Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 108 | 'Messy' or Unholy?

Episode Date: May 6, 2019

Today we look at the growing trend of what I call "Messy Christianity" — the justification of unholy words or behavior in the name of vulnerability. How do we spot this blasphemy, and how can we ourselves learn how to be open about our struggles without glorifying sin? Copyright Blaze Media All Rights Reserved.

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed. You can watch

this D-Day Show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Hello, relatable listeners. Happy Monday. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. It is Theology Monday. Every Monday, if you've been listening to my podcast for a while, you know we go through some kind of theological subject or maybe something that's happening within Christianity that we need to refute or we need to talk about. We need to discuss. Today, we're we're going to talk about a trend that a lot of you have brought up to me, message me about, and that is what I call the messy Christian trend, or this kind of culturally relevant, cool Christian trend of rejoicing in rebellion and rejoicing in what they call messiness,

which is really synonymous in a lot of their cases to sin. So we're going to talk about what it means to be truly embracing the messiness of our lives and embracing vulnerability and authenticity in a healthy way versus kind of what we see from a lot of these culturally relevant Christian influencers where their version of embracing messy is just saying, hey, sin is totally fine and God doesn't care about any of that. We're going to learn how to distinguish. Hey, this is Steve Deast. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country

aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this Steve Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get

podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Okay, now let's get into what we are going to talk about. So like I said, this is a trend in the Christian world that I really wouldn't call new. I think we're seeing it more often because of social media and because of the increasing popularity of some of the biggest names. And what I would call this, I don't really even know if I want to call it a movement, but kind of a part of this subsection of Christianity. If you can even call it Christianity, we're just going to call it Christianity because it's easier

to understand that way. and you guys know what I'm talking about, but it's probably really been around for close to a couple decades now. I would say 12 to 15 years is when it kind of started picking up, and then we've really started noticing it a lot over the past five years. And it's what I would call this messy Christianity or messy Christian trend. It is this emphasis on being imperfect in the name of vulnerability. There are blogs dedicated to this podcast dedicated to it, books, YouTube,

channels all on this subject. They come in a variety of names, basically trying to communicate to you, hey, I'm not your normal Christian. Sure, I love God and I love Jesus, but, you know, I'm not one of those typical church-going legalistic Christians. That's typically what the names of these blogs and the premises of these blogs and YouTube channels, et cetera, are trying to communicate to you. Some of the biggest names in this, I would say Urgin Hatmaker, Glennon Doyle, there's this Lutheran who really doesn't have like a huge following. I just think that she's interesting because she does such absurd things, like take purity rings from people all over the country.

They mailed in their purity rings and she made a gold vaginas tattoo. Her name is Nadia Bowles Weber. I think she goes by the sarcastic Lutheran. Again, I don't think she has a huge following because she doesn't really say anything except for just like, oh, it's cool to cuss and I'm a Christian. But I just think that she's such a, she's almost like a caricature of this whole movement that we're about to talk about. So they usually claim, here's how you can kind of detect who is part of this messy Christian

subculture. They usually claim to have come from some sort of a strict Christian background. That's not true of all of them. May not even be true of all the names that I just listed. But they typically claim to have come from a strict Christian evangelical background, maybe from some kind of like fundamentalist, what they would describe fundamentalist Baptist Church. And the reason why they say that is because they want you to know or they want you to think that they already know the Bible and that they already know all of your preconceived notions so they don't actually have to take your criticism. They can just say, oh, well, I came from this background, and I already know everything, and this is the conclusion that I've come to.

They claim to be enlightened in that way. So they've come from this strict Christian background, and now they have a new discovery of what it really means to be a Christian. They had some sort of epiphany. This is another characteristic. They had some sort of epiphany in their life that this is not what God really wanted, that he didn't really want his children to be following all of these rules, to be weighed down with what the Bible says, that he's so much bigger than these ancient texts. This is actually something that you see even in Bethel Church, the teachers in Bethel Church saying, you know, don't put God in a box. Like, God is bigger than the Bible. You'll hear things like that. He transcends, you know, the, I don't want to say, they wouldn't

say the word of God, but he transcends scripture. He doesn't really care about all of the things that we do, all these petty things that we struggle with. He doesn't really care about that. As long as we try really hard, or as long as we are being ourselves and we're kind to other people, that's all God really cares about. That's, well, you'll hear from a lot of these people. They then attempt to charm their audience with kind of quirky anecdotes about just how imperfect they are, how non-traditional they are, how rebellious they are. They'll a lot of times use cuss words to show, like, I'm real, you guys. I'm super real. They claim to know the real Christianity. They claim to have the only or the only kind of real relationship with the real Jesus because they have been freed in their

words from legalism. They always use this word messy. They use it a lot. Life is beautiful and messy. Grace is messy. Relationship with Jesus. It's messy. Everything is messy. It's all messy. And it's a glorified, beautiful mess. And we should all celebrate that. Now, all of this is very attractive to a lot of people who are looking for some kind of spiritual meaning, but they're not really interested in self-sacrifice and self-denial. They want to feel some kind of sense of belonging, some kind of feel of transcendence, some kind of feeling like they are a part of something that's bigger than themselves, without having to be attached to the traditional,

what they would consider a stereotype of some kind of bigoted legalistic Christian. So that's what, those are the kind of people that this kind of thinking attracts. And this attracts women in particular. And I want to give a background on that, on kind of where, how we got here. And how, how we got here, if I can say that grammatically correctly, I'm not sure that I just did, is actually part of it, is legitimate. There's a legitimate reason why these voices are attractive and there is a legitimate pushback to be had to how Christianity for a lot of women used to be or used to be portrayed.

So that happens a lot. You have, you know, faith is a certain way, doctrines are a certain way. There's a certain kind of trend in the church and then it swings the other direction and that's kind of what happened. And usually it is somewhere, along that swing of the pendulum from one into the other, that the truth actually exists. So let me just explain it. This will make more sense once I actually get into what I'm talking about. So the truth is, this is true that women are under a lot of pressure. Like I said, women are typically attracted to this kind of messy Christian message. Women are under a lot of unique pressure. Men are under a lot of unique pressure too. It's just, it's different than the pressure

that women are under, but they're under a lot of pressure as well. But the kind of pressure that women are under, we feel a lot of times, like we are expected to be pretty and small and strong and sporty and fun and gentle and bold. And if we're a boy mom, then we have to be a super awesome, fun, adventurous boy mom. If we're a girl mom, we have to be this sweet, perfect, organized girl mom. We feel like we also have to be a hustling entrepreneur, a put together Christian, who knows their Bible who goes to church at Free Sunday with perfectly shaved legs and acute sundress on that's how a lot of women feel like they have to be like they have to live up to this perfect Christian suburban stereotype and there has been in evangelical circles in the past I would say that

this is not really true very much anymore but in the past there was this sentiment I'm not saying it was based in reality but it was a sentiment that women have to be perfectly poised proverbs 31 women in every way, every day. They aren't allowed to show their sweat. They're not allowed to show anger at their husbands. This is a very real feeling that a lot of Christians have had over the past 50 to 60 years. I mean, probably before that too, but I'm kind of talking modern day. And so over the past decade a little longer than that, you have a lot of Christians

speaking out, both men and women, but especially women saying, hang on, hang on, fellow ladies. Is that really what it means to be a Christian? Do I really have to have it all together all the time? is that really what it means to follow Christ? And so then you have these influencers come along, some of whom I've already listed, and then some other ones, who say, no, it's not. That's not what God calls us to. It's okay to not always look and sound perfect. Remember, there's this thing called grace. Remember, we're not supposed to be Pharisees. We're not supposed to be these whitewashed tombs who have decay on the inside. Remember, God knows everything. He already knows

who you really are and Jesus makes it possible to be completely open with him. And here's the thing. That is true. These things, these premises are true. And part of this shift away from perfectionism into the acknowledgement of grace was a good shift in many ways. It is important to all of us benefited from this change when it initially started happening because it really came out of, at first, it came out of this genuine desire to have a true dynamic relationship with Christ. If any of you are familiar with the young, restless, reformed movement that really boomed around 2006, I would say to 2010. And of course, the effects of that still linger in a very good way today, it was this movement of young people starting to care about theology, starting to care about the Bible.

It became something bigger Christianity, Christianity became something, bigger than going to church two times a week with your parents and grandparents and wearing a purity ring. It became a relationship. It became worship. It became real rather than being static and stagnant. It became something that you could learn and grow into and actually be sanctified. And that was all good. It was a wonderful, I think, it was a wonderful impetus for the gospel. I, and I don't want to say caught up it. I don't want to say I was caught up in that because that sounds like a pejorative or it sounds like a negative, but I was deeply affected by that. So it was 2009 for me that Christianity really started grabbing hold of my heart and mind.

I was raised a Christian, went to a Baptist church with my parents, with my grandmother, my entire life. I had said the sinner's prayer, gotten baptized when I was young. And I knew all of this stuff, but it wasn't until about 2009 that I had this awesome Bible teacher who really made us think about theological issues for the first time that I realized that there was this rich dynamic reality in the Christian faith and that reading in the Bible was actually interesting. It was more than that. It was fascinating. And I started loving, learning more about God and what his word says and having this personal relationship with Christ through the Holy Spirit.

That's when all of that started happening to me. I stopped going to the church that my parents were going to us. I started going to a non-denominational church. I read, I was starting to to read C.S. Lewis, probably for the first, probably for the first time, maybe I had read him before. I mean, of course, Chronicles of Narnia, but I started reading Mir Christianity. I started reading screw tape letters and great divorce. I started reading Tim Keller. I started listening to this pastor named Matt Chandler, and they were talking about this amazing gospel and this amazing intellectualism that I had never associated with Christianity before. I started listening to John Piper. I heard of John MacArthur for this first time. All of this.

these teachers that were awakening me to the beauty and the power of the Bible and the gospel. And Christianity became real for me. And that's what happened to a lot of young people at the time. And so you have all of these pastors and all of these influencers who all of a sudden became famous. It wasn't just Beth Moore anymore. It wasn't just, you know, a few pastors. It was all of these pastors who now had podcasts, who now had, were starting to get social media. And so there was kind of this awakening around this time among young people to the gospel and to the reality of grace. And it wasn't just this stagnant, legalistic thing anymore. And that was a good thing. Like I said, I benefited from that. But with every good shift, with every good change,

there comes bad. And there comes a point where some people swing too far in the other direction. And so if before this time there was a large chunk of evangelicalism that just helped, fast to this whole, as long as you say the sinner's prayer and go to church on Sunday, you're perfectly fine and you look good and your family's put together and everything's perfect and you don't struggle. If that was the stereotype before, it kind of moved in the other direction and it got into a really good place. And then you have some people that swung all the way in the other direction, people who have always existed, but now have big platforms who said, well, none of that matters. None of the rules matter. None of God's dynamics that he set up in the Bible

matter. None of the structure matters. None of the holiness matters. It's all legalism. As long as we feel that God is real, as long as we feel that God is good, as long as we feel that we're doing what God has called us to do, then we're all perfectly fine. And that is where this messy Christian trends kind of came from. It's this idea that the rules don't matter at all, that the Bible doesn't matter at all that all religion is bad. Religion became this dirty word for a lot of people, even though that's not biblical. That's not biblical that religion is bad. Pure religion, as described in the Bible, is taking care of widows and orphans. Living a righteous life is not bad, but all of that stuff became seen as bad. And I'm not trying to say, by the way, that the young restless

reform movement had anything to do necessarily, or it had, I don't want to. I don't want to. to equate it in any way to this messy Christian thing that I'm talking about because it's not the same. There are plenty of young reformed people, me included, that are still passionate about theology and care about the gospel and care about, you know, what the Bible actually says. I'm just saying some people kind of, I think, used the ignition of that or used the passion that was born out of that and they took it in the wrong direction. So that's what I'm trying to say. They started saying, you know, God doesn't care about what you do at all. Rebellion is funny. Disobedience is, trendy. Holiness is just this laughable concept that no one should care about. And it, you had a lot of

influencers having this radical misinterpretation of scripture to fit what's culturally cool. And they call it nuance. And that's what we're seeing today. That's been happening, like I said, for a but is especially popular today. This idea of messy Christianity, messy, has become the glorification of sin and the cheapness of grace. And that is a problem. It is the flagrant boasting of sin that is done in the name of vulnerability and relatability.

I know we talk obviously about being relatable on this podcast. That's the title of this podcast, but it is never an excuse to glorify or just justify sin. And if you think that's what this podcast is, then you need to tell me, because that's a problem. So how do we detect if someone is this kind of messy Christian, one who has swung too far in the other direction to the point of where they are saying what they're talking about is no longer Christianity? Well, I think it's pretty easy because the number one question that you should ask yourself when you're listening to all teachers, me include, I mean, I'm not, I wouldn't call myself a teacher, but you should be thinking when you're listening to me,

is what she is saying in line with scripture. If what I'm saying is not in line with scripture, then you need to tune me out and send me an email and say, yo, you said this, but this is what scripture says. And some of you guys have done that. Some of it has been legit. Some of it not so much. But that's important for you guys to do. Do not take my word for it. I am not your authority. Scripture is our authority, both of our authority. And at the end of the day, if we can go back to scripture and say, here is what God's word says, we're both wrong or one of us is wrong, whatever, that's what we need to do. So when you're listening to anyone, but especially these kind of trendy Christians who seem to have a large following, we should ask ourselves,

is what they're saying in line with scripture? Second question. Two, when they talk about sin, if they talk about sin, that's another big thing, are they citing it as a struggle, a real struggle that they are trying through the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome? Do they hate their sin as we are called to as believers, or are they laughing at their sin? Now, I've been guilty of this. I think we probably all have that there are contexts and moments in which I laugh at, you know, my sassiness on Twitter, even though I know that sometimes that is a sin and that I have lashed out at people on social media. That is a sin. And I've laughed at that before. But the truth of the matter is that it's not funny to sin. And it is a struggle for me in the sense that I really

and trying through the power of the Holy Spirit not to act or speak in a way that doesn't glorify God. Not easy for me. Sarcasm, easy for me. Clapping back. I don't even like that term. Easy for me. Holding my tongue, not so easy, but something that we are called to do as Christians. So, first question that I said, is what they are saying in line with scripture?

Now, the woman I listed at the beginning, ask yourself if in their lives and in their work, words that are they in line with what the God of the Bible says? I think that Glennon Doyle is probably the most explicitly and obviously not a Christian. And I don't say that to be judgmental. I say that from her own words. She said just a few months ago on Instagram that the older she gets, the more she realizes that she doesn't know who God is, that it's less of a someone and more of a something, something like just a current kind of pushing us through life to be more loving and kind and Tinder or something like that. She actually likes to call God she. So it wouldn't be he. She tweeted that the other day. And so that's obviously, that's not Christianity. So I'm just taking her at her word.

I'm not trying to make any assumptions, although you could probably look at the fruit of her life and deduce that. But she said herself, she's not really sure who God is. So I don't think it would be fair to call her someone who believes in the God of the Bible and that Jesus is the way, the truth of life. So ask yourself in regards to other teachers. And like I said, every teacher who claims to have a more nuanced faith than those evil, traditional evangelicals, those evil Baptists and Presbyterians. So ask yourself, are they asking interesting theological questions when they are kind of pushing back on the traditional mode of thinking?

Are they asking interesting theological questions or are they just trying to get a reaction? And what I mean by interesting is that in their searching, are they, and they're questioning, their vulnerability, transparency, whatever, are they actually trying to seek truth that is in scripture? Are they using scripture as their ultimate source of wisdom and guidance, or are they relying on their own feelings? Because the truth is, it's okay to have questions. It's okay to not know everything. But at the end, there's plenty of theological things that I don't know. There's, I would say, I don't know if I could weigh it. a thousand million,

bajillion pounds of things that I don't know about scripture. But at the end of the day, I know my source for the answer for these things is scripture. And if I disagree with scripture, it's because I'm wrong, not because scripture is.

So that is my mode of thinking always, and no matter what. Scripture is inherent. That is the only source of wisdom that I have is God and God's word. And so it's okay to have, it's okay to have questions. It's okay to have wonderings. It's okay to kind of push back on something that you've heard, a pastor that you really like say, as long as your pushback goes back to

scripture and not your own feeling. So when you hear these people asking these questions or pushing back against the norm and saying, you know, this is a nuanced question. Ask yourself if they're just trying to get a reaction, if they're just trying to be culturally cool, if they're just trying to get off the hook about a hard thing the Bible says, or if they're saying, okay, scripture is my authority. I'm trying to figure this out earnestly. Second question, how do they talk about sin? Do they regularly, regularly, that's a hard word, regularly talk about sin as if it's just kind of like this quirky part of their personality or, you know, I'm an Enneagram 7. And so, you know, this is just, this is just my thing that I do. And really what they're talking about is a sin.

Like, for example, I am an Indiogram 8. I'm not a 7. That was just an example. I'm anneagram 8. And so if I said, I don't know, whatever at any, if I was like, yeah, you know, I'm just prideful. I'm just prideful. I'm just prideful. I'm just arrogant.

It's great. I just can't help it. And God loves that about me. That would be wrong. That would be wrong. Or if I said that like anger was my struggle and I'm like, yeah, you know, I'm just hot-tempered girl just like. out at people all the time. And I laughed at that. That's not funny. I mean, that's a sin. I mean,

you can talk about it, I guess, in a more lighthearted way, but it's not something to trivialize. It's something to say, you know, God is working in me and through me on this particular struggle that I have. Do they claim to have, quote, fresh perspectives on how to look at sin in order to make us feel better about sinning? Do they try to diminish sin as a tool of legalism or the patriarchy or of, I don't know, judgmental people rather than calling sin what it is as the Bible defines it? Do they use the term love to mean acceptance of sinfulness? Do they use the term acceptance to mean love of sinfulness? Do they claim that those who talk about sin or care about sin are just bigoted? Do they claim that God isn't really concerned with certain sins, that he's really

more concerned with you being yourself? These are the questions to consider when you are looking at some of your favorite influencers, especially those who claim to be nuanced and messy and different and countercultural or counter traditional Christian. And here's the thing. Life is messy. I don't want to say that this word is inherently bad or everyone who uses this word is wrong. Life is messy. It's not perfect. And our striving for constant perfection is a sin. It is wrong.

It's detrimental to our relationship with God because its roots are in pride. It is a symptom of thinking that we can control things better than God can or things work out better if we control it rather than when God controls it. So there is truth to this phrase that we hear a lot, like let go and let God. we are not meant to have it all together. God does know everything. We don't need to pretend that we are better than we are. The beauty about Jesus is that you don't have to clean yourself up before you go to God. And in fact, you can't clean yourself up. And so it really is useless. We all do sin. None of us is perfect. And it's okay to be open and to be transparent about that. And it's actually a good thing. Sharing in our struggles is good. We're told to confess our sins to one another. These are all good things. And so I don't want to discount all of this or the some of the underlying parts of this as completely and totally wrong and swing back in the other direction. Legalism is wrong. Just being pious or at least externally pious is wrong. But so is denying that sin exists, denying the seriousness of sin and obfuscating or covering up the true call that we have as Christians to holiness, to be set apart.

a verse that you'll hear a lot from these people, if they do quote scripture at all, it's rare. But if they do, they would say, you know, Romans 323 says, for all have sin and fallen short of the glory of God. That's it. Into story, we've all sinned. No big deal. That's it. But, but the next verse, context is so important. Who knew?

The next verse says, so it starts out saying, 23, for all of sin and fallen short of the glory of God. and this is the next first, and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put for it as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. So the question is, what does this mean for those of us who are justified by grace, who have been redeemed by Christ, who paid for our sins, whom we trust in by faith? We have all sin and those who trust by faith are justified by grace. That is great. Does that mean, though, that we keep sinning because of the grace that we have been given?

Well, Romans 6.1 answers that most of you probably know this verse too. What shall we say then? God through Paul says, are we to continue in sin that grace may abound by no means? How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

Newness. And what does this newness of life look like? We find another answer in Romans, chapter 12, verse 2. I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed.

to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. 2 Corinthians 7 1 through 3. Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God. So sanctification, this process throughout our lives of becoming more like Christ, the becoming more righteous, holy, or more set apart comes part and parcel with knowing Jesus. It is not that we have an excuse to sin. It is not that we rejoice in our errors. It is that we hate our sin and that we strive through the power of the Holy Spirit to be conformed to Christ. We hear so often that God

doesn't want us to try, that he doesn't want us to feel any fear, any guilt over our sin, that all he wants for us is to be shameless and authentic and accepting of our identities. That is not true. He commands us to fear him and to take sanctification seriously. He says that in him we are a new creation. We have died to sin. We have died to our former selves. Philippians 2.11 through 13 says, therefore, my beloved is you have always obeyed so now work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Ephesians 413 through 14, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the

fullness of Christ so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness, and deceitful schemes. Non-Christians are moved by the waves. Baby Christians are also moved by the waves as they are being sanctified. Do the so-called messy Christians you follow seem to stand firm on the promises of God? Or are they constantly changing their doctrine to make sure that they don't hurt anyone's feelings? Or to fit in with the culture or be relevant or relatable? Now, I'm not talking about people who change their minds. They're genuinely learning more about

scripture and they are changing their beliefs, altering their beliefs to align more of scripture. That is what I am in a constant state of doing. Something right now that I have been realizing and learning is about justice and what God says about justice and what it looks like for a Christian to care about and enact justice here on earth and what it actually means for God's will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. I thought that I had that figured out probably a month ago. And I've realized through the listening of people that know more about the Bible that I do, people that I trust, people who are going back to scripture and the reading of scripture myself that maybe I didn't have that figured out. And I'm trying, and I think that I even had

some hypocrisy in my thinking about that because I was trying to fit my faith into what I thought was politically true. And it just got confusing to me. And I lived in this cognitive dissonance. and now I'm learning, and my views are changing to align more with scripture on that, not less, but more. So I'm not talking about that. That is what we should all be doing. I am talking about the changing your mind based on feelings and trends or the people you are following these so-called messy Christians doing that. If that's what they're doing, then that's not right. Now here's a kind of a large chunk of scripture. Here's what Ephesians 417 through 24 has to say about that. Now this, I say,

and I testify in the Lord, this is God through Paul, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do in this particular context. He is talking about people who are not Christians, as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ, assuming, assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires and to be renewed, there's that word again,

renewed in the spirit of your mind and to put on the new self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Your rebellion, might be relatable, but it is not regenerative. I really wanted to come up within an alliteration, so I hope that makes logical sense. Our rebellion might be relatable, but it is not regenerative in that it is not, it does not sanctify, and it does not help to sanctify other people unless you are sharing your vulnerability and your rebellion as a part of the sanctification process in that you are by the power of the Holy Spirit working on bringing that sin to death and learning to be more like Christ. You are working out your salvation in fear and trembling. It is not something to laugh at

or to trivialize. And I say that to myself just as much. It's easy to do that about sins that we see as petty. But the fact of the matter is is that God takes holiness very seriously. And that Jesus died to save us, to reconcile us to God, not so that we could be slaves to sin and dead and sin, but that we could be alive in Christ and more like him, that is part of the freedom and the joy and the liberation that comes with knowing Christ on this side of heaven. And on the next side of heaven, guess what? On the other side, we don't have to worry about this sin anymore. We don't have to worry about the struggle and our most vulnerable and authentic selves, as so many people say, will be holy and righteous and full and whole. And we won't have

to worry about this back and forth anymore. As Paul talks about, I think it's in Romans 7, and hating what he does and wanting to do right and feeling like he can't. Yes, that is the constant struggle of sanctification. But if you listen to Paul's words in that chapter, he hates his sin. He hates it. And he wants it to die. And we all should. So beware of this messy Christianity.

And I say messy as just kind of like an overarching description. Again, not that the word messy in and of itself is bad or wrong or we should never use it. But just beware, be discerning. use scripture to know if these influencers are really pushing you into the truth of God that is found in scripture or pushing you away and closer into your feelings. It is the God of self-love. It is the God of self, period. And it's not going to sanctify you and it's not even going to justify you. So you should have nothing to do with it. Be careful. We all have to be careful. And I, gosh, I've been thinking about this recently too. Another thing that I'm learning, we've got to be careful

about the things that we put in our minds. I don't want to get into a game of throw. I don't want to get into a Game of Thrones tangent here. But that's been something I've been thinking about if it's wanting to watch Game of Thrones because so many people have watched it, but knowing that that's not something that I should do because I don't think it's glorifying. I don't think it's sanctifying.

There's nothing good or lovely or pure or badness that I should be watching. But at the same time, I look at my own hypocrisy in my life, and I realize I've watched The Sopranos. I've watched House of Cards. I loved those things. And so that's another thing that I am learning and realizing that I have sinfulness in.

and I have pointed fingers at other people, but I have been guilty of that. So I don't even know why I said that. I think to just be careful about the things that we're putting in our minds and to take those kinds of things very seriously because God clearly does, not because he is sitting there necessarily with a rule book and telling things because Jesus already paid the price for us and clean the slate for us, but because we live in a way that is worthy of our calling. That is how Paul describes it because we have been saved because of. God is working in us because God predestined the good works that we are to do. We are supposed to live out to that identity.

And that is if the influencers that you are following are not calling you to do that or not encouraging you to do that, then you need to stop following them, including me, by the way, including me. Or at least you know that if you email me and tell me that, then I will be responsive and we can have a biblically based conversation and hopefully we can both get better through that. But anyway, I hope that all made sense. Oh, I said that I told someone that I was going to answer a relationship question for them.

Okay, it's a pretty short, it's a pretty short relationship question. I'll just do it really quickly. So basically, this person says that she has been dating this person for a long time and that she feels like they're best friends and that he is a follower of Jesus, but she related to my story when I talked about the person that I dated in college, had all those. things too. Great guy, Christian, all of that thought that probably I was going to marry him had been dating for about three years. But I knew in my heart of hearts from the very beginning that he was not the person I was supposed to marry and I just had this like nagging doubt in me from the beginning.

And I was constantly convincing myself because he was a good guy and a Christian that it would be fine. I should marry him even though he had all of these differences and I didn't think he was funny at all. told myself I was being superficial. At the end of the day, thank God that we broke up. Literally, thank God that we broke up because I never had that feeling of doubt at all with the person that I'm married to now, but I doubted with him. So her question is about that. And how do you, how do you know, I guess? And it's hard to say, people used to always tell me when you know, you know, and I used to roll my eyes because I didn't think that that was true, but then it ended up being true for me. And here's what I'll say. Because every relationship is different. Some people go

back and forth and do have doubts for a long time that end up getting married and it's wonderful. So I can't tell you for sure what's the right thing is in that. Now, I will say if you find yourself convincing yourself to be with this person, you should not be with them. That's, I mean, that's just my, and I'm not saying that's the infallible word of relationships. I'm not because this is not the Bible that I'm drawing this from. I'm drawing this from experience. If you find yourself constantly telling yourself, oh, no, no, no, yeah, they do check the boxes off the list.

Or, oh, I mean, they are a good Christian or, okay, yeah, this is, no, this is good. This is right. I mean, my family likes him. And yeah, he has these things. But if something in you, it's just has been nagging you and you've got that, you've got that thing inside you. And I know this is so abstract. But, I mean, feelings, not all feelings are bad. Not all emotions are bad.

And intuition isn't bad. And the Holy Spirit does work. So I would not discount that. That's what I'll say. If you find yourself convincing yourself that you should be with someone, you probably, probably should not be with them because that's probably not going to go away. It is much better to be sad and single than to be sad and tied to someone. You would rather feel sad and single than sad and trapped, right?

So romantic love is a wonderful, beautiful thing. It's not all bad. Agape love is much better. It's the unconditional love that you have, even when the feelings go away. It's the commitment. It's the covenant love that you say that you are going to keep forever in sickness and in health and for richer or for poor. That's what you commit to when you are getting married, especially in a Christian marriage. It reflects Christ in the church. It is a covenant. It's not meant to be broken. There are some exceptions to divorce that the Bible gives, but all in all, a marriage is supposed to stand. the test of time and the trials of life. And romantic love, though, is a beautiful impetus into that relationship that I think it's a gift of common grace that we get today that hasn't always been true throughout history that people require that romantic love is required before getting into marriage. I think it's a beautiful, wonderful thing of living in 2019, or where are we? 2019?

Yeah, 2019 that you get to fall in love with someone and be attractive. to them before actually getting married. I think that's a beautiful, wonderful thing and you should feel those things. I think, y'all can correct me if I'm wrong. I think you should feel those things very strongly before you get married. And I certainly did for my husband and I never looked back. We personally, we only dated for five months. We're engaged for four months. We knew each other for maybe even less than a year by the time we got married, never looked back once. Greatest decision besides following Christ that I've ever made. And so I never had to convince myself.

Again, that's just my personal experience. So if you find yourself having that nagging, this something isn't right. Even if you can't put your finger on it, I would say it's best to get yourself out of that situation. It's torment. I tried to say torment and torture at the same time. It's both. It's torment.

And you shouldn't stress yourself with that. I personally believe. Welcome. welcome pushback in that arena. Let me know what you think. Anyway, that's all I have time for. This has been a long episode. But love you guys and I'll see you back here on Wednesday.

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort.

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