Is Christ A Problem Solver?

What was the main objective of Jesus Christ in His redemptive mission to earth? Did Jesus come to save man from their problems (sins)?

Many today see Christ and the Christian life as the answer to man's problems. Certainly the human race have their share of problems, and as a result "Christian-religion" capitalizes on the perplexities of man’s problems and promotes itself as problem-solving institution. Multitudes gather each week hoping to find the remedy to their perplexing problems. As problem solving has become the focal-point of Christians, it has given rise to the big business of Christian institutionalism, that promises they have the answers to fix, correct, and solve every problem known to man.

They proclaim that “Jesus is the Answer, to all of man's problems!” Their meetings and programs are designed to teach individuals “how to” resolve every problem or meet every need related to marriage, family, personal and/or public life.

The followers of this “intoxicating objective” of problem-solving, become enslaved and dependent upon the Pied Pipers of religion and their formulas for success. The "how to's" of Christian-Religion (often sermonized in slick hermeneutical style) become the basis of personal "problem solving," swaying and influencing their congregations to follow their doctrinal and practical remedies to find the cure.

The message is always the same, "do to be," performance based religion, which is promoted to be the cure to every problem. Christian-Religion always requires you to do something. Religion always places the burden of responsibility squarely on the shoulders of man to make the right choices to solve his/her own problems. As a result, many Christians continually seek to find the answers to the problems they face, asking repetitively the same question over and over again, “What must I do?” Just tell me what to do to solve my problem.

What keeps them “hooked” to this religious bondage is the false belief that man is inherently sinful and therefore the source of his problems. It becomes man's responsibility to bring about change by doing the right thing, behaving the right way as God has commanded. Scriptures are quoted out of context, "... If you love Me, you will keep My commandments," as the basis of man's personal responsibility. Religion has taught that responsibility is something that one “must do” or perform to be what God wants them to be.

What is man's responsibility? Responsibility has nothing to do with our performance. Responsibility should never be focused on what we can or cannot do. Responsibility is our God given ability, “response-ability,” to be receptive to God. A responsible person participates with God’s activity. Our response to God’s ability is what we call faith. Faith experiences God’s activity which is Grace. In the midst of life’s problems, as we respond to and rely on the living Lord Christ, we live by His grace. Grace is not an answer to a problem, but is a Person. In this manner the unresolved problems that we face become the opportunities that God uses in our lives to reveal His All sufficient Life and ability, that we might experience the abundance of His character and Life.

Jesus’ objective in coming into this world was not to solve man’s problems. 

Therefore, Christianity is not about solving problems, Christianity is Christ Himself! Jesus declared in John 10:10, "I have come that you might have life and might have it abundantly."

The Good News of the gospel is the living person of Jesus Christ indwelling man (Romans 8:9) as God intended man to be, rather than a packaged solution to solve a problem. Jesus did not come to solve our problems or simply take away our sins, He came to be our indwelling life (Phil. 1:21; Rom. 5:10)!

God solved any and every problem man might have "once and for all" at the cross when Jesus declared, "It Is Finished" (John 19:30). PROBLEM SOLVED!

So what is the objective of Christianity if it's not problem-solving? It is to see Jesus not as a solution to a problem, but rather as "The Way, The Truth, and The Life" (John 14:6). Man's only responsibility is to be receptive and available to experiencing The Way, The Truth and The Life in the midst of life’s most perplexing problems. How you ask? By the "obedience of faith" (cf. Romans 1:5; 16:26). As the apostle Paul declared in Philippians 1:6, "I am confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus." The objective is "... that the life of Jesus might be manifested in our mortal bodies" (2 Cor. 4:10-11).

As problems arise, as they will, embrace them as opportunities of God’s grace and let His Life shine through you as you confront the circumstance, no longer problem-conscious but Christ-conscious (Matt. 13:43).

The words of the chorus of a well-known hymn by Helen H. Lemmel are appropriate:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,

Look full in His wonderful face,

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,

In the light of His glory and grace.

© 2015 by Don Burzynski

Postscript: The thought sequence of this article was set in motion after reading James A. Fowler’s book Christianity is Not Religion ©2008 pp.197-216.

Is it true that human beings are inherently sinful due to the Fall of Man?

Question: Is it true that human beings are inherently sinful due to the Fall of Man?

Response: No. Man is NOT inherently evil or good as much of “Christian-religion” has taught. This is the lie of humanism that promotes this false premise.

The false premise that man has capacity of both nature and character apart from deriving such from either God or Satan.  

Satan from the time of the Garden of Eden has suggested that man could be "like God," in self-sufficiency and that man has a human capability of self-potential independent of God.

In believing this lie, man finds himself blaming himself for everything that is wrong, and on the other hand being capable of doing everything that God would ask of him to do that is good. The obvious consequence of having eaten of "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil," man now believes he has what it takes to be good (with the help of God or that he is evil because he is unable to do so) living life is now dependent on man’s ability or the lack thereof.

In reality there is No inherent “human nature," for to believe so is to promote humanism. Yet, modern Christian thought insists, that man is the source of his problem, teaching that it is the "old nature,” or the "sinful nature of man" that is to blame and therefore man is responsible to fix himself (with the help of God).

This erroneous teaching effects every area of theological instruction and as a consequence has been the basis of dysfunctional behavior in many Christians lives.

If religionists would simply humble themselves before their Creator and acknowledge their inability to live the Christian life (as only Jesus Christ can) they would understand that the source of sin is derived out of the devil (I John 3:10) and they would gladly submit themselves to God (James 4:7) confessing what Jesus said in John 15:5, "...apart from Me you can do nothing."

Questions about the Christ Life #1 "Who is your spiritual father?"

Question: “If man is a derivative man, would you give an example of human beings deriving their identity and character from a spiritual source, of either God or Satan.”

Response: We are derivative creatures. There is always a derivative “end result” to human behavior. Human beings are not independent selves but derive all that they do from one of two spiritual sources. 

Who is your spiritual father?

In John chapter 8, Jesus clearly teaches that man is derivative. He not only illustrates that the Pharisees were deriving their behavior from their spiritual condition, the source being their spiritual father, the devil but He also clearly reveals that He was deriving His life and behavioral expression (character) from His Father. In so doing, Jesus gives us insight into what it means to be a man as God intended man to be. Every human being derives identity and character from one of two fathers, God or Satan. Mankind had never seen a man functioning as God intended (until the incarnation of Jesus Christ) because ever since the “fall of man” man was deriving from their spiritual father the devil. Jesus is the first and only man that lived His enter life dependent and derivative on God never doing anything of His own intuitive.

Heavenly Father 

Your father the devil 

Jesus even went so far as to declare in John 5:30 that “I can do nothing on My own initiative.” John writes eight times in his gospel that Jesus was only deriving life from the Father not independently on his own initiative (John 5;30, 8:28, 8:42, 10:18, 12:49, 14:10). Those who refuse to believe that man is a derivative man are forced to confess that they believe that man is an independent self, which is the lie of Satan and delusional, as only God is independent as only God is the Creator.

John 8:38 I speak the things which I have seen with My Father; therefore you also do the things which you heard from your father.”

39 They answered and said to Him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you are Abraham’s children, do the deeds of Abraham. 40 But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do. 41 You are doing the deeds of your father.” They said to Him, “We were not born of fornication; we have one Father: God.” 42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me. 43 Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word. 44 You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

Every man has a spiritual father, God or Satan. Who are you deriving from? Who is your father? 

THE DERIVED LIFE - A VESSEL OF HONNOR

The simplicity of the derived life is a vessel of honor. Man is called a vessel in scripture. Paul told Timothy to “be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work” (II Tim. 2:21). Paul also wrote, “we have this treasure (Jesus Christ) in earthen vessels, that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves” (II Cor. 4:7). Notice "NOT" of ourselves". Vessels in Biblical times were clay pots which were used as containers for liquids and other substances. Human beings are vessels created to contain God and to express God. Yes, we are more than impersonal pots for in our humanity we have three levels of life functionality, spiritual, psychological and physiological. This beautifully illustrates that as vessels of God we were created to be dependent on Him for life. From the moment that we are conceived, our spirit, soul and body are dependent upon life from another. And all through our lives we continue to experience this same created reality. We are "clay pots" created for relational receptivity to God's activity, which is what faith is. 

We honor Him as we allow His Life to be expressed through us. The Derived Life of Jesus Christ is the only life that glorifies God. Jesus said, "apart from ME you can do nothing (John 15:5). It is the "life of simplicity" as we derive everything "from Him." The lie of independence, which is what religion teaches, would have us striving to live "for" God, robbing God of His Glory. As vessels of honor we have the privilege of allowing the "outlived life" of Jesus Christ to be expressed through us to the glory of God. Man cannot produce that, nor should he try. There is no striving in choosing, "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them" ( Ephesians 2:10).

The Christian may choose to derive from one of two sources but never becomes independent in that choice.
Understanding this simple reality, that we have this "treasure in earthen vessels," allows us to function effortlessly deriving from the Life of Jesus Christ in all that we do. Satan would distract us from the simplicity of the DERIVED LIFE and suggest that we can and should live independently and that God has commanded us to do so by self-effort. Paul feared that happening to Christians in his day, as I fear it is happening to Christians in our day. "But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ" (2 Cor. 11:3). The derived life is a devotional life, a vessel of honor with the Persons of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. May our lives reflect the radiance of His glory (Hebrews 1:3).