People weren’t made
To be like a tin guy.
You know why?
We have hearts to feel
And tears to cry.
Be real!

When we’re hollow like a tin man, we feel empty. Be real!

Jesus denounced role players and called them hypocrites. His Beatitudes are the “be-real-itudes.” They’re about being broken enough (“poor in spirit”) to experience radical inner transformation, not about posturing to impress people thru outward role-formation.

The Christian life is about letting God, your gardener, grow and prune you into what you were made to be — a Spirit-led and Christ-empowered model of the image of God, reflecting His will on earth as it is in Heaven. It’s about letting Christ’s redemption and restoration replace all the rebellion in your heart, mind, and lifestyle and return you to the “original glory” of being made in God’s image.

Christianity is about going beyond a pittance of repentance to full, unconditional, and continual surrender of your will to the ever-living Jesus. It’s about raising your focus far beyond merely going to church to the ongoing moment-by-moment surrender of your all to the awareness and reality of “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

Trade self-awareness for Christ-awareness and your happiness level will soar. When Christ-followers gather, they should create an atmosphere where the ever-living Jesus can demonstrate and display His power. When the guy sitting next to you in church is like a tin man, there’s no real fellowship, no matter how good the sermon may be.

Church seems to keep people from being honest and real. You see people yawning, dazed, aimlessly looking around, and even sleeping during the sermon, and then hear them tell the pastor, “Good sermon.” When there’s a greater focus on going to church than on “Christ in you,” church has become an idol.

A weekly meeting
Conducted in a particular
Religious format
Isn’t always the way
God wants to work
Among His people.
He longs
To connect them
Heart-to-heart
To Himself
And to each other.

A Sunday morning talk
Full of religious theory
That you’ve never experienced
In your own life
Will rarely touch your heart
And make you teary
Or fill you with joy
And make you cheery,
But if it goes too long
It might make you weary
Or even dreary.