Steve Deace - Do What You Believe: Or You Wont Be Free to Believe It Much Longer

Table of Contents

About the Author

Steve Deace hosts a daily show on BlazeTV. Hes also the author of several books, including the number one bestseller Faucian Bargain: The Most Powerful and Dangerous Bureaucrat in American History . His 2016 book, A Nefarious Plot , will soon be adapted into a motion picture. He lives in Iowa with his wife and family.

Introduction

Were Doing It Wrong

I grew up mostly in the 1980s, and one of my favorite childhood films from that era is the Michael Keaton classic Mr. Mom.

In the movie, Keatons character is the proverbial fish out of water, a modern-day stranger in a strange land. Hes gone from being a mover and shaker in the corporate worldthe primary breadwinner for his familyto a stay-at-home dad struggling to find his purpose and maintain his identity.

Sound familiar? In many respects, Keatons character is a metaphor for the modern American church. The positions of father and husband he still holds still pack a punch when it comes to tradition and status, but whether or not he still knows how to wield any actual influence with them within the paradigm shift his family is undergoing is up for debate. He was so used to his authority being acknowledged one particular way that now hes cut off from that original path, he believes hes less of a man.

How much money he makes, his accomplishments, and other performance-related affirmation and approval originally defined Keatons character. However, once he loses his job hes now cast in the far more difficult role of servant-leadership. He was always daddy to his children, but now hes also their primary caregiver. And hes totally unprepared for the thanklessness of the job.

Now he does the cleaning and the shopping (including a hilarious scene where hes charged with purchasing a feminine hygiene product for his wife at the grocery store) and becomes the stay-at-home father to the kids. The tasks hes charged with now go unnoticed by everyone, including his wife, who has rejoined the workforce and is now focused on her climb up the corporate ladder.

He seeks affirmation in all the wrong places: food, soap operas, coupon poker games, and exotic nights on the town with the other desperate housewives in the neighborhood. None of these activities are thoroughly satisfying.

Along the way he makes several mistakes and feels more and more out of place every day. Hes so out of his element he cant even manage to drop the kids off at school correctly. As he drives up to his childrens schools parking lot in a pouring rain one fateful morning, the crossing guard confronts Keatons character, pointing to a sign that indicates hes driving in the wrong direction and causing a traffic jam for the other more experienced parents.

Youre doing it wrong, she declares to Keaton.

Indeed we are.

As believers, we understand the difficulty of Keatons transition. We are in the world, but not of it. Before we were children of God we were also motivated by the same things Keatons character originally was: money, prestige, power, and success. Then one day we hear Gods effectual call of the wild and come to Christ and worship Him as Lord and Savior.

Our previously dead in sin spirit comes alive, and suddenly the world looks completely different. To borrow a phrase from The Matrix , we have taken the red pill and now realize just how far down the rabbit hole goes. Slowly but surely over time our tastes change, our attitudes get adjusted, and our vision gets clearer. What we see and what we seek change.

We begin to recognize that what we once called good is really evil, we understand that what we once described as freedom is really bondage, and we have a zeal to spread that Good News to the ones around us still held captive by deception.

We search the Scriptures looking for the best ways to do that. Then Jesus presents us what are the most challenging paradoxes in the history of humanity: die to live, deny to gain, endure persecution to be blessed, and be prepared to give up everything we hold dear to follow Him.

Before we lived to indulge our own desires, but now we know our lives are not our own because we were bought at a great price. Suddenly were to care for the least of these, when before we wanted to keep up with the Joneses. Suddenly were told to expect opposition for doing the right thing, when before hardly anybody got in our way for doing the wrong one.

But thats okay for a while, because we now have something we never had beforejoy. The joy of knowing history is headed somewhere, the joy of knowing this life isnt all there is, and the joy of knowing were loved by our heavenly Father no matter what.

Then the honeymoon period expires, and its time to go to work. We realize that God saved us for something more than just eternal fire insurance. We realize that He has predestined good works for us to do. Good works that would bring glory to Him. Good works that demonstrate His mercy, compassion, truth, and love. We are convinced that faith without works is dead. We feel Gods call to go and serve in the arena and play our role in the redemptive process.

Once we get out and engage the world and get our hands dirty, we begin to struggle when confronted with the reality that were fighting a lost cause by the worlds standard. And the world never hesitates to tell us just how weird and nave we really are, too. Sometimes even our closest family members and friends turn against us, and we cant figure out why that is because were actually a kinder and more loving people than we were before.

Sure, we still say amen when the preacher says one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Christ is Lord. We may even believe that to be true. But the broken road that takes us beyond belief and to conviction has a new obstacle: our own lack of real, I-know-it-in-my-gut faith.

We yearn for God to say to us one day, Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your master. Yet its tough to endure till that end when we dont receive affirmation every time we take a stand for what seems like the right thing. Its tough to endure when we dont experience victory while defending Christs honor and teachings. And thats even if were not already discouraged to see the culture around us sink even further into the abyss.

We look to THE CHURCH (which we will capitalize in this book whenever were addressing the universal body of believers) to provide us the means to be world-changers. But THE CHURCH is divided, and a house divided against itself cannot stand. After all, there are thousands of different denominations and sects, so who knows what the truth really is? Thats not to say there arent legitimate doctrinal reasons for splinters and schisms. Im certainly not shy about expressing my own views on such matters. However, isnt it ironic that the more we schism and splinter, the less doctrinally aware the culture around us becomes?

In 1980, as America was attempting to recover from the societal earthquake known as the counterculture of the 1960s and the scandals and cynicism of the 1970s, the inestimable thinker and tactician Francis Schaeffer wrote A Christian Manifesto. He urged American Christians to renew the faithfulness, orthodoxy, and activism that inspired those original ragtag thirteen colonies, distinctly founded on Judeo-Christian tradition, to alter the course of human history.

I believe it is time for a similar call to arms before this exceptional country is lost to history on our watch. While I wouldnt presume to carry Schaeffers jock strap, I also dont see a long line of holier and wiser alternatives offering Gods people anything beyond just keep doing what weve always done, but hope/expect to see a different result this timeotherwise known as Einsteins classic definition of insanity. Therefore, after spending more than a decade in full-time activism, Im going to give it my best shot.