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“And what it is going to cost you.”

“I don’t know that I thought of it that way, but now that you mention it I was pretty hard on him. I guess I

blame him for not being more consistent with the group and admitting his struggle.”

“Accountability is not for those who struggle, Jake, it’s for those who succeed.”

“But aren’t we accountable to each other?”

“Where did you get that idea?”

“It’s in the Bible, isn’t it?”

“Can you show me where?” John reached down and pulled a Bible off the booth seat next to him and

tossed it on the table.

I picked it up and started to thumb through it while my mind raced to find a passage. I couldn’t come up

with one. I even glanced through the concordance but recognized all those passages referred to our giving

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account to God, not to each other. “Doesn’t Hebrews talk about people being accountable to leadership in

some way?”

“No,” John chuckled, “it talks about leaders giving an account for the lives they touch. All the accountability

in Scripture is linked to God, not to other brothers and sisters. When we hold each other accountable we

are really usurping God’s place. It’s why we end up hurting each other so deeply.”

“How are we going to change, then? We’ve taught people that they grow in Christ by making a commitment

to doing what’s right and then following through. We need each other to help us do that!”

“How well is that working for you, Jake, or for the rest of the group?”

“Not very well, I’d have to admit. But that’s because people aren’t committed enough.”

“You really think so?”

I’d heard that tone of voice before and knew at least that John didn’t see it that way. I hesitated to answer.

“Do you know what all this commitment talk produces?” John asked.

“It helps people try to live better, doesn’t it?”

“It looks like that,” John shook his head and let out a deep sigh. “But it doesn’t work. We’re not changed by

the promises we make to God, but by the promises he makes to us. When we make commitments that we

can live up to only for a brief period, our guilt multiplies when we fail. Upset that God doesn’t do more to

help us, we usually end up medicating our guilt with something like drugs, alcohol, food, shopping or

anything else that dulls the pain or it creeps out of us through anger or lust.”

“Are you saying that’s what happened to Bob?”

“I don’t know Bob, but I’d say it’s likely. Did he feel safe enough to come and share his deepest

temptation?”

“Obviously not!” I shook my head in frustration. “A lot of our wives say we need a men’s retreat every month

to keep us motivated enough. I sometimes think they’re right.”

“Yes, it’s easy to come back on a high and keep your commitments for a few weeks, but what happens when

the glory of that fades and it’s no fun treating your wife like a princess or spending time with your children

when there are more pressing demands at work? You finally give in because nothing has changed on the

inside. This is an outward-in approach, based on human effort, and it just won’t work.”

“So you’re saying that our approach is only producing more sin?”

“For most people, yes I am. That’s why Bob doesn’t want to come and no one else does either. Even when

they are there, they probably aren’t telling the real story of their struggle. They would feel too bad about

themselves. Instead they confess to acceptable sins like busyness, anger or gossip.

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“That’s the worst part of religious thinking. It takes our best ambitions and uses them against us. People

who are trying to be more godly actually become more captive to their appetites and desires. That’s exactly

what happened to Eve. She just wanted to be like God, which is also exactly what God wants for us. It

wasn’t what she wanted that got her in trouble, but that she relied on her own strength to get her there.

“Paul recognized there are three roads in this life, when most of us only recognize two. We tend to think of

our lives as a choice between doing bad and doing good. Paul saw two different ways we could try to do

good—one makes us work hard to submit to God’s rules. That one fails every time. Even when he described

himself as following all of God’s rules externally, he also called himself the worst sinner alive because of the

hate and anger in his heart. Sure he could conform his outward behavior to fit the rules, but it only pushed

his problems deeper. He was, you remember, out killing God’s people in God’s name.”

“Yes, but Paul is talking about the Old Testament law there. We’re not following the law. We’re seeking to

live by New Testament principles.”

“No he’s not, Jake. Paul is talking about religion—man’s effort to appease God by his own work. If we do

what he wants he will be good to us, and if we don’t then bad things will happen in our lives. On its best

day, this approach will allow us to be smugly self-righteous which is a trap all its own. On its worst days it

will heap guilt upon us greater than we can bear. Your ‘New Testament principles’ are just another way of

living to the law. You’re still caught up in the process of trying to get God to reward you for doing good.”

“So trying to do good can be a bad thing?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“If you go about it that way, yes. But Paul saw another way to live in God’s life that was so engaging it

transformed his entire life. He knew that our failures all result from the fact that we just don’t trust God to

take care of us. As Paul grew to know God better, he discovered that he could trust God’s love for him. The

more he grew to trust God’s love, the freer he was from those desires that consumed him. Only by trusting

Jesus can anyone experience this kind of freedom and those who know him do. It is real freedom.”

“Won’t people just use that for an excuse to do whatever feels good and ignore what God wants?”

“Sure some will. Many already have. But those who really know who God is will want to be like him.”

“We have to have a standard, though, so people can know what that is.”

That’s when he dropped the bombshell that exploded every remaining preconception I had of this

Christian life. “Jake, when are you going to get past the mistaken notion that Christianity is about ethics?”

What? I looked up at him and could not get one coherent thought from my brain to my mouth. If it isn’t

about ethics, what is it about? I had been raised all of my life to believe that Christianity was an ethic for life that would earn me a place in God’s heart. I didn’t even know where to put this last statement, but he

seemed content just to let it hang there.

Finally I found something to say. “I don’t even know how to respond to that. I’ve lived my whole life in

Christ thinking this was all about ethics.”

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“And that is why you’re missing it. You’re so caught up in a system of reward and punishment that you’re

missing the simple relationship he wants to have with you.”

“How else are we going to know how God feels about us if we don’t live up to his standards?”

“That’s where you have it backward, Jake. We don’t get his love by living up to his standards. We find his

love in the most broken place of our lives. As we let him love us there and discover how to love him in

return, we’ll find our lives changing in that relationship.”

“How can that be?” Don’t we have to walk away from sin to know him?”

“Walking toward him is walking away from sin. The better you know him the freer from it you will be. But

you can’t walk away from sin, Jake. Not in your own strength! Everything he wants to do in you will get done

as you learn to live in his love. Every act of sin results from your mistrust of his love and intentions for you.

We sin to fill up broken places, to try to fight for what we think is best for us, or by reacting to our guilt and

shame. Once you discover how much he loves you, all that changes. As you grow in trusting him, you will

find yourself increasingly free from sin.”

“It sounds so easy when you say it, John. But learning to live that way would be the opposite of everything

I’ve been taught.”

“That’s why it’s called ‘good news’, Jake.”

I knew sorting this conversation out would take some time, and I hadn’t even sorted out the last one yet.

Which reminded me, I was mad at John. I wasn’t sure how to bring it up, but as I saw John start to gather

his things together, I thought I’d better get it in quick.

“Will this get me in as much trouble as our last conversation?” My tone had turned a bit menacing.

“Is this what Bob was talking about earlier? What happened, Jake?”

“Your little visit caused quite an uproar. Pastor Jim was angry because the short in the sound system kept

popping up during his sermon. It distracted him and he thought it ruined his message. I should have been

there to help fix it and instead I was giving a tour of our education wing to someone whose last name I

didn’t even know. That didn’t go over too well. I couldn’t even tell him where you lived. He was livid,

accusing me of giving some pedophile a tour of our children’s wing.”

“That’s quite a leap,” John answered calmly. I thought the accusation would anger him, but it didn’t even

faze him.

“I assured him it wasn’t true, but he asked me how he could trust someone who wasn’t committed enough

to be where he was supposed to be that morning. He exploded at me, John. I’ve never seen him like that.

We’ve been close friends for over two decades and continued that friendship even after I came on staff.

He’s loved me through my worst moments and supported me when others tried to tear me down. Now he

picks at everything I do and we don’t spend any relaxed time together.”

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“All of that changed after my last visit? Didn’t you tell me in the park a few months back that things were

already tense between you?”

I paused to think about it. “Now that you mention it, it has been going on longer than that. He’s been

difficult to work with for probably six months or more. He’s been distant and hardly ever responds to my

suggestions.”

“It sounds like something else is going on there.”

“Whatever it is, this just made it worse. He didn’t even like any of the changes I made.”

“Changes? What changes?”

“The ones you told me to make.”

“I didn’t tell you to make any changes, did I, Jake?”

“I got rid of that sign you didn’t like, about our church being the house of God, and that guilt-inducing

poster.”

John chuckled playfully and shook his head as if I’d just made an innocent gaffe. “I bet that went over well.”

“It’s not funny, John. A few days after I changed the bulletin board, Jill Harper, the lady who cut out all

those letters and made the poster at my request, came by my office. She asked what happened to the bulletin

board. I told her I was uncomfortable with some of the messages it gave out and wanted us to redo it. She

was furious that I had changed it without consulting her. I apologized, but it didn’t do much good. She

doesn’t want to talk about it anymore and I think she’s been spreading her anger to others on the children’s

ministry team. Many of them are upset with me too.”

“What about?”

“A few weeks ago I presented a new proposal to shift the priority of our children’s program to fit what we

talked about when you were here.”

“Uh oh!”

“Uh oh? I was so excited. I spent a lot of time and printed up a ten-page paper on how we could refocus our

classes and retrain our teachers. I was just certain they would be as thrilled as I to put this ministry on a

better footing. I listed specific recommendations about giving up our star charts and changing our songs to

be more grace-centered.”

“And?”

“They thought I was accusing them of being Pharisees. They said they believed in grace as much as anyone

else and told me they had all grown up with those charts, and that putting up stars gives children a feeling of

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accomplishment. I didn’t know what to say, I was so surprised. In the heat of the battle, I couldn’t even

remember what you’d said. The night was a disaster.”

“I can imagine, Jake. I’m sorry it was so hurtful.”

“I don’t even know what I did wrong, John. Life at the church was tough before. Now it’s a nightmare and I

don’t think the pastor has any respect for me anymore. My stomach is always in knots.”

“Jake, if you listen to anything else I say, listen to this: Don’t use our conversations to try to change others.

I’m only trying to help you learn to live in God’s freedom. Until they are looking for the same things you are,

people will not understand and you’ll be accused of far worse. You’re trying to live what I said without

letting God make it real in you. It won’t work that way. You’ll just end up hurting a lot of people and hurting

yourself in the process.” John slid off the chair and stood up, fishing some bills out of his pocket to leave a

tip.

“That’s for sure,” I said getting up with him.

John told me he had to get to the depot to catch his bus. I offered to drive him over to help save some time

for him and give me some time to finish the conversation. We kept talking as we walked toward the register,