Does Your Faith Have Power or Just Words? A Challenge from Don Britton

When the apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, he drew a sharp line most of us prefer to blur:

“The kingdom of God does not consist in words but in power.”
—1 Corinthians 4:20

He told them he wasn’t coming to listen to their talk; he was coming to see their power.

That distinction—between a faith of words and a faith of power—sat at the heart of my recent conversation with Don Britton, author of The Great Deception of American Christianity Without Christ and Quit Church, Now What?

At the end of our interview he pressed a simple, unsettling question:

“Do you really know the Lord—or do you just have a form of godliness but no power?”

It’s a question worth sitting with. Because everything else we talked about—church culture, grace, obedience, hypocrisy—flows from how we answer it.

Let’s unpack it with two examples from Don’s story.

Example 1: When Church Attendance Replaces Knowing God

Don didn’t grow up in an obviously “spiritual” home.

Born in Chattanooga in 1948, the oldest of seven.
His father couldn’t read or write; his mother had a seventh-grade education.
The home was hard. He doesn’t remember his parents ever saying, “I love you.” There wasn’t much tenderness or kindness.

There was, however, just enough exposure to Scripture to plant seeds.

In the 1950s and early ’60s, some of his public school teachers had Bibles on their desks.
They would quote verses and even correct students using biblical principles.
His grandmother took him to Sunday school a few times. He heard about Jesus dying on a cross, about Noah and the flood, David and Goliath.

The result? He developed a conscience. He knew, deep down, that God existed and that some things were right and others wrong.

But he didn’t know God.

As a teenager he went looking for love the only way he knew how: sex. By 14 he was sleeping with high school girls. He married before graduating, divorced soon after, remarried, and carried an adulterous lifestyle into his second marriage.

By his own admission:

There was no real love or compassion at home growing up.
He equated sex with love.
He felt condemned and, at times, feared he’d sinned too much to ever be forgiven.

Fast forward to age 31.

On a business trip, another man—whose past mirrored his own—tells Don how Christ delivered him and gave him a new life. For the first time, Don hears the full gospel: that he can repent, be forgiven, and truly start over.

One month later, his wife (his second, and now lifelong wife) catches him in yet another affair. She’s had enough. She tells him to leave and walks out.

Alone in the house, he falls before God, broken and devastated. No Bible in the house. No pastor present. Just a desperate man pleading for mercy.

He cries and begs and repents until he senses, in a way that’s hard to describe but impossible to deny, that God has actually heard him—and forgiven him.

That was the beginning of a different kind of faith. Not mere words about God, but a life-opening encounter with God.

So what does this have to do with church?

Plenty.

In the three years that followed, Don and his wife tried everything:

A non-denominational “full gospel” church.
A Baptist church where some of her family attended.
Charismatic congregations, tent meetings, revivals.
Small-group “cell” meetings filled with food, fun, laughter, and singing.

What he didn’t find was clarity or transformation.

He kept running into people who’d been in church 10, 20, 30 years…with no real change. Still enslaved to old sins. Still living essentially worldly lives, but now wearing religious labels.

The breaking point came in a home cell group. Twenty people gathered weekly for fellowship. One week, Don suggested something radical:

“Next week, let’s all bring our Bibles and actually get into the Word.”

The following week, no one showed up.

That told him something.

They loved the social life.
They had plenty of “church words.”
But there was very little hunger for God Himself—or for the obedience His Word calls us to.

Don eventually brought his wife and five children home on Sundays. He spent days studying, starting from scratch. Evenings he gathered the family around a whiteboard, teaching them Scripture in simple, child-friendly ways.

Ironically, that’s when real community began to form. People from their old church started calling: “We haven’t seen you. Can we come hear what you’re learning?” Over time, 15–20 people were meeting in their living room—a functioning house church.

In other words, Don walked away from institutional church not to abandon faith, but to find a faith with power instead of just words.

Example 2: When “Grace” Becomes a License to Keep Sinning

If the first example shows how religious activity can replace actual relationship, the second shows how misunderstood grace can hollow out the Christian life.

Don remembers a particular revival at that Baptist church. An evangelist came through and, from the pulpit, told the congregation:

“If you’re committing adultery, you’ll still go to heaven because of grace.”

Don, the former adulterer who had just risked his marriage and life to get free from that sin, sat there stunned. He turned to his wife and said, in essence, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

That moment sent him back to the Bible.

He read Jude’s warning that certain people had “crept in unnoticed,” turning the grace of God into lasciviousness—a license to practice sin. He read Titus 2, where grace isn’t a warm feeling but a teacher:

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age.” (Titus 2:11–12)

In other words:

Grace doesn’t whisper, “Don’t worry about it. You’re fine.”
Grace says, “Don, you’ve got to stop committing adultery”—and then empowers him to obey.

He read Paul’s blunt warning:

“Do not be deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers…will inherit the kingdom of God.” (1 Cor 6:9–10)

Yet much of the modern gospel he heard boiled down to slogans like:

“Grace plus nothing.”
“Jesus plus nothing.”
“Just believe—no need to worry about works.”

The result?

People were told there’s “nothing to do,” when the New Testament is full of conditions: repent, believe, obey, endure, bear fruit, take up your cross.
They were assured of heaven while still addicted to the same sins.
Churches were packed with people who’d prayed a “sinner’s prayer” once but never actually followed Jesus.

Don pointed to research (and to what many of us have seen anecdotally):

Rates of adultery, pornography, and other sexual sins in the church often mirror, or exceed, those in the culture.
A startling number of pastors themselves report porn use.

Why? Because we’ve preached a grace without repentance—a “grace” that says God loves you as you are but never insists He loves you too much to leave you as you are.

Once again, we end up with faith as words—“I’m under grace”—but not power—no real freedom from sin, no transformation, no deepening intimacy with God.

The Razor’s Edge: Between Godless Rebellion and Comfortable Religion

During our conversation, I sketched a different version of the “line on the whiteboard” Don used with his kids.

Instead of “God” on one side and “Devil” on the other, imagine a razor-thin path down the middle—the narrow way Jesus spoke of. On either side, there are ditches.

Ditch 1: Godless Rebellion

On one side, you have the openly anti-God culture:

“Freedom from religion,” not “freedom of religion.”
A reflexive suspicion that anything God commands is harmful or oppressive.
Social narratives that treat traditional morality as bigotry and God-talk as superstition.

In this ditch, the call is simple: throw off God. Be your own authority. If there is a God, He’s irrelevant.

Ditch 2: Comfortable Religion

On the other side, you have religious culture that uses God-language but resists His demands:

“God loves you and forgives you” (true) quietly fused with “there’s nothing for you to do” (false).
Church attendance and denominational labels treated as proof of spiritual health.
A “form of godliness” without the power of a changed life.

In this ditch, the call is also simple: relax. You’re fine. Don’t take all that obedience stuff so seriously.

The Narrow Way

The actual call of Jesus doesn’t fit neatly into either trench.

He says things like:

“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord’ and do not do what I say?”
“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me.”
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father.”

He also says:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”
“My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
“Whoever comes to me I will never cast out.”

The narrow way is where those truths meet:

Real grace that truly forgives—even the Don Brittons and Wade Franssons of the world at our worst.
Real obedience that actually changes how we live—not to earn God’s love, but as a response to it.
Real suffering—our own crosses, not just Christ’s—that teaches us obedience and deepens our compassion.

In our episode, Don and I touched on Hebrews’ puzzling line that Jesus “learned obedience through what he suffered.” Not because He was disobedient, but because, in becoming fully human, He walked the same path we’re invited onto: obedience forged in hardship.

That obedience qualified Him as our great High Priest. When He died, the temple veil tore from top to bottom—a sign that the old priesthood had served its purpose. The way into the Holy of Holies, into the intimate presence of God, was now open to all who come through Christ.

We don’t need an institutional mediator to know God. But we do need to walk with Him, not just talk about Him.

Which brings us back to the original challenge:

Is your faith mostly words—labels, slogans, vague belief—or is there power?
Power to repent and actually change.
Power to endure suffering without giving up.
Power to love people you once couldn’t stand.
Power to forgive and be forgiven.
Power to know God, not just know about Him.

If Paul walked into your life, or mine, today, what would he find?

Sneak Peek: Easter Sunday with Dan and Joy Nichols

Next week’s episode airs on Easter Sunday, and the timing is no accident.

My guest is Dan Nichols, a pastor who:

Gave a sixth-grade speech declaring he would never be a pastor.
Later planted a church from scratch, led a network of churches, and now shepherds a 225‑year‑old congregation that began when Thomas Jefferson was president.
Walked with his wife Joy through their oldest son Landon’s three open-heart surgeries—and then through Landon’s own questions and doubts about faith at age eight.

Out of that crucible came a book series called Making Scripture Simple, designed to help kids (and adults) see Jesus clearly in the Bible.

One line that stuck with me from our conversation:

“We learned that God’s grace is never premature.”

On Easter Sunday at 7 a.m. Central, we’ll talk about:

What it’s like to lead both a brand-new church plant and a 200+ year-old congregation.
How nearly losing a child reshaped Dan’s understanding of Jesus.
How to help the next generation encounter Christ in Scripture without dumbing it down.

I’m confident you’ll find the conversation rich, honest, and hopeful. I already know, because we’ve recorded it, that the Spirit shows up in some surprising ways.

I hope you’ll join us.