All of Christianity in Two Simple Sentences

Two simple sentences capture the heart of Christian faith:

1) God in Jesus Christ entered human history for a relationship with you.

2) Your relationship with Christ encompasses your personality and entire human nature.

If you took time to read a hundred theology books drawn from the two hundred denominations within Christianity, you would find a hundred different opinions on what constitutes the Christian faith.

That’s why I want to keep it simple! 

I have led many people into personal relationships with Jesus and witnessed their surprise at his love for them. With sadness, though, I have watched some grow lukewarm later on, almost to the degree that they filled their minds with Christianese. In becoming religious they lost the adventure of walking with Christ.

I now understand that sometimes the Christian religion, while needed for presenting Christ to the world, can actually cool a person's heart toward the Lord. This shift from vital encounter to mental belief system did not occur with the disciples. They kept their personal conversations and emotional connection going with Jesus right through his Resurrection, Ascension into heaven, and indwelling in their inner cores through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Yes, they knew the same kind of fear and loneliness that you and I know. But they kept talking and praying to the Lord, entrusting him with their needs, struggles, and occasional misgivings.

So I encourage you to keep it simple. Don’t get carried away with religious nitpickiness.

Learn what you will and expand what you learn, but keep renewing your love for Christ by engaging him in lively conversations. As long as you keep straight that Christianity is not Christ, and that public images of Christ are one step removed from his personal fidelity to you, you are freed from the denominational eccentricities that pervade the Body of Christ.

As long as you commune daily with Jesus, you can read Scripture from Genesis to Revelation without becoming preoccupied by tangents (like self-consciously trying to obey a bunch of rules), or thrown off track by paradoxes that are not easily reconciled (like God’s sovereignty and the problem of evil).

You diversify your exposure to the Christian heritage and enrich your perception of God’s Being by enjoying the sensual beauty of a Catholic Mass, the rousing singing of a Baptist service, the enthusiastic celebration of a Pentecostal revival, the reverence of a Presbyterian worship service, or the relational enrichment of a home Bible study.

So let's carry on today, taking the apostle Paul at his word: "And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God (Eph 3:17-19)." 

For more on how to follow Jesus Christ, see:

Faith Beyond Church Walls: Finding Freedom In Christ

Your Personality Matters to Christ

Personality is the hallmark of humanness and the gift of a loving God to each one of us. Through personality you share with Jesus the potential for identity, free choices, and intimacy with others. By engaging the Lord with your whole personality, you develop a reciprocal rhythm of communication and communion that lasts a lifetime.

I am convinced that your personality development is more treasured by God than the Milky Way galaxy, the rotation of planets in their orbits, and the entire plant and animal kingdoms. I know it’s hard to believe, but Almighty God has designed Creation as a backdrop against which your personality and relationships can come to the fore in dialogue with him.

There are those who say, “You don’t need to know anything about your personality to please Christ. Just read the Bible, go to church, and keep the Ten Commandments. That’s what God wants from you.” 

Actually, these are good ideas, but only when taken alongside your personality growth in Christ. Personality is the sum total of your thoughts, feelings, and behavior. It is through understanding the workings of your inner life—your personal psychology—that you sustain a bridge of intimacy with the Lord. 

Your personality is as unique as a fingerprint, yet follows laws common to humanity. Knowing and honoring the laws of personality enhances the quality of your interpersonal communication with God. Not knowing these laws, or unwittingly violating them, diminishes or even cripples your individuality and relationship with Christ. 

But I have good news. There is a simple way to place these laws of personality into perspective: a personality growth tool I call the Self Compass that is scientifically valid and biblically sound. 

The outer circle of the Self Compass symbolizes your selfhood throughout the stages of life. Resembling a physical compass, the four compass points reveal a dynamic tension between Love and Assertion, Weakness and Strength. Combining the first letter of each compass point gives you a convenient way to remember the LAWS of personality and relationships.

The compass points of Love balanced with Assertion, and Weakness balanced with Strength, are essential for a healthy personality. Yet because many people don’t know this, they can favor one compass point at the expense of the others. They become “stuck” on that compass point with rigid behavioral trends that trouble them throughout life, never recognizing that many of their miseries are optional.

In overly using the Love compass point, you develop the dependent trend of feeling unsure of yourself and always needing people’s assurance and approval. 

Exaggerating the Assertion point creates the aggressive trend, where you argue frequently and feel irritated at other people because it seems that your problems are their fault.

Being stuck on the Weakness compass point triggers the withdrawn trend of recurrent helplessness and depression. Fearful of making mistakes, you exchange the adventure of self-development for a morose existence of detached isolation.

People stuck on the Strength compass point feel superior to others and become judgmental perfectionists. This controlling trend makes them bossy and critical, a real pain to be around.

Part of finding your freedom in Christ is this: don’t short-circuit your potential and disappoint God’s calling by getting trapped in a narrow corner of your personality. Rather, live robustly and creatively with your whole Self Compass! 

Here are some quick guidelines for how to get each compass point running smoothly, so you can enjoy the many benefits of compass living. 

Love and Assertion

The first polarity within the Self Compass is Love and Assertion. Love comes from all the times you express kindness, forgiveness, nurturance, fondness for the Lord, or sacrifice for the well-being of someone in need. Love empowers Christian service and supplants selfishness with altruistic caring.

But giving too much love to others lets them take advantage of your resources without replenishing you in return. You’ll likely become a smiling doormat, a person who is secretly depressed, even resentful. 

You need a healthy dose of Assertion to stand up for your reasonable rights, negotiate for fairness in the world, and dare to resist others—and the devil—when pleasing them would counter your guidance from the Holy Spirit.

Think of it this way: Love fosters good will and good cheer, whereas Assertion cultivates self-expression and self-preservation. When you have Love and Assertion operating rhythmically within your personality, you can love yourself and others while enhancing your individuality in Christ. This fulfills the LAWS of personal and relational health.

For example, healthy people can say “yes” as well as “no” to requests that other people make. They can yield to others when compromise is appropriate; yet take firm stands when it isn’t. Like Christ, they respond flexibly to life situations without being stuck in a trend of dependency or aggression.

Maturing as an individual in Christ, then, entails learning to trust your Self Compass and follow your inner marching orders from God. Honoring the rhythm between Love and Assertion increases your fidelity to God’s unfolding will. 

The Holy Spirit faithfully guides you precisely because of your courage and flexibility. Remember Jesus’ promise: “I have said these things while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you” (Jn 14: 25-26).

Weakness and Strength

The other polarity of personality is Weakness and Strength. Weakness captures all the times you feel uncertain, vulnerable, anxious, hurt, sad, lonely, fatigued, stressed out, overwhelmed, frustrated, and confused. You might immediately think: “These are bad feelings. I don’t ever want to feel this way.” Yet Christ knows that by admitting your weaknesses and deficiencies, you are made humbly reliant on him.

For those super-person Christians who claim to be strong all the time, I say, “Why don’t you grow more human, like Christ is human? He had moments of loneliness, doubt, frustration, and anguish. Are you greater than the Lord?”

When artfully managed, the Weakness compass point fosters humility and empathy for others who are suffering. Strength, on the other hand, imparts the confidence required to develop your talents, pursue the education you need, interview for jobs, hold your own in relationships, and feel good about your accomplishments. Understood this way, Strength encompasses the occasions when you feel healthy confidence, adequacy, and esteem for yourself or others.

When you integrate Weakness and Strength into your relationship with Christ, you find yourself able to converse with him day and night, asking for blessing and guidance in everything you do. At the same time, you take responsibility for your choices. You do the footwork to make good things happen instead of magically hoping that life will get better. 

If you combine the four compass points into a single prayer, it might go like this:

“God, please strengthen my weaknesses and help me develop humility about my strengths. Show me how to care for people assertively and maintain a caring attitude when I assert myself. Thanks. Amen.”

For more about this, you can read Christian Personality Theory: A Self Compass for Humanity that is co-authored with my wife Kate.

Why Is Jesus Christ America's Favorite Curse Word?

I was watching Super 8, a movie produced by Steven Spielberg. Four middle school boys are helping the US military fight off an attack by space monsters. But my attention wasn't on the aliens. It was on how those boys were using swear words in almost every sentence.

I found myself counting the times the Christian name for the Son of God is used as a profanity: "Jesus." "Jesus H. Christ." "Jesus F--ing Christ." "Christ." Along with a fair number of "G--Damns!" I quit counting near a hundred.

Before the movie began, I overheard two grandmothers sitting behind me swapping stories about their grandchildren. Now on screen the first alien leaps out to attack the boys. Both grandmothers scream in unison, "Jesus Christ!!"

Does this underscore for you that Jesus Christ is America's favorite curse word? Have you recently heard the Lord's name used in vain? Among friends or acquaintances? In your own speech?

Can you imagine Krishna becoming the favorite curse word in India? Buddha evolving into a profanity in Tibet? Allah an obscenity in the Middle East? Why then is "Jesus Christ!" the favorite swear word in America, not only in daily conversation, but in literature, television, and movies?

In past decades most curse words derived from bodily functions related to urination, defecation, sexual intercourse, or contempt for another human being. Why, then, this choice? This leap from excrement and sex to a sacred religious name, the name at the heart of Christianity? A name held holy by the majority of Americans and over two billion Christians worldwide? Why does Jesus Christ head the list of national vulgarities, so endemic to American culture?

Using Jesus as a swear word used to break a cultural taboo. Its shock value used to surpass those taboos broken by "F-you" and "you A-hole!" However, after three decades of usage, it no longer shocks at all. That's why the curse word "Jesus Christ" is used in so many contexts today -- anywhere from cussing out an enemy, to showing surprise and awe, reacting to physical pain, venting anger, and revealing contempt for a person or idea.

Those of us who choose Jesus as a swear word do it because of the power embedded in Jesus' name.

The power of Jesus' name, used perversely. 

Converting a term that stands for holiness, hope, and heaven into profanity repudiates the holy object, in this case the person of Christ. So in exclaiming, "Oh Jesus!" -- or "Jesus Christ!" -- a person consciously or unconsciously conveys, "I am not a follower of Christ and spurn what he stands for!"

When this particular cuss word becomes so second-nature that grandmothers and children use it to express negative emotional states (shock, fear, anger, or disgust), then, derogatory though it is, the  Christ-expletive becomes a societal merit badge. A badge of mockery. A verbal badge that dishonors Christ, Christianity, and Christians.

Perhaps this is a way of protesting the Gospel of Christ, which invites people to repent from evil and comprehend God's love for them. But rather than protesting Christ's message through derogatory speech, I suggest that we respect the freedom to worship God or not, and find tolerance for the religious differences that make America great.  

Here is a consciousness-raising experiment you might try out this week. When you stub your toe, witness a shocking event, or get furious at someone who crosses you, see if your unconscious flips into automatic pilot by erupting with a desecration of Jesus' name. If not, it means you've successfully averted this national trend. And if so, it means that with a little spiritual vigilance you can remove its influence from within your psyche.

Wouldn't we all find benefit from a constructive separation between religious sensibility and cursing?

For more about Dr. Dan's integration of psychology and theology in the 21st century, read:

COMPASS PSYCHOTHEOLOGY: WHERE PSYCHOLOGY AND THEOLOGY REALLY MEET

New Catholic Personality Book Praised by Cardinals!

A Catholic classic in integrating spirituality and depth psychology, the newly revised and expanded  GOD AND YOUR PERSONALITY is now available in both print and e-book versions on Amazon.

God and Your Personality

God wants you to be the best version of "you" in Christ. This means God wants you to develop a whole, integrated, mature personality that reflects all your talents, capabilities, and dreams—while conforming to the image of Christ. Unfortunately, a lot of us fail to follow the Holy Spirit's guidance in actualizing this calling. We fall short of God's purpose for our lives. We get trapped in other people's ideas, our own self-imposed limits and fears.

God and Your Personality is your key to break through those barriers and become the beloved son or daughter of God that you were born to be. Writing with compassion and empathy, but also with a firm grasp of personality problems, Theologian-Psychologist Dan Montgomery gives you a handbook that will enable you to find your own "true north" by utilizing the cutting-edge techniques of Compass Therapy and the Self Compass.

Through learning to steer your life with the Compass points of Love, Assertion, Weakness, and Strength (the LAWS of personality health), you can find a freedom to become the "you" that God calls you to be.

University of Notre Dame 

“I am fascinated by the Self Compass. The growth orientation of the Compass Model offers a transformation mindset that benefits any reader. Well done.” — Darcia Narvaez, Ph.D., Professor of Developmental and Moral Psychology 

Paul Cardinal Poupard, The Vatican 

“God & Your Personality is no New Age influenced waffle clouded in a mystique of blurb, but a useful tool for all those who seek to address personality issues and quench their innate spiritual thirst with the living-water which truly satisfies. Well done!”

Secretary of the Vatican Council for the Evangelization of Peoples

“This book is easy to understand and yet contains a profound understanding of the underlying elements of the human personality. It will surely be of much help to anyone who wishes to deepen their knowledge of the relationship between psychological and spiritual wholeness.” — Archbishop Robert Sarah

Ricardo Cardinal Vidal, Manila 

“God & Your Personality is a noble accomplishment and a gift to individuals who seek wholeness and holiness.”

Erdo Cardinal Peter, Budapest

“God & Your Personality is a fine achievement and wonderful contribution to the healing ministry.”

Stephen Cardinal Kim, Seoul

“I am now reading God & Your Personality and find it very enlightening.”

Roger Cardinal Mahony, Los Angeles

“The Catholic tradition has long affirmed the value of the human sciences in leading us to a deeper understanding of the human person in relation to God and others. Dr. Montgomery’s work, drawing as it does from the riches of psychological investigation and insight, will prove most helpful for those striving to grow and develop in the Christian life.”

Let God and Your Personality be your means 
of healing grace today!

Why Are Men Afraid to Cry?

I first got the message that men don't cry in seventh grade football. The coach put me in as a halfback to run the ball, and two upperclassmen tackles who looked freight trains smashed into me so hard I crumpled to the ground. Not only did I feel humiliated, but worse than that, I couldn't breathe, for one of the boys had hit me in the gut on the way down.

I lay there writhing and struggling for my breath to return, only to hear the coach yell, "Montgomery's just a weak sister! Leave him where he lays." The teams formed up and continued the scrimmage, leaving me in the dust (it literally was a gravel and dirt field, not grass).

When I could breathe again, I crawled to the sideline and eventually stood up, bracing back the tears that wanted to stream. I was learning the secret that most boys and men learn. To keep from being taunted as a wimp, I steeled my spirit, tightened the chest muscles around my heart, and clenched my jaw. Did this mean I was a man?

Not quite. The following year I took my girlfriend to the newly released West Side Story. When Tony—the boy I most identified with—was stabbed and left bleeding to death in a parking lot, his head in Maria's lap, the dam of restraint broke and tears streamed down my cheeks. Moments later my girlfriend took her hand out of my hand, looked at me incredulously, and whispered, "Boys don't cry!" 

That completed my initiation into manhood, and for the next five years nothing in heaven or earth could make me cry. In terms of the Self Compass, I had learned that boys and men are to inhabit the upper quadrants of Strength and Assertion, and only girls and women had access to the lower quadrants of Love and Weakness.

In other words, I learned to appear strong in all situations, and if that didn't work, to get angry. How many billions of us men, do you suppose, are stranded in our human development, because our self-expression prohibits the softer, more tender and vulnerable side of being human?

What I like about the Christian faith is that Jesus, one of the strongest and most assertive men in history, wasn't afraid to cry. When his dear friend Lazarus died,"Jesus wept." Not only did he cry, but he loved with his whole heart, whether it meant loving his Father in heaven, loving his friends and disciples, or loving those who hated him.

It is the whole Self Compass—this willingness to feel and express both Love and Assertion, both Weakness and Strength—that makes Jesus Christ a Savior and Friend who encourages your full human development, whether you are a boy or girl, a man or a woman. 

I don't know about you, but I love this Son of Man and Son of God who bravely endured the cross, and though broken, bruised, and forsaken, continues to open his heart to us, seeking only to make us as whole as he himself is!

By the way, over the years, as I developed the various aspects of my self through the Self Compass model, I not only learned that it was acceptable for men to cry, I also learned how to constructively develop strength and assertion. In fact, I am a black belt in karate.

Crying and karate...they are just two of the ways I know that Jesus is working in and through me to make me more whole. He will do the same for you if you let him.

For more about helping men, women and children develop a whole Self Compass in their personality and relationships, read:

Christian Personality Theory:

A Self Compass for Humanity

Will God Take Care of Me?

Christianity is at heart a mystery. I don't pretend to fathom its depth that reaches down into the fabric of being, encompassing the salvation of those who trust in Christ and the divine purpose of the cosmos.

For the two billion plus individuals who identify ourselves as Christian, the mystery of Christ's atonement for sin speaks to our personal depths, the discovery of grace and love as a foundation for living, and the emerging selves in Christ that we are becoming.

I lay on a sofa pondering this mystery one night, while also worrying that my wife Kate and I had little money to live on, barely paying the rent, food and gas. Yet at the same time, I realized, we were fully surrendering to the task at hand: writing the next book in our Compass Series.

On the one hand, unexpected reversals had financially devastated us. On the other hand, the anointing of the Holy Spirit had placed fire in our bones to write a book called, Trusting in the Trinity.

On this very night, with our faith in God tested to the max, and mood alternating wildly between psychological anxiety and spiritual ecstasy, a sentence composed itself in my mind—a sentence about the atonement of Jesus Christ for human sin and doorway to God's grace. I got up from the sofa, wrote the sentence on my laptop, and pondered its meaning, still not knowing how we would survive next month's bills.

Here is that sentence:

"Knowing that human beings learn from practical object lessons, God called a people to himself after their deliverance from slavery in Egypt, a people now living in tents below Mount Sinai, a newly constructed tabernacle with its Holy of Holies in their midst, with Aaron, the high priest divinely appointed to fulfill God’s instruction through Moses that once every year on the day of atonement, he would select a bull without spot or blemish, which would represent the people, and sword in hand, he would lay hands on the bull’s head, a picture of vicarious identification with the children of Israel, followed by a sharp slash to cut the bull’s throat; a bowl underneath filling with spurts of blood, Aaron would sprinkle this blood on the mercy seat atop the ark of the covenant in the Holy of Holies, specially crafted for the purpose that without blood there is no remission of sin; a blood offering given in obedience to God’s command that by faith in the sin offering the people would find forgiveness, the bull dying in place of the nation, the blood holding a historical place until, in the fullness of time, Jesus Christ offered his own blood, our hands upon his head, his throat figuratively slashed like the bull’s, a vicarious atonement for the sins of the whole human race, and the curtain in the Jerusalem temple separating humanity from the Holy of Holies rent from top to bottom, signifying that through the sacrifice of Christ for the Trinity’s love of humanity, individuals can become sons and daughters of the living God (Heb 10)."

I left a note on the kitchen table, asking Kate to read it the next morning, and see if it made any sense to her. The next day she responded positively, and we both agreed that it helped us see the connection between the Old and New Testaments, and between the Jewish sacrificial system and the new covenant that came through the death and resurrection of Jesus, our personal Passover Lamb.

Not only this, but it seemed to offer us emotional comfort, because it somehow conveyed that delivering human beings from the penalty of sin cost God everything, yet opened the doorway to full and liberating fellowship with God.

Now about the bills. We ate a lot of oatmeal and beans, and received two years of free housing in a very gracious friend's retirement home. We gave away most of our worldly possessions, but were happy in this monastic existence, knowing that we did have food, shelter, and gas, and just as important as these earthly provisions, we had the peace of Christ in our souls. We knew that God was taking care of us—we had what we needed.

 For more help in understanding the atonement of Christ:

Trusting in The Trinity: Compass Psychotheology Applied

How To Trust God and Feel God's Love

Whatever chaos is in the world, whatever governments are in power, and whether Christianity is in or out of favor, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit invite you to walk and talk with them every single day.  

Your communication with the Trinity is not contingent upon external factors, but internal ones. Your whole personality and human nature are the means of communion with God, and that communication is a spontaneous ongoing interaction.

What a pleasure.

What a mystery.

What an adventure!

In developing your individuality in Christ, you speak your mind to God, disclose feelings of every sort, and surrender your life and body to his care. 

The Lord, in turn, may respond by composing sentences in your mind, hugging your heart with tender care, or imparting serenity to your body, a tangible peace that calms your nervous system and melts your muscles.

As in any close bond, conversation with God sometimes sings like poetry, and other times feels uncertain and awkward. If you come to a place where God seems distant and your burden heavy, get back to the basics. Kneel at your bedside for several nights, praying for the rejuvenation of a lively faith. 

The Lord is right there with you. He will help remove any obstacles and rouse your awareness of the Holy Spirit’s power and presence, for “we know that all things work together for good for those who love God,who are called according to his purpose” (Rom 8:28).

There's more on how to trust God and feel his love consistently: 

Faith Beyond Church Walls: Finding Freedom in Christ.

 

The Strength of Human Weakness

In America and most parts of the world, Strength is admired and cultivated as a way of striving for achievement and building self-confidence.

Weakness is an experience that nobody likes and everyone shuns.

 
However, when people seek Strength at the expense of avoiding any sense of Weakness, they become entitled, inflated, and even cocky about how strong they are. I believe the Bible wants to correct this human error by teaching that "pride goes before the fall."

The truth is that we are all weak under our facade of strength. We all get sick, have accidents, are thrown into panic by sudden adversity, are vulnerable to various addictions, and haunted by the uncertainty that we may not have enough (money, friends, health, or even life) the day after tomorrow.

So Christ teaches us to rely on him day to day, and not worry about tomorrow.

Yes, we can make reasonable, tentative plans. And yes, we can exercise a certain amount of control in governing our circumstances. But we must not do it obsessively, at all costs.

We remain humbly open to discovering and doing God's will, even when we find this inconvenient and uncomfortable.

God often asks us to accept temporary adversity, vulnerability, and uncertainty—precisely so that our self-willed Strength does not become our god.

Compass Therapy and the Self Compass show how Weakness is one of the four universal compass points of personality, and offers as much positive value to mental and spiritual health as do Love, Strength, and Assertion.

But how do you experience Weakness gracefully, especially when it hurts? First, realize that God came among us as a fully human person—Jesus. He experienced human weakness through the things he suffered. He didn't own a home, had no spending money, was sometimes popular and sometimes despised, had some loyal friends and some who betrayed him, and experienced moments of anxiety, grief, and terror, the same as we do. For these reasons Jesus Christ is a humble and empathetic Savior.

You come to terms with Weakness by knowing that you can't do life by yourself. You lean on God and others to help you out. You accept your losses and move forward into Strength. You surrender to occasional waves of anxiety and uncertainty, while still keeping your eyes on the Lord, who strengthens you through Weakness. And you develop the virtue of humility and empathy for those who still suffer.

God makes a way for you when there is no way. 

For more about how faith calms fear and heals anxiety, read  

Faith Beyond Church Walls:  Finding Freedom in Christ