Re: Has Anyone Ever Heard of Radiant Life Church in Sacramento
Date: September 06, 2008 03:08AM
My testimony
About 10 years ago I was faced with a personal crises within my family. I soon realized that my life had gotten really out of sink, everything in my life was falling apart. My marriage was on the rocks and the relationship I had with my children was nearly non-existent. My Business had become my god. As I came to that realization I knew that my life was searching for something to fill that emptiness I had in my heart. So I surrendered my life to God. As I repented from my ways I realized that my anger was out of control and so was my language. I would pay attention to the things that would make God angry and soon I was tiptoeing around trying not to do the things that would make God angry. Some things started to fall back in line yet somewhere in this journey, as I look back at the last 10 years and I recognize that I'm not any closer to God than I was 8 years ago. Sure, I have been meeting each week for bible study & discipleship with Greg Huth... I can say that thru discipleship at Radiant Life Church I have learned this, and it has been reinforced thru the teachings from Tony Cunningham.
More Right Behavior + Less Wrong Behavior = Holiness.
I have been taught “You got to buck up, get your sin under control then God will give you a little more of himself, only then will be able to get closer to Him.” So I think “Ok I think I got it "More Right Behavior + Less "R" Movies = Holiness.” I read that we are supposed to be victorious in Christ! So I Practice more self-control! “Anger Management & Sin Management” I would hear Greg say “Why can't you manage your sin better Dan?!” My life Motive has been "working on my sin to achieve a more intimate relationship with God" Oh sure we can change our behaviors for a while but as we hide the sins we can't control, we are unconsciously inviting blame, shame, denial, fear and anger to become our constant companions. This theology of a more right behavior + less wrong behavior creates an environment that gives us permission to wear disguises and masks. It complicates the chain reaction of unresolved sin causing us to loose hope. This sin management thinking is breaking our hearts!
You see, I realize that in my effort to follow God I have come to that fork in the road. You know….One path leading to the right and the other to the left and there are two roads signs. One reads "Trusting God" and I think to myself, wow there is nothing to do but,… trust… and that does not look very heroic. So, I read the other sign and it reads "Pleasing God" and I say, Yeah, Yeah-Yeah! Well of course, look at all the stuff that he just did for me… and I am thinking about the cross…the resurrection and all the miracles. Well of course, that's what I want to do, I just want to make him happy… I want to please God. So I start down the path of pleasing God… soon I come to a huge building and over the door it says "striving to be all that God wants me to be". And I think well of course it's kind of like the Army….and then that old hymn pops in my head….Onward Christian solders…as I hum to myself. I reach for the door…the doorknob has the words "Self Effort" and I say to myself well of course this makes so much since, I just can't sit around for God. I have to get involved….roll up my sleeves and apply myself, no more sitting on the sidelines for me.…. so I open up the door and walk in. In the room there is a huge gathering of people and they are engaged in loud conversations and a hostess walks over to me and says in a quick manner "welcome to the room of good intentions" I look around and I say "wow I have finely fond my place! I'm in here with all these fired up people….Wow, we are going to do so much done for God." Then I ask "How is everyone doing?" and now, in looking back I remember how the room got so quite and I heard people look up from their conversations and say fine….yeah, were are doing fine… we are working on our recovery issues over here…were a bit liquid here but, we are fine…. The family??? Oh yeah…We are all just fine...then someone asks me "how are you doing? with a surreal sincerity" "Wow," I say, "I am so glad I have found this place and this group of people! Everyone is all fired up for God!"… "We are going to get so much done…I mean, yea I still have some anger issues and some things that I don't understand…I'm still trying to working it out. But now that I am here with all of you, its going to get much better. Yea I know ….I have some Hang-ups…. but that's OK…I'm now in here with all of you". Then the hostess taps me on my shoulder and hands me a mask and I look at it and she nods and I look at the group of people and they all nod and I put it on and….Yeah… I,. I'm just doing fine…just fine…yeah….just fine.
This is my life. This is who I have become. I still carry around the hurts of being offended. 8 years have gone by I have the understanding that some how the proof of godliness, the measure of being a fowler of Christ, the proof of righteousness, the proof of living the life of a Christian is found in how well I behave. Discipleship has become a place where I posture and mask. I can’t ask questions because it might be considered that I’m causing dissention in the group. And if I see something that just does not add up to the scriptures that I read but I’m afraid to disagree because I don’t want to be kicked out of this group. I can bolster up with a good teaching only to walk away with more condemnations, guilt and shame. In discipleship, I have invented new masks. I have the "Holy Man" mask and I have the "I know my Bible" and "I am the victim" mask. It is so easy to sit around with a bunch of guys each week and buck up listening to my teacher elevating himself meanwhile I’m justifying my condition. I'm in this room for years and I realize I really don't feel any closer to God that when I first got in here. It's like God is still over in some other group of believers or he is some other building. Or He only hangs out with the "inter-circle" of believers…and here I'm am with all my baggage still working on all my sin issues…the longer I am in this room the more efforts I see the people around me making. I see the leaders around me are bucking up being more spiritual all night prayers, fasting, going on out reaches, feeding the homeless….I can never match up and I can never get into to the intercircle. They are showing me what they have done to win the favor of God and other people. Telling me about how they are serving other people because this is pleasing to God and telling and showing me the sacrifices that they are making trying to make it into the Iron Man Christian Club.
This lifestyle of thinking has warped my understanding of love and it has distorted the pure love of God. Yes, I have bought into this life style of sin recovery, and its has allowed me to live in denial of my sins. You see it has allowed me to cover up the true condition of my heart. I can mask over my true situation keeping up my appearances trying to please people. This deceptive religious spirit it has been my best friend and have carried so well, and I have known it for so many years. It has blinded me, & deceived me. My life has often looked like this; I Sin…. Confess…. do good for a while then sin again, embarrassment, Confess again… Pray to God to take away the desire! I do good for a while…sin again, feel sorry, repent, ask for prayer, I ask God to deliver me from the temptation. More determination, I Set some boundaries…..Get tempted…a little victory…oops SIN AGAIN now even worse than before, shock, anger shame, distance from God, despair, confess again, repent, make new promises, get an accountability brother, sin again… feel miserable and ashamed Dissolution, doubt, guilt, shame, self-loathing, self-condemnation, self-pity, resentment at God, why doesn't he hear my prayer? Why doesn't he do something? More anger, then fear that I let myself get angry at God. Then real heart Confession, a real heartfelt one, and a since of cleansing. Ah , a new start. Things seem better. Yeah, Finally I've got this sin under control, Oops Sin Again. Desperate efforts, bargains struck, once-and-for-all healing. I really mean it this time. Sin again. Lose hope give up rationalize minimize, blame pull away, hide, judge others, put on a mask go past the sin again, and so on. That is my life, and I hate who I am.
This theology of pleasing God has consumed me. It has shown me that I need to somehow learn to cope with my issues. Learn to have external self-control. It breads an environment of comparing myself to others, that some how I'm not all that bad. Yeah, Yeah after all what I am doing is not hurting anyone else! I'm not like Charley Manson! I justify my sin becoming angry and impatient with others around me. I put others down, I am critical; I am like a ticking time bomb waiting to blow up with anger. I am so performance driven, the only love I have known is performance based love. If I do well others will love me, then I realize I love others the same way, if they do good to me then my love meter is on. Grrrrr I'm so incredulous, hopeless that love seams to be so empty. I'm so unresolved, I'm insecure, excessive and compulsive, I self-deprecate, I can go private and hide and when I fail, I feel like such a hypocrite, I'm insecure about my gifts. I am afraid of criticism and critic. Yet I can criticize others, I am impatient, I judged people in my heart and elevate myself above. I am often self-centered. I often make my wife feel less than more than enough. I still do not know how to pray very much or very well, I generally make promises that I cannot deliver because I want to be flattered and needed. I get dark and scared and then insecure I am frozen in my fear. I am so stinking tired of working on my sins and no one has told me that all my efforts of working on my sin is like re-arranging the chairs on the titanic. No one has told me that if I get one sin fixed there are 33 more wheelbarrows full of my sin to be brought in. In this room, good intentioned people have pulled me to the side and ask me are you really saved? Like maybe, it did not take the first, second or third time…maybe I was not sincere enough. Maybe they did not hold me down under the water long enough when I was baptized. Just maybe you still have a demon. The longer I'm in this room I see new people come into this room all fired up for God with recourses and they get welcomed with open arms. Eventually they get used up taken advantage of and then suddenly you look up….and ….you don't see them in the room anymore. I feel used up nobody wants me around anymore because they cannot take anything from me anymore. I look around at all the people in this room and what I once saw as determination, Fervor, sold out for God, sincerity and a desire to please God. I now see has become cynical & skeptical. Many seam alone and lonely, the conversations are shallow and one-dimensional, and if you look close enough there is a lot of hidden pain in their faces. People are in this room with so many hurts and they feel judged they are shamed.
As I move about in this room I see the inter circles of leadership, the outer circles, and the ones who don't really fit in, I hear wacked out teachings from the inter circles of Leadership, "Authority & Spiritual Parenting" and the lists of things that God hates. You got to buck up, be better, fix yourself with more motivational recovery meetings. I see many people here trying to get closer to God. Many people have began walking down that path of getting to know God only to get derailed by keeping up appearances and they are so tired disillusioned.
So frustrated, I have become so discouraged that I have stumbled out of the room and I make my way back to that fork in the road. To that road sign that reads "Trusting God". I look closely to make sure that there is not another road and there is none. So I start out limping down the path. I come to another huge building and on it are the words "Trusting who God says I am" and I see a doorknob that says "Humility" and then it all starts to come together. I walk into another crowded room and the hostess greets me and says, "welcome to the Room of Grace. How are you?" and because I have been in a room like this I say "I'm fine…fine….who wants to know" and the room is quiet. So now I feel judged, I am mad, and then I yell out "OK!....I'M NOT FINE!....I HAVEN'T BEEN FINE IN A LONG TIME…..I'M TIRED, I FEEL GUILTY MOST OF THE TIME. I'M CONFUSED, I'M SAD, LONELY AND DEPRESSED, HECK, I CAN'T MAKE MY LIFE WORK! I HAVE HANGUPS, HURTS AND HABITS THAT I CAN'T SEAM TO SHAKE OFF NO MATTER WHAT I DO. I SEAM TO MAKE SOME PROGRESS ONLY TO FAIL WORSE THAN I DID BEFORE. IF YOU KNEW, HALF THE THOUGHTS I HAVE IN MY HEAD YOU WOULD NOT WANT ME IN YOUR LITTLE ROOM SO THERE, I'M DOING……..NOT FINE!"
Then as I reach for the door I hear someone say from the back of the room "Is that it?...Is that all you got?......that's it? I'll take your confusion depression and bad thoughts and I'll raise you with habitual sin, compulsive lying and chronic back pain. Oh and I'm in debt up to my ears! Then the hostess nudges me and says, "What he means is you're welcomed here." And I am ushered into a room of people who are painfully real. And soon I find that this room of grace is a place where I can be real with the people around me. It's a safe place and as for working on my sins issues. It’s as if the Lord himself has come from behind that huge pile of my sin and is now standing beside me. He is looking at me, he is holding me, and He assures me that He loves me. He tells me Dan I love you even before you were born I have know about all of it. I have waited so long for this day to hold you here.. as he is looking into my eyes the shame and guilt melt away. I'm standing with God with my sin in front of me. He looks at the huge pile of my sin and he says, wow Dan thats is a lot of sin… And my shed blood is enough for it all. And now the longer I hang out with him the more and more my reactions and attitude start to change towards sinning. New wiring starts to connect, my motivation is not about what I can do for Him but simply, trusting him.
You see God has given us an example of how this works in his creation. If you take a caterpillar to a scientist and ask what is this? They will run all the tests and DNA tests and come back to you with these results. The scientist will say "What you have here is the complete perfect DNA of a butterfly, It may not look like one yet but it has simply not matured into what is all ready true about it, a butterfly". That's what we are, on the day we receive Christ and trust him is the day our DNA is changed. We receive the full measure of Christ. We mature by trusting Him. I realize that much of me has not matured yet, much in my life has not healed yet I can stand here knowing that even on my worst day it is Christ who robes me with his righteousness. Oh and this blessed assurance it girds up my feet so I can stand my ground. Knowing that I am just one of his children, my faith is strengthened. This is a message that needs to go out to all the hurting, dejected, abused, neglected people in and out of our body. We need to recognize what path we are on, what the room we are in, and we need to come over to the path of trusting God and to the room of grace. We need to extend the same grace that God extends to us to all the folks here in our body. On my worst day I am Christ in Dan Davis it is only thru his righteousness I am made clean. I can only trust him to continue to be my hope and my salvation.
You see in the room of good intentions we strive to change into something that we aren't yet, Godly. In the room of grace, we grow up and mature into something that is already true about us Godly. The first room creates a work based performance driven relationship with God and puts the emphasis on the efficacy of my effort. The second room places the responsibility on resources of God. God isn't interested in changing you he already has, the DNA is set. God wants us to believe that he has already changed us, so that we can get on with maturing us into what he has already made us. And trust, opens the way for God to bring us into maturity, without trust we don't mature because we are trying to change to become Godly.
So in trusting God he changes my prospective out of the relationship I have with him. I start to mature into what is already true about me because he already has changed me.
So if My Motive is Trusting God, Then My Value Will Be Living Out of Who God Says I Am, and My Action will be Standing with God, with My Sin in Front of Us, Working on it Together. I am allowing God to remove my masks I am now trusting God. I am living out of who God says I am. God wants to see his reflection in our face the problem with our papier-mâché masks is they don't reflect.
There are so many hurting, dejected, abused people inside and outside our Church body. I recognize that I want to extend the same grace that God extends to me.
I am praying for the Repentance, Restoration, Reconciliation, Restitution, Renewal and Rreturn to our first Love.
Respectfully submitted ~ Dan