Trapped in complicated Christianity? Here's permission to come out of confinement! How did so many people wind up trapped by complicated systems of performance-based faith? Why do we push ourselves past our limits in pursuit of more works than any reasonable Pharisee would have demanded? Must we run at a pace somewhere between maddening and insane to prove we're among the faithful? "No!" is the emphatic answer from best-selling author Chuck Swindoll. In Simple Faith , he shows us how to get free from such arbitrary confinement. He reminds Christians that they serve a God who promised freedom, peace, and rest. And it's everlasting --- not exhausting--- life, remember? Here at last is an exhilarating invitation to simple faith. Move beyond rat-race Christianity and break the bars calculated to wilt free spirits. A cage is no place for a Christian. Welcome to your wings! Pastor Charles R. Swindoll has devoted his life to the accurate, practical teaching and application of God's Word. He is the founding pastor of Stonebriar Community Church in Frisco, Texas, as well as the founder of Insight for Living , a leading program in Christian broadcasting since 1979 that airs around the world. Chuck has also served as president and now chancellor emeritus at Dallas Theological Seminary and has contributed more than 100 titles to a worldwide reading audience, books for which he has received the Gold Medallion Lifetime Achievement Award, twelve Gold Medallion Awards, and the Christian Book Award for Bible of the Year. simple faith By CHARLES R. SWINDOLL W Publishing Group Copyright © 2007 Charles R. Swindoll All right reserved. ISBN: 978-0-8499-4419-2 Contents acknowledgments..........................................................xiintroduction.............................................................xv1 let's keep it simple...................................................12 the qualities of simple faith..........................................213 a simple counterstrategy: shake and shine..............................434 simplicity starts from within..........................................635 simple instructions on serious issues..................................816 simple advice to the selfish and strong-willed.........................997 beware! religious performance now showing..............................1218 prayer and fasting minus all the pizzazz...............................1399 when simple faith erodes...............................................15510 the subtle enemy of simple faith......................................17511 if you're serious about simple faith, stop this!......................19312 the most powerful of all four-letter words............................20913 simple yet serious warnings for complicated times.....................22514 the simple secret of an unsinkable life...............................243conclusion...............................................................257endnotes.................................................................261with gratitude...........................................................269 Chapter One let's keep it simple WHEN IT CAME TO CLEAR COMMUNICATION, Jesus was a master. Children and adults alike had no difficulty understanding His words or following His reasoning. This is remarkable because while He was on earth He lived in a society that had become accustomed to clich-ridden religious double-talk. The scribes, priests, and Pharisees who dominated the synagogue scene in Palestine saw to that. They unintentionally made Jesus' simple style and straight-forward approach seem all the more refreshing. When He spoke, people listened. Unlike the pious professionals of His day, Jesus' words made sense. This was never truer than when He sat down on a hillside with a group of His followers and talked about what really mattered. Thanks to tradition, this teaching session has come to be known as the Sermon on the Mount-in my opinion, an unfortunate title. His words were authoritative but not officious, insightful but not sermonic. His hillside chat was an informal, reasonable, thoughtful, and unpretentious presentation. He distilled an enormous amount of truth in an incredibly brief period of time, and those who had endured a lifetime of boring and irrelevant sermons sat spellbound to the end. The result was that when Jesus had finished these words, the multitudes were amazed at His teaching; for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes. -MATTHEW 7:28-29 If we fail to understand the background behind that statement, we will not appreciate the depth of His listeners' gratitude. In short, they were fed up with the manipulation, the pride, and especially the hypocrisy of their religious leaders. Long years of legalism, mixed with the pharisaic power plays designed to intimidate and control, held the general public in bondage. Man-made systems of complicated requirements an