Are you afraid to be joyful? I think many Christians are. They may be afraid to be considered fanatical or too charismatic. Now “fanatical,” while it may have a legitimate meaning (there are always those who are going overboard in one direction or other), is also a word that has kept many from a serious devotion to Christ . My advice is that before you label anything “fanatical,” you ask, “Why?”. If something is genuinely over the top, it is usually because it takes some specific, often legitimate, human impulse to the extreme. I have found analyzing it helps me not only avoid throwing out the appropriate part of the impulse, but enables me to have a better idea what the error is so I can avoid it myself and explain to others how to avoid it. As for being “too charismatic” (I have been called that; I survived), “charismatic” is principally a theory on spiritual gifts, but has come to speak more of runaway emotion. Now I would agree that allowing yourself to be ruled and guided totally by emotion is a bad thing. But there is a great danger of falling into an error at one extreme by running away from the other. To say that emotion should not be the fundamental focus of the Christian life is not to say it has no place in it.

Outside of the teaching of the Word of God there are only two arguments for the sinfulness of human beings. All of human history and all of human experience. We try frequently to evade this conclusion by grading on a curve. But God does not grade this way (Romans 3:23; Matthew 5:48; James 2:10). However, there is a deeper question here: why is it we as human beings fall short of God’s standard? But more than that, we even fall short of our own standards. What person who has more than a rudimentary idea of right and wrong can say they honestly consistently live up to it? So what are the possible explanations for this?

God has called genuine Christians to be one (John 17:20-23; Philippians 2:1-2; Ephesians 2:11-22), but how do we carry that out? The main idea does not seem to be to get together in one organization; it is an attitude of heart (Philippians 2:3-11; Colossians 3:12-14; Ephesians 4:1-6). Also, the Christian church is not an organization but the body of Christ, to which all genuine believers belong (Colossians 1:18; Romans 12:4-5; 1 Corinthians 12:12-14). Nonetheless, it is hard to believe the present divided state of the church is in accord with the Word of God (1 Corinthians 1:10-17; 3:1-9). But what can we do about it? It seems an incredible mess, impossible to fix. I remember once praying to God at a time when I was convicted on this issue and telling Him, “This is too big to do anything about, it is huge, it is a mountain” (you need to be very careful what you say when you are arguing with God). And I heard this quiet voice in the back of my head say, “I move mountains.” However, the question still needs to be asked, What should we do about the present divisions in the church?

God is with us, and He can bring us through. The issue here is not the question of whether a person can lose their salvation. I am convinced a person who is genuinely saved cannot lose it (1 John 5:11-13; John 10:27-30; Romans 8:29,30) and those who reject Him were not saved in the first place (Matthew 7:21-23; 1 John 2:19). But this is a controversial issue. I recognize many believe otherwise, and it is not my purpose here to deal with the arguments on both sides. But while it is one thing to hold that a person may, by determined rejection of God, reach a point where they are no longer saved, it is another thing to hold God cannot bring us through, whatever situation we have to face. Jesus said He would be with us always, even to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20), and when we gather He is in our midst (Matthew 18:20). We are told He will never leave us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). Also, He has given us His Spirit (who is God Himself) to be with us forever (John 14:16).

I have always been suspicious of experience. Part of that comes from living in Utah, where experience is frequently used as the ultimate appeal. Yet I have been told by charismatics that they envy my freedom of worship. How do I put that together? We need to start by looking at what the basis for truth is. For the Christian that must be the Word of God. But we need to start by stepping back from there because the unbeliever does not accept that. When we do, we will see that the basic message of Christianity is that God has invaded history to rescue us from sin, death, and hell. It is beyond the scope of this post to deal with the arguments for this event, but they lead me back to who Jesus Christ was and how do you explain the empty tomb. But if you accept that, it leads you to the one authoritative record of these events, the Scriptures. And once you do accept these things, they become the basis by which all other things must be judged (Isaiah 8:20; Galatians 1:8,9; Jude 3).

When we become Christians we enter into a new set of relationships. We become children of the eternal God (John 1:12,13). As such, other believers become our family (1 John 2:7-11). We also become ambassadors of Christ to those on the outside (2 Corinthians 5:20). But we obtain a new enemy, too (1 Peter 5:8,9). Far from setting the Christian in a position of safety and security, putting faith in Christ sets them in the midst of a battlefield (Ephesians 6:10-13). This is not what we want to hear. We would like to be told that once we have come to know the true God, the King of the Universe, everything from there on will be a calm and uneventful sail over placid seas into a safe harbor. Some would even try to maintain we can, on the basis of God being our Father, claim health, wealth, and a Mercedes in the color of our choice. But even those of us who reflexively shrink away from going that far can often still be guilty of painting the Christian life as some idyllic state where everything runs smoothly and we have minor bumps but no serious problems. However, Scripture leads us to expect trouble in this life (John 16:33).