“It’s frustrating to operate under a counterfeit belief system and not know why it fails you. I know, because I’ve been there. But the message of “Christ in you” is the real thing — the word of God in its fullness.
“Today’s alternative is a message that’s an inaccurate part of the whole. All around us, we’re inundated with a lackluster gospel that advocates partial forgiveness, a pressure-filled motivation for behavior change, and the promise of earned rewards in heaven or a cash return while on earth. This counterfeit is the reason that the church sometimes doesn’t appear much different from the world. It’s time for us to start over, if necessary, and seek the real thing.
“Jesus Christ in us as our resource for everyday life is our only hope for any real change.”—The Naked Gospel, page 192
“Of course, sometimes we still turn dependency on the indwelling Christ into an opportunity to self-examine and introspect. And this isn’t any better than any other religious move: 'Am I abiding? What do I need to do to abide better?'
“The term abide, I’ve noticed, is often used by those who seek something to do in order to maintain the reality of Christ living through them. The word abide simply means “to live,” and Christ already lives in Christians! Some have made it out to be something beyond what Jesus intended it to be. Christ abiding in us is a truth, not a command for us to keep up our end of some bargain. Of course there are moment-by-moment choices to walk by faith, but the religion of “I must get Christ to abide in me” is a self-focus that is not the intention of the New.”—The Naked Gospel, page 193
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