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What do you want? What is it you long for? Be careful as you answer—you may be setting a trap for yourself. Better still, you may be answering the question when your lips are sealed.
When I finish writing this article, I will send it via the Internet to my co-laborers in Orlando. The Internet is an astounding thing. I have no notion of how it works; I only know that it does work, most of the time. One thing I do know about is cookies. Cookies are things I want, and don’t want, at the same time but not in the same relationship. The kind I want have chocolate chips and nuts in them, and have nothing to do with computers. The kind I don’t want have no chips or nuts, they just fly back and forth over the Internet. These cookies are tiny little programs that gather information about us as we surf the Web. Whether you know it or not, you’re being tailed when you cruise the information superhighway.
Information about us, in our information age, has value. It has value because the sages of Madison Avenue know how to use it. They want that information because it helps them know what we want. And once they know what we want, they know how to sell us what they want to sell. Their real need is to find out our felt need. Cookies help them do that.
That’s the key to advertising these days—find the felt need and promise to meet it. Feeling insecure socially? The right toothpaste will make you an extrovert. Suffering from road rage? The right SUV will make you king of the highway.
It’s bad enough that we live in a culture that markets its wares this way, but we have entered into a bizarre world where even the gospel is marketed this way. We live in an age in which Jesus is sold like a bar of soap.
It’s not such a great leap to make. One of the great things about Jesus is that He does meet so many needs. In Him is the fullness of the riches of the godhead. He lacks nothing, and He delights to give gifts to His people. Understanding our place in the kingdom, knowing that we are redeemed children of the King, may eradicate any social insecurities we might have. And in Him we have the peace that passes understanding, which ought to be a powerful cure for a bad case of road rage. As we give ourselves over to His lordship, as we grow in grace, we become more obedient to His law, which, not surprisingly, is a powerful aid to our happiness. The law, after all, was made for man.
But there is a problem. When we see Jesus merely as the source of what we feel we need, we haven’t given ourselves over to His lordship. We are still serving ourselves. To pick up one’s cross daily, to die to self, is to give up one’s felt needs, and to be about the business of building His kingdom. Our sales pitch for the gospel is classic bait and switch. We promise people that Jesus will serve them, when the key to the gospel is for them to serve Him.
And there is a second problem. When we sell Jesus on the basis of felt needs, we obscure, if not pass over, real needs. Jesus’ highest purpose was and is not to cure us of our insecurities. He did not take on flesh and dwell among us to cast out the demon of road rage. He did not humble Himself that we might be the life of the party. What we truly need is to be reconciled to God, to have peace with Him against whom we have warred. Such Jesus has accomplished. Through Him we escape the just wrath of the Father.
Sadly, that peace is not enough for too many of us. We want something more. Thus, many of the excesses of the charismatic movement are grounded in the promise of a deeper relationship with God. God’s declaration in His Word that we have peace with Him just isn’t as exciting as hearing His voice. The power of the gospel just isn’t as flashy as the power of the Power Team. We aren’t rolling on the floor laughing at the glory of the gospel, so we fly off to Toronto to learn how to roll around on the floor there. We feel significant not because we have been redeemed by Christ our Lord, but because we have gold fillings we didn’t pay for.
I’m afraid part of the blame for all this power religion may fall at the feet of Reformed folk. First, we are a stingy people. Joy makes us suspicious, and theology is serious business. Second, we, like Scripture, often speak of Christ’s work in legal terms. We no longer stand guilty before the judgment seat of God. This is true, and glorious in itself. But in Christ, God’s response to us is not an impersonal recitation of “Not guilty, case dismissed, next case on the docket.” We are reconciled, not merely pardoned. Through the Second Adam we become as the First Adam, who walked with God in the cool of the evening. God is our Father, who runs after us prodigals, wraps us in His mighty arms, dresses us in royal robes, and commands a feast.
In short, God in Christ not only forgives us, He loves us. This is our experience of joy. This is what causes our cups to run over. This is the source of the fullness that causes us finally to let go of our emptiness. The Lord is our Shepherd, we shall not want. The still waters and the green pastures are merely the icing on the cake. He is our Shepherd, and that is all we need. The God of all creation loves us with an everlasting love. Let that be our ecstatic utterance.