The Gospel of I Can Do Whatever I Want

Part two of a three-part series on Spiritual Growth

Last week I published an article called, “The Gospel of Self-Hatred.” In it, I detail my experience with an anti-Gospel of trying to use negative self-talk and guilt-shaming myself to modify my behavior.

It’s an anti-Gospel because Paul literally says it’s that in Galatians 3:1-3.

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?
—Galatians 3:1-3

It’s impossible for us to grow into all that God wants us to be when we’re relying on our flesh to accomplish that task. Even when we’re using our flesh to drive us toward “presentable and good” behavior, it’s still a fleshly endeavor—which sets us up for a fleshly crash when we turn again towards evil and sinful behavior.

Anyone who has ever tried to “grow spiritually” through negative self-talk and guilt-shaming knows what I’m about to say—it’s terrible for you mentally, spiritually, relationally, and every-other-ally you can think of. In the article I talk about my own personal experience with this.

As a result, the temptation is to overcorrect into another form of an anti-Gospel, which we will talk about today.

Let me again set the stage with my experience.

After coming out of a Self-Hatred Christianity, I fell into the trap of an I Can Do Whatever I Want Christianity that left me drifting spiritually.

It wasn’t that I drifted far into Theological Liberalism.¹ Nor did I fall into grave sin. However, I did start to come to the conclusion that God’s love for me was so significant that I could do whatever I wanted. I, again, had a misunderstanding of God’s love and expectations for me.

I believed that because He loved me, “discipline” was mean, and He would never do that.
I believed that because He loved me, I shouldn’t face the consequences of my sin.
I believed that because He loved me, grace meant I could do whatever I wanted.

The self-hatred and harsh Christianity I was coming out of was far too “strict” and my heart grabbed onto a version of Christianity that was not “strict” at all. I wanted something so lenient that I could get by just feeling good about myself all the time.

This did not lead me into outright sinful behavior but rather it led me somewhere that’s arguably worse.

I all but stopped reading my Bible because the Spiritual disciplines were too “strict.” I stopped having devoted prayer times because, well, that was too rigid and legalistic too. I justified my lack of prayer time by saying, “I’m praying more throughout my day,” and I completely neglected extended periods of prayer or fasting.²

Put simply, I was doing very little to cultivate a relationship with God because I saw very little need for it.

There’s no condemnation in Christ…

God is always with me…

What more did I need to do?

But I was fundamentally missing the foundation of many of Jesus’s teachings. Those who claim Christ have a responsibility to seek Him and represent Him.

Point blank, when we are invited into life with Christ, there is a specific way God expects us to live.

There’s some element of God telling His people to be holy people in a myriad of places in His Word.³

Under the Gospel of I Can Do Whatever I Want, we believe that we can identify ourselves as one of God’s people without carrying out the responsibility of being holy people. This is simply untrue. God has made us holy with His blood, but He also expects us to live holy lives.

It’s common to hear people say, “The Bible isn’t a list of do’s and don’ts, but it’s about God wanting a relationship with us.” While that may be a helpful statement to soften someone toward a relationship with Jesus, it’s not actually a complete truth.

The whole truth would be to say, “The Bible isn’t a list of how to earn God’s love, we can receive that in Christ. It’s a book about how to follow Him and live faithfully to Him after He redeems us.”

We are so dang concerned these days that we’re going to be considered “rigid” or “too legalistic” that we’ve completely separated loving God and obeying God.

Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15)

Jesus says, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.” (John 15:10)

Jesus says, “You are my friends if you do what I have commanded you.” (John 15:14)

Jesus says, “I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit…” (John 15:16)

Jesus never disconnected a relationship with Him from the discipline of obeying Him.

Far too often, we disconnect those two things. But if we want to actually be people who abide in Christ’s love (John 15:10) we must obey Him. Claiming “God is a God of love and grace, so I don’t want to be too legalistic with my Bible reading.” Is actually a false understanding of the love relationship we have with God.

Jesus says this in John 15:9-10:

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.”
—John 15:9-10

We can learn from Jesus here (obviously). It was His own obedience to His Father that allowed Him to abide in His Father’s love. Similarly, it’s our obedience to God that enables us to abide in His love. It’s true, His love never runs out on us, but it’s also true that the only way we’ll actually experience that love is if we live a life of obedience to Him. And it’s important to note that this isn’t a legalistic thing or a works-based salvation thing. This is the reality of a relationship.

God loves us no matter what.
But our experience of that love depends on our faithfulness to Him.

We can know He loves us.
But if we live a life of willful disobedience, we will never really know what it’s like to be loved by Him.

We can believe He loves us.
But if we never devote ourselves to abiding in His presence through devotion and obedience we will miss out on everything He’s loved us for.

Legalism or works-based salvation means we are attempting to earn God’s love through our actions. The Gospel is very against that line of thinking, and many of us are understandably anti that. But a cheap grace salvation is equally as bad. Claiming salvation without a life to back it up is also condemned in the Bible.⁴ The Gospel is very against that line of thinking as well.

Jesus said, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

This means His call to us is to turn away from our lives, our kingdoms, our way of living, and turn towards His life, His Kingdom, and His way of living. Life operates a certain way in the Kingdom of God. When we turn to follow Jesus, the expectation is that our lives will operate that way. This doesn’t mean we all become robots, but it does mean we input certain practices into our lives.

Confession of sin
Dying to self
Meditation on God’s Word
Living spirit led

There’s no possible way we can say, “I’ll have the King but I’m not going to do what He instructs me to do.” That is an anti-Gospel and it’s one we should uproot from our hearts if we see it in any capacity.

It’s easy to swing the pendulum too far.

It’s easy to want to move away from shame-based Christianity and move into a version that allows us to live guilt-free and consequence-free, but that is not how Jesus operates in his kingdom.

But how he operates is so much better than what we could even imagine; it’s mandatory we do not miss out on it. If he was telling the truth when he told us that he was inviting us into abundant life⁵, then it is crucial that we understand his heart behind how we respond when we sin and what spiritual growth ought to look like for us. Which is what we will talk about next week in part 3.

I’ll see you next week,

Brandon

Photo by Jakayla Toney on Unsplash

1. For those who don’t know what Theological Liberalism is, here’s a basic summary. The article I’m writing has nothing more to do with Theological Liberalism.

2. I do think God used that season to teach me to pray on the go, but I was learning it by avoiding the discipline of prayer altogether.

3. Leviticus 19:2; 20:7; 20:26; 21:8; Exodus 19:6; Matthew 5:48; 1 Peter 1:16; 1 Thessalonians 4:7

4. James 2:14-26

5. John 10:10