More Than a Crutch

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 08:00:16 +0000

Do you sometimes feel unsure of your salvation? Or know someone who feels that way? Contact an online mentor to talk about it, confidentially.

I have done a good deal of thinking and writing about Pharisees (probably because I understand them so well) and one comment that Jesus made about them stands out to me: “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20)

Such a statement would have come as a shock to the general Jewish populace who considered the Pharisees as perched atop the religious hierarchy. It certainly would have come as a shock to the Pharisees themselves, who took pride in looking down from there. These people spent all their time being righteous. They were scrupulous about this, and in so doing, they set the bar for everyone else. They were the righteous professionals. To disqualify them and everyone under them, as Jesus did, put righteousness out of everyone’s reach.

Which, of course, was the whole idea. This was not a statement to make people try harder to be holy. It was a statement to persuade people to give up trying. If Jesus was rejecting the best that the best could do, then who could possibly stand a chance of being good enough to get into heaven? No one. And isn’t that the point Jesus was trying to make? Only sinners get saved; only the lost can be found. The Pharisees were too good for heaven, too good for grace, too good for the gift of salvation.

True righteousness is something that can only come from Christ, and it comes through the admission of our own unrighteousness and a total dependence upon God to make us clean. What He wants is way beyond us and we cannot begin any real growth without realizing this. Our goodness comes through faith in what Christ has done for us on the cross in forgiving our sins and in giving us His Spirit. It is that Spirit that begins to work on our insides, changing us from the inside out, and the good that comes from this is so clearly outside our ability to manufacture it as to leave us as surprised as anyone.

I’ve often heard the objection to becoming a Christian on the grounds of Christianity being a crutch. I always laugh when I hear that because if that’s all faith is, I wouldn’t be a Christian either. Did Jesus endure a brutal death on a cross just so he could hand us a crutch to help us along? I don’t think so. We weren’t just stumbling along without Jesus; we were dead. Christianity isn’t a crutch; it’s an iron lung. It’s a cure for cancer. It’s a heart transplant.

Question: Have you ever heard someone derisively refer to faith as “just a crutch”? How did you (or how can you) respond to such an accusation?

Jesus: Is He Simply a Crutch for the Weak?

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 18:22:02 +0000

by Sabriya English

In my world where my options for coping include either jamming heroine up my veins, being involved in countless sexual relationships, or denying my problems to the point of nervous breakdown by age fifty, would it make sense to cast my hopes upon an obscure carpenter with a deadly case of god-complex?

Those times that academic stress threatens to send me plunging off of the 250-year-old ivory tower, would it make any sense to go cower into a corner with a little-”g” god who has no more the power to create me, than the ability to move mountains on my behalf? No! If I am going to serve Him instead of a wooden calf, my God must be one of ultimate power, matchless beauty, sovereign authority, and consistent grace; anything else would be a waste of precious time.

Although I have known Jesus since the age of seven, it was not until high school that I became sick of my years of lackadaisical, impotent, religious pabulum. It took me that long to realize that God is not the God of any man’s tradition or opinion; nor is He the God of hackneyed ritual. He wants a relationship with us. Today, I can praise His name more loudly because I have tasted and seen how beautifully He carries me through rough situations, causing me to cling more tightly to Him.

It is a welcome relief to be able to lay everything on the table before someone who will not laugh or be turned off. God does not require me to be perfect: He only requires that I repent of my sins and obey Him, living in a way that would speak truly of Him.

What makes a personal relationship with God, through Jesus Christ, stand out? The relief that salvation is not a list of thou shalt nots, or threats of inevitable, eternal damnation. It is not some outrageous burden upon my shoulders. Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Now doesn’t that sound so refreshing?

A crutch for the weak? Show me a person with minimal problems and the ability to handle each one perfectly; one who doesn’t struggle under his own weight, or cry or fret or worry…he lives between Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. A crutch for the weak? Oh yes!

I saw that a satisfying life could not be obtained through alcohol, good grades, good deeds, or Hagen Daaz. Only when I confessed my sin, and accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, did I know what He meant when He promised life and life more abundantly. It feels good to stand up for something-someOne and to not have to worry about pleasing everyone else. As allergic as I am to pain, I could not say that I would die for a belief unless it had already proved itself worth dying for. I, like so many other students here [Princeton] and around the world, have found that belief in our relationship with Jesus the Christ.

“I have set the Lord always before me; because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad.” (Psalms 16:6)

Power to Change » crutch

More Than a Crutch

Jesus: Is He Simply a Crutch for the Weak?