Behavior Modification

 What has become of the glorious story of the redemptive power of the gospel?  I was lead to write about this subject due to a conversation that I was a part of at Samaritan’s Purse some time back. I have also been thinking about what is being passed off as the gospel by some of the pastors in America and whether it is the genuine artifact or merely a form of behavior modification. I am going to begin with some musings on the subject of behavior modification and why I believe that it is not the gospel that we read about in the New Testament.

First of all I need to explain what I mean by the phrase behavior modification and why I believe that this is something that is the result of Christianity but not the core of the message of the gospel. I would like to share a quick story to illustrate what I am talking about in regards to the subject. I was recently involved in the afore mentioned conversation at Samaritan’s Purse working on the Operation Christmas Child project. On the first day of the project we were all in a group and the team leader posed a question to us to answer. He wanted each of us to fill in blanks of this statement which was: I was once blank and now I am blank. The first step was to think about what had changed in our lives we were then asked to volunteer a quick testimony about the change. An important side note is that it was safe to assume that not all the people in this group were saved. Two people spoke up with similar stories about previous alcohol and drug lifestyles that they no longer are involved in. Both parties began to tell about how much of that life they were involved in. Essentially they began to tell what I like to call “war stories”  that seemed to glorify wretched behavior. Now at that moment I could not conclude if they were saved or not, of course to be fair I did not have enough information to make a conclusion about their salvation nor would they have enough about me; even if I shared a similar story. I must admit however I was a little troubled about there stories: mainly because I have heard similar stories from others that are no longer involved in drug or alcohol centered lives, but were clearly not saved. One of the reasons I was suspect of their testimony was the focus on their old lifestyle I have mentioned above. When the weight of one’s testimony is geared more towards who they were and not who they are now it makes me wonder if their really is a change in who they are now. The focus is more on the individual then the savior when you have a cavalier attitude towards old sin. The other reason I was concerned about the legitimacy of their conversion   is that over the years I have found myself steering away from my “war stories” because my testimony was not what I was but what I am now. Now all of this does not mean that these people were not saved because I certainly am not going to make an evaluation of someone based on what they said for 60 seconds. Nor does this mean that I think testimonials similar to this are void of value and antithetical to the gospel message.  However, these stories and some actions that I noticed from these two people since then made me wonder whether they were saved. It also caused my mind to think about a deeper issue about whether someone’s abstinence from certain sins was a testimony of Christ  or was certain sinful  behaviors merely modified.   Clearly the removal of these overtly sinful acts will happen when one has been redeemed by Christ. However, is this a causal or corollary relationship in regards to salvation. Let’s look at it not starting from the gospel but rather beginning from the change of a particular behavior. Let’s begin with two statements of fact. Fact one is that there are thousands of people who were once abusing drugs and alcohol (you can plug in whatever you want here in terms of the sin my focus is on man’s heart of sin not on drugs or alcohol) and no longer do so. Fact two is that not all of these people have been saved by the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore it is logical to conclude that the removal of the abuses of drugs and alcohol is not always the result of a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Now let’s beginning our thinking from the side of true salvation from the Lord Jesus Christ. All who are truly saved through the Lord Jesus Christ cease and desist from these lifestyles, meaning they turn away from the desires of old which is something a non believer will never do. Notice I said lifestyles and not particular sins, it is clear that all still struggle with some things that are sinful after salvation but they are not immersed in all the lifestyle that surrounds these sort of sinful habits, this is an important distinction because we do not want to be legalist and overexamine others because of a struggle that they have, but we may not have. To be balanced we also do not want to turn the truth of God’s grace into a lie by allowing all things into our lives due to an expectation that God will condone our behavior. In short we do not want to legitimize sin as something to be lived with. My point is that the abstinence from an outward symptom of sin in and of itself  is not always evidence of a transformed life but if the transformation by the gospel did occur you would not just see these things removed you would see other spiritual things in their place. Only the true gospel can produce a life that abhors these behaviors not merely staying away from them. However I will concede that  in the beginning of a believer’s walk  just the abstinence from the behavior is important, but it is not the source or substance of what has changed internally.

  The reason that certain lifestyles are appalling to the believer is that there soul has been awakened and grieved by sin for the first time. A believer is not just tired of the consequences they are tired of sinning against their master. This is deeply personal to the believer when they sin and the cause of much grief in their soul. This new found agonizing over sin is unique to the believer and an assurance of a changed heart. Therefore if one has stopped certain sinful habits and not grieved by all sin one can come to one of two solid conclusions. They are either not saved or they are not mature in the Lord.  Therefore the first conclusion that we can make from this is that salvation always produces spiritual change and grief about sin, but the removal of certain sin does not always assure one of their salvation.

The next issue is why I think the background information of the previous paragraphs is important to understand. This is important because the focus on peripheral sins and not the heart changed and grieved by sin can do two things that are equally damaging. For the non believer it can bring a horrible false sense of security that can have disasterous and irrevocable results for the one who is deceived in regards to their eternal resting place. Oh how my soul grieves for those who think that they are secure merely because a few things that are sinful do not hold them as they once did, but they do not grieve sin they merely grieve the pain that was caused by their sin and are now functioning members of society but not redeemed.  It is much harder to share the gospel with someone who already thinks they have it then to share it with one who never knew it. The damaging part for the believer is a dreadful focus on certain things in your life rather the spirit of God which is the only qualified candidate to change these things. For instance if the focus of your walk is not on the kingdom and God and telling others about that same kingdom you can enslave yourself to a life full of the agonizing over each individual sin and be totally  empty in regards to the spirit capable of healing you if that sin. It seems to be merely a difference in perspective for the believer, but it is vitally important to get that perspective correct if you desire a spirit filled life following your Lord and Savior. The deeper reason why this troubles me is rooted in the great and might power of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and how the perversion of that causes so much destruction. I fear that we are now believing in a gospel that says that the God of the universe came to just make our current lives better and more compatible with the current world! Do we really believe that the change of a few destructive behaviors was all the work the Gospel had to do?  Do we now believe in a gospel that fixes certain conditions and does not radically and fundamentally change everything about us?  Do we not believe that all of us needs to be transformed to prepare us for the Kingdom to come? I am clearly writing from a point of view that states that there is an insufficiency of what I perceive to be at best a diluted gospel being taught and practiced  and at worst no gospel at all. So in order to examine whether I’m right or not we must first analyze what the scripture says about all humanity, what the solution is and what is this Kingdom that is to come (all of this is embedded in the Gospel message.)

 In order to tackle these questions we must start from the beginning in Genesis and explain what the Bible says about life before and after the fall of man and what changes took place as a result of that fall. To begin we must  know what Adam was given by God in Genesis chapter 1. We find the answer in verses 26,29-30.

Then God said, “ let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that  creeps on the earth in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food;” and it was so.”

 Now I could talk about everything in here for a very long time, but I just need to make a few points that should be common to any believer but are worth mentioning for purposes of review and perspective. It is clear through these passages that God gave man all authority over the earth even down to naming the animals and in addition to that he had communion with God uninterrupted by any sin for he was not born into sin and was made in the very image of our Holy God. The dominion that man had been given by God over what He created was further illustrated by the enemy taking the form of a serpent, something that Adam had dominion over. I am not sure that this means that Satan’s power was not as strong because the fall had not happened yet. I believe that to be a logical conclusion and take that perspective, but I will leave that issue for you to think about. He did however have to take a form of a creature that Adam had named and had been given authority over. This is in stark contrast to the story of Jesus temptation in the gospel of Luke where Satan was far more bold in his blasphemy towards our Savior.  I promised I would not camp out on this subject so I won’t but my point is that Adam had an amazing opportunity to commune with the almighty without sin and had all authority to rule the earth that God had given to him.

So what happened after Adam fell. Well the first and most damning consequence was the legacy of sin that was instituted through Adam. That tragic choice doomed all mankind to be born under sin, and they could not do anything about the condemnation that they are under. Now, most people Christian or not understand this at least to some degree and therefore understand that Jesus Christ needed to pay that debt on the cross for salvation, but what was the other horrible result of the fall? The lose of the dominion over the earth. Adam was the crown jewel of God’s creation and was made without the taint of sin and therefore could commune with the Lord and rule over what the Lord had given him. After the fall that dominion was transferred to Satan. The scripture describes Satan as the adversary of God and the prince and the power of the air. Also in the New Testament when Jesus is tempted by Satan in Luke chapter 4 God does not tell Satan that he could not give these kingdoms that he said he could give to Jesus. Therefore we can be assured that a transfer of power was also the result of the fall. Satan is now the prince of this earth. Does that mean that he rules the earth, no! A prince can rule over the king’s subjects but he is just as much under the authority of the king as any other subject in a kingdom. What did however happen is that the kingdom of darkness that all men are born into was set in motion by man’s sin.

I would like to make one more point from the New Testament before I tie this all together. In Mathew  4:17 it reads;

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

And Mark 1:15 it reads;

“The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand, Repent, and believe in the gospel.”

These two statements are the first words recorded from Jesus public ministry after the temptation by satan that I mentioned above in Luke 4. We also know that John the Baptist was the one prophesied about in the Old Testament that was to make the ways straight for the coming of the King our Lord Jesus Christ and the gospel that he preached was the gospel of repentance. Therefore, we can see from Genesis that we have a sin problem and that the only step man is given by God in the New Testament is to repent literal meaning to turn away or go another direction. What direction you ask are we to go? We are to go towards the kingdom that is at hand. We now see that Jesus Christ rising from the dead instituted the kingdom that we as believers are headed for and the Holy Spirit has confirmed it in our hearts and we have testimony from the scripture that the kingdom will come into it’s fullness in the future! Now that is a powerful gospel!  Now you should understand by now why an understanding of the beginning of the Bible can help shed some light on what Jesus is saying about this Kingdom He speaks of. We cannot comprehend the majesty of what that Kingdom will be, of course the majesty of almighty God can never be understood by men in the finite sinful state that we are in today. However, we can understand that there is a kingdom to come simply based on the understanding that God has saved us from a previous kingdom, that of darkness. If we understand that sin instituted a sinful kingdom of darkness then the coming kingdom of God that we will once come in fullness makes a little more sense. This is why it is vital to understand clearly our condition before God and what state we were in before being redeemed or bought out of our sin. How can we even logically begin to understand to concept of God’s kingdom if we don’t fully grasp that His salvation purchased us from a previous kingdom of darkness?

Now it’s time to wrap this all neatly together. I know it seemed a little illogical at first , but I hope you can see where I am going with this by now. If someone has a finite and small view of this infinite and large gospel and far more infinite and large author of that gospel then that will translate into how they live their life. We tend to minimize or compartmentalize what we don’t understand and that has happened to us as believers. I am not just speaking out to others, I am further reminding myself that this insufficient gospel was one I once put faith in. I remember speaking of previous sins that did not exist in my life anymore and ignored the fact that others just creeped up into their place. I knew my soul was not filled by the Holy Spirit and I never spoke of the depravity of sin or the glory of a coming kingdom, because I had no clue about any of these things. Yet I thought I was assured of my place with the savior in my mind because I said a prayer  years ago. The scripture tells us over and over again in the New Testament of our assurance of salvation and what that power was and I largely ignored and was blinded to that truth. My behavior in a certain area was modified and I was better equipped to be successful in this world and therefore thought that I had a relationship with an omnipotent and Holy God. If you think about that from the proper perspective you can see how irrational that last statement was. After all there is a multitude of resources outside of Jesus Christ to modify a variety of behavioral problems and yes you can have some worldly success in those areas. I know a lot of people that are no longer acting like they did years ago, but is that the goal of the gospel? How could that be? Wouldn’t it be totally irrational for God the Father to send His Son to fix a problem that man could fix on their own? If you rest your eternity on the resolution of a few isolated symptoms of the larger problem of sin then what you do you really believe? It seems to me that what you believe in is a God that needed to merely help you not save you!  What I am saying is this, if you do not view Jesus Christ’s work on the cross as transformational, sufficient for all needs and the only hope for a blind and hopeless mankind, then you believe in man made religion.

Another New Testament example of a life transformed and not merely modified comes from Paul and his masterpiece on the difference between true Christianity and behavior merely modified comes to us from Romans mainly in chapter 6 and 7. Beginning in chapter where he breaks down why the Gnostic crowd or our modern day easy believism crowd is no gospel at all. We already know from Stephen’s death in the book of Acts when Paul agreed to his execution what dreadful legalism can do and what it can unearth in man’s wicked heart. Stephen’s death testifies what man’s rules and attempts to be justified can lead to, and that is no gospel at all. Now we can fight these battles of theology, however just becoming the anti apostate church and fighting that battle against easy believism or legalism is still not the fullness and purpose of the church. As I alluded to in the first paragraph this life is deeply personal to the believer far removed from legalism, or a gospel inept and truncated in it’s reach because of the focus on the symptoms of sin and not the root cause, which is us. Paul so eloquently touched on this in Romans chapter 7 when he lamented the wicked body of death that enslaves him. Even as a mature spirit filled believer the stench of the kingdom that he was delivered from is evident in his flesh as well as the world around him. The tie in to Genesis is that the pain of the conflict within is the result of what was lost in the garden and the very reason for why this life that we are to walk in with Christ is so hard because, we surrendered anything good inside of us when we fell in the garden. Paul was feeling and speaking about this pain thousands of years later in Romans. Further driving home the point that we don’t need to stop drinking, stop smoking , stop committing adultery, and so on and so on! We need to realize that the cross is a testimony against our sin and that these sins are symptoms of a heart bent on sin. Moreover the focus on certain sins is not admitting the truth it is continuing in the lie. The legalist and the easy believer don’t realize that they share a common bond o this subject. Neither believe they are the problem they believe what comes into us is the problem. That is not the gospel! Jesus told us that what defiles a man is what comes out of the man not what goes in! He is telling us that the reason we have a sin problem is not outside circumstances but rather the outward expressions of sin are proof that inwardly that is what you desire. Therefore the denial of that truth will cause you to continue in the very acts that you say you desire to change. Essentially anything you desire for your life spiritually you will not get apart from the gospel because you are not capable of spiritual things and moreover if you are honest with yourself you will find that you don’t even truly desire the things you say you do. Your behavior is merely modified.

I was once one who tried to fight my own symptoms of sin one by one and failed everytime! My behavior was modified but It was not due to the gospel and frankly it wasn’t even permanent. Needless to say the symptoms kept coming back because they were just symptoms of my real problem, ME! Well it’s time to wrap this up before I start rambling so goodbye and God bless!