Treadmill Theology, is nothing more than bad body image spirituality!

 Good morning,

I pray the day finds you well.

I was talking with a friend of mine the other day. He is the worship pastor at the church that I attend. He mentioned "Treadmill Theology," a name for works based theology. Works based theology, I am sure you know, is a theology that believes doing good works wins favor with God and when you don't, you lose favor with God. Taken far enough works based theology creates a god of conditional love; so you end up on this endless treadmill of trying to gain Gods favor so you will be redeemed, gaining access to Heaven. 

Even when I write this, and even when you read this, it sounds silly. 

God is a God of unconditional love.  

We don't do good works to gain His favor, we do them because He loves us, and lives in us.

Yet...

Why are we on the treadmill? 

It is like we are at a gym and people are looking at us, judging us. 

It is like God is a personal trainer saying, "Oh, you just need to work harder." 

Why do I feel like I am on this never ending treadmill trying to lose that last 10 pounds of spiritual fat. 

Treadmill Theology, is nothing more than bad body image spirituality! 

I might as well be an anorexic Christian, spiritually speaking. Everyone seeing that I am grossly underweight spiritually from doing nothing else but constantly running on this treadmill and all I see is fat while I add speed and incline to the treadmill with the enemy yelling, "Harder, work harder!". 

Get off the treadmill!!!!

Relax, take a break, know that even though we may not see ourselves as good enough, God does!

Treadmill theology is nothing more than a lie the enemy tells us. The enemy says, "God can't love you yet, just work a little bit harder and He will."

What a bunch of Who-Ha. 

The funny thing is, all the while I am on the treadmill God can't use me to the fullest. My brokenness won't let Him.

But somebody once said somewhere, I wish I could remember where, "From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view, even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!"

I think I will get off the treadmill and onto a trail. On a treadmill you never really go anywhere. When you are on a trail you are actually on a journey with God.

This feels much better!

What do you think? 

Something to ponder.

Blessings,

Roger