With: Reimagining the Way You Relate to God

by Skye Jethani

“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.”

Life From God

Life Over God

Life For God

Life Under God

Each of these ways of relating to God is also an attempt to mitigate our fears through exerting control. But the problem, as we will explore in later chapters, is that they all fail to deliver on this promise. The reason, simply put, is that seeking control is not the solution to the human condition but is part of the problem.

But rather than engage in life-giving communion with him, we opt for one of the other four postures through which we try to manipulate, use, cajole, or appease him.

They believe their primary calling is to live under divine rules in order to avoid calamity.

Although widespread and deeply rooted in human history and civilization, this LIFE UNDER GOD approach has a number of significant shortcomings. Perhaps the greatest problem is that it only reinforces the rebellion of humanity we first saw in the story of Eden.

Through our obedience we put God into our debt and expect him to do our bidding in exchange for our worship and righteous behavior.

LIFE UNDER GOD cannot be a way of reestablishing a relationship with our Creator because it is actually an attempt to overthrow his rightful place.

Young people raised within Christian communities are being taught a LIFE UNDER GOD view of the faith. And when God inevitably refuses to submit to our attempts at control via morality and ritual, they become cynical and abandon the church and in many cases the faith as well. The bargain turned out to be a scam.

If blessing or calamity is the result of obeying God’s rules, then keeping everyone in line becomes the paramount mission of religious leaders. Faith gets reduced to dogmatism—adherence to strict moral codes and the enforcement of boundaries and rules.

The LIFE UNDER GOD view puts its emphasis on appeasing God through behaviors—either in the form of rituals or morality.

the problem with the LIFE UNDER GOD approach— on the surface everything looks great, but dig any deeper and you end up holding your nose.

“the line between good and evil did not run clearly between ‘them’ and ‘us,’ but through each person.”4

But their mastery of Scripture had not resulted in actually knowing God or recognizing him when he stood right in front of them. Jesus said to these leaders, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.”

This is the sinister shortcoming of the LIFE OVER GOD posture. It causes us to reduce faith to principles, divine laws, and applicable instructions:

applying these principles does not actually require a relationship with God. Instead, being a Christian simply means you have exchanged a worldly set of life principles for a new set taken from the Bible.

He may be praised, thanked, and worshipped for giving us his wise precepts for life, but as with an absentee watchmaker, God’s present participation is altogether optional.

It is now possible to have a “Christian” marriage, a “Christian” business, and even a “Christian” nation without Christ actually being present. The fact that the principles are derived from the Bible is enough to convince us that they are—and therefore we are— indeed Christian.

The LIFE OVER GOD posture’s emphasis on working principles may be appealing because it is far more predictable and manageable than an actual relationship with God.

First, rather than looking to a relationship with God, the LIFE OVER GOD view seeks to discern reliable principles. It reduces and limits God to a reproducible formula.

Our insatiable need for control is what makes LIFE OVER GOD so attractive.

the second terrible shortcoming of LIFE OVER GOD—it does not take away the burden of fear we carry.

the third great failure of the LIFE OVER GOD approach—it causes us to gauge success based on effective outcomes rather than faithfulness to God’s calling.

LIFE OVER GOD exchanges a relationship with him for applicable principles.

the French philosopher Voltaire said three centuries ago: “If God has made us in his image, we have returned him the favor.”3

Rooted in the values of consumerism and its focus on the fulfillment of personal desires, LIFE FROM GOD believes that if you peel away the layers of the cosmos, at its center you will find—yourself!

But consumerism, and the LIFE FROM GOD posture derived from it, takes a slightly different tack. Rather than removing our fears and pains, consumerism tries to distract us from them.

When we look at God, we may see a reflection of our consumer selves—a divine vending machine to dispense our desires. But when God looks at us, he sees his child, created in his image, who is wholly and dearly loved.

Somewhere in their spiritual formation they were taught, either explicitly or implicitly, that what mattered was not God’s love for them, but how much they could accomplish for him.

recall, LIFE UNDER GOD believes divine will is at the center of the cosmic apple.

LIFE OVER GOD says that natural law or principles are at the core.

LIFE FROM GOD places the self with its desire...

the LIFE FOR GOD’s cosmic apple would reveal a mission at the core. Some great goal—understood to be initiated by God and carried forward by us—defines everything and everyone. An individual is either on the mission, the object of the mission, an obstacle to the mission,...

they err by making mission the irreducible center of the Christian life.

but a life spent for God is not what even Paul desired most for himself or others.

everything in the apostle’s life, including God’s mission, took a backseat to his paramount goal: God himself.

none of this dismisses the incredible importance of God’s mission in the world or our particular calling within it. But as we discussed in the last chapter, an idol is a good thing made into an ultimate thing, and the temptation within activist streams of Christianity is to put the good mission of God into the place God alone should occupy.

This is the first failure of LIFE FOR GOD—it puts God’s mission ahead of God himself.

Remember, God’s original intent for us was a mission. He called humanity to rule over the earth, to fill and subdue it, and to extend his creative order and beauty far beyond the confines of the garden of Eden. This work was to be accomplished in perpetual communion with God, and it was to be motivated not by a fear of insignificance, but by the assurance of God’s love for us.

The problem comes when we find our significance and worth in serving or obedience.

A great deal of effort is expended in faith communities trying to transform people from younger sons into older sons. But this is a fool’s errand, because what mattered most to the father was neither the younger son’s disobedience nor the older son’s obedience, but having his sons with him.

The primary purpose of our worship gatherings, preaching, and programs should be to present a ravishing vision of Jesus Christ.

When people come to see who he is and what God is like, treasuring him becomes the natural outcome.

in many places the vision of Christ remains hidden behind shadows while lesser glories—often some variation on the culture’s values or the church’s mission—are given the spotlight. And then we scratch our heads in bewilderment when people ...

LIFE WITH GOD means first treasuring him above all else, and we are inspired to treasure him when he is revealed to us in Jesus Christ.

Second, LIFE WITH GOD is made possible because of what Jesus has done on the cross; he has removed the barrier of sin and death that separates us from God.

But the LIFE WITH GOD posture departs from the other forms of religion because it accepts this simple fact: control is an illusion.