized "I have no relationship with God." I've missed Him. I've talked about Him, I've even talked to Him. But it wasn't intimate. I'm not willing to play the game anymore and pretend my sin is okay with God because it makes me happy. Game over. My life changed when I realized that to be in accordance with who He is, is better than anything the world has to offer. At the end of the day if there's no relationship, it's just religion. I'm done masking my sin with religion. Psalm 73. I don't just want to be a beef patty. *use of the word "beef" used loosely.

Pursue Him. He's worth it.