Simple Gospel

I'm starting to like Donald Miller. Cheppe (high five), a buddy of mine introduced me to Blue Like Jazz a while back and raved about him, he is great, he really understands, blah, blah blah. I read a chapter or two, and hated it. He seemed to skate around just saying it. I would get frustrated and threaten Serenity that if he kept going I was going to quit reading. He is an excellent story teller, he seems to suck you into his ramblings, then, in my opinion, he would fall short, not really wanting to say the truth because it might scare off a few people. I thought maybe the last chapter would tie it all in and the light bulb would turn on, but it didn't. I didn't think I would read another Donald Miller book again. Then for some reason, I bought Searching For God Knows What. Still rambling, but more focused, more truth, much more simple. Trust me, you have to read him to understand what I'm saying, but in my opinion, skip Blue Like Jazz.

In Searching, Miller tells a story about how while teaching a Bible college class, he told the students that he was going to present the gospel but leave out a key element and to see if they could figure out the missing piece. He talked about how man was sinful, the beauty of morality, how great heaven will be, how people who are God-centered have a sense of fulfillment on earth, while using real life stories to tie it all together. In the end, when Miller asked the class what he left out, after sitting in silence for several minutes, not one of them noticed that he left out Jesus. He left out Jesus, and none of them noticed!

The gospel is simple, and when we try to apply some new theology to it, it gets cloudy, confusing. These students were trying to out think the gospel. Sometimes I do the same thing. I try to understand and intellectualize some theological concept that in many cases is just created by man not God. Jesus uses some pretty confusing parables and lessons to teach us some pretty basic concepts: Love God, Love each other. We want to understand everything before we believe, when what God actually asks us to do is believe and then He will reveal things to us. Ephesians 4:14-15 says:

"[If we understand the knowledge of God's Son] We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church."

We simply need to believe in Him, then do what He commands us to: Love Him and love each other. When we are desperately seeking "the answers," to life's questions, we will be continually disappointed. When we treat Jesus like a genie in a bottle, giving us answers to the problems plaguing us, our community, our country, or our world, we will "be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching," but when we simplify our task to 2 steps 1) believe and 2) go and love, we begin to understand in a completely different way. Children don't go to seminary, they don't have everything figured out, but that is exactly how God asks us to come to him - like children. Don't out think the gospel.