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). 

What are or who is the Means of Grace for the Christian Life?

Religionists teach that spiritual disciplines keep the Christian centered in the things of God? That without these "means of grace" or "spiritual disciplines" the Christian will not mature or become what Father has planned and purposed for their life. Is it true?

No! To say that anything is the "means of grace," is to center on something other than the One who is the means of grace, the Spirit of Christ in the Christian. 

He is the disciplined Life and “apart from Him you can do nothing” (John 15:5). He is always your ability, not your disciplined approach or principled approach to live the Christian life. 

Men are always looking to the "how to's" of the Christian life, because they are lacking practical, personal relationship with Christ who is the disciplined life, the exchanged life, the union life, the supplied life, the victorious life, the Christ Life, nothing else is needed "for in Him we live and move and exist" in Christ (Acts 17:28). 

Many Christians are looking for the guideposts because they don't have a point of reference in Christ.

Paul’s prayer for man was that they would experience salvation, (Rom. 10:1) but they like many people today were distracted by religious zeal believing that practicing the law would make them acceptable to God, (Rom. 10:2). In their futile attempts to “be like” God, they establish their own righteousness (the fallacy of humanism) and refused to submit themselves to the Righteous-One, (Rom. 10:3). They were ignorant of the fact that the Law had its end in Jesus Christ (Rom. 10:4).

Modern religionists do the same by attempting to be righteous “by the means of grace.”

•          By the means of reading their bible,

•          by the means of prayer,

•          by the means of obeying principles,

•          by the means of faithful church attendance,

•          by the means of sacraments

•          by the means of whatever they believe they must do…

However, there is no means of grace accept the One who is grace, Jesus Christ. He is grace and therefore the only means of grace.

Grace has no end but is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. Grace is a person who is Eternal (Rom. 5:21; 2 Thess. 2:16; Titus 3:7; 1 Pet. 5:10).

Who or what are you trusting in? “For the Scripture says, ‘Whoever believes in Him (Jesus Christ) will not be disappointed’ (Rom. 10:11).   

Family Life – “That Christ May Dwell In Your Hearts Through Faith”

CrossLife International is about helping people discover who they are in Christ and being available to assist His family that they may come to enjoy all that is theirs in Christ.  “In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.” Matthew 5:48 (MSG).  

The Family of God, the body of Christ is made-up of our families. Each family member is a special gift and expression of God. “Don’t we all come from one Father?” (Malachi 2:10). He is love and always unconditionally loves us regardless of behavioral expression.

Our prayer is that each member of God's Family may know and experience His love, learning to live loved by the Father’s embrace without fear of rejection. “God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry…our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love” (1 John 4:17).

As an earthly father, one of the most fulfilling times of "family life" is being a granddad and enjoying my grandchildren. There are no perfect illustrations of our Heavenly Father's unconditional love for us, however the love of a grandparent is one of the closest examples of what unconditional love looks like, loving out innocent grand-babies. I am thankful for my growing family and the love that my Heavenly Father expresses through me toward them. May each of us allow the Spirit of Christ to grow us up in Him and love others unconditionally. It is only as we learn to live by faith that we can experience and express God's unconditional love. Choose to love today, especially your families! 

Pictured are my six grandchildren, Lindsey, Anna, Blake, Danny, Natalee and Andrew. I love each of them uniquely for who God has made them to be, they truly are a joy.

Our prayer for you at CrossLife is best expressed in the words of the apostle Paul in Ephesians 3:14-17 "...I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love..." 

– Don Burzynski is Director of CrossLife International  

Lindsey 

Anna

Blake

Danny

Natalee 

Andrew

Father's Day - A Day of Grace

How are you remembering Father's Day? 

Everyone has a father and a corresponding story because of the man we call dad. For some it is a blissful story of excited recall of pleasant memories but for others a painful recollection of hurts and sorrows. Often, whether it is a positive or negative memory can be summoned up in the fact that your dad was either "for you" or "for himself."  But why was the man we call dad who he was? It all comes down to character expression, good or evil. So what made dad who he was and then how should we remember him or Father’s Day? Is Father’s Day a "report card of performance" or a day of grace? Do you view your dad on Father’s Day based on his performance of character expression and how good he was or wasn't toward you? How should "Father’s Day" be remembered? Is it based solely on the positive or negative memories of the man we call dad? Regardless of how flawed or flawless the man we call father was or is, Father’s Day can and should be a day of remembering the heritage that our Heavenly Father has given to all of us. Father's Day is a day of grace.  No man has the ability to be a loving dad apart from a relationship with his Heavenly Father.

Pictured

Four generations of Burzynski, left to right, Don, Ralph, Blake and Donald.

 

All true fathers have learned what it means to be called dad by encountering an intimate relationship with Abba (daddy) Father. HE, not our talents, not our effects, not our successes or failures, not our unique journey or story becomes our heritage and legacy as we choose to embrace His love for us. Fatherhood as God designed is the "outlived life" of our Abba Father. As we take His lead and allow for His graceful character expression to be manifest through us then and only then can we be the fathers God intended us to be. As you celebrate Father’s Day honoring your dad or laminating the father you never had, never lose sight of your FATHER.  How are you remembering Father’s Day? Today is a day of Grace. You are loved with an everlasting love of your Father.  "Look around you: Everything you see is God’s—the heavens above and beyond, the Earth, and everything on it. But it was your ancestors who God fell in love with; he picked their children—that’s you!—out of all the other peoples. That’s where we are right now. So cut away the thick calluses from your heart and stop being so willfully hardheaded. God, your God, is the God of all gods, he’s the Master of all masters, a God immense and powerful and awesome. He doesn’t play favorites, takes no bribes, makes sure orphans and widows are treated fairly, takes loving care of foreigners by seeing that they get food and clothing" The Message Bible Deuteronomy 10:14-18. 

Don Burzynski is the Director of CrossLife Counseling in Vero Beach, Florida and is the father of eight children and four grandchildren. www.cross-life.org