Re-visioning God

While man is at home with animals and stars, he is also the cosmic neighbor of the Absolute.  ~Gustave Martelet

Three chapters into this book it is still as fresh and enlightening as the first page. I love a book that presents something new in each section while still being able to tie it together or at least build on previous thematic material. Nearly two months into this blog, and I do not regret a single moment spent on it. Even if no one reads a post, I obtain such a wealth of wisdom and understanding that I sometimes find myself writing far more than anyone would reasonable desire to read, and yet it still feels worthwhile.

Chapter 1 touched on the true message of Jesus, the one that pulpits everywhere ignore or downplay. Chapter 2 discussed the various means by which the gospel is misspoken. Chapter 3 starts breaking ground for construction of the gospel Christ spoke of and believed. It begins by re-visioning God.


Jesus' good news about the kingdom can be an effective guide for our lives only if we share his view of the world in which we live. To his eyes this is a God-bathed and God-permeated world. It is a world filled with a glorious reality, where every component is within the range of God's direct knowledge and control.

Great, I'm tracking so far. We need to believe in God in order to effectively believe in the message Jesus gave. God's in control, he made the world, and he's everywhere in it. That much I've always been told. But wait, there's more.

It is a world that is inconceivably beautiful and good because God is always in it. It is a world in which God is continually at play and over which he constantly rejoices. Until our thoughts of God have found every visible thing and event glorious with his presence, the word of Jesus has not yet fully seized us. 


Say that again? Until we have found EVERY visible thing and event glorious with God's presence, Jesus' words have not yet fully seized us. I do not propose that he is saying we have to find every event glorious. Murder, rape, and thievery are awful things. However, he has definitely stated that every moment should be glorious because of God's continuing presence. Whether because of the event or despite it, Willard writes that God is in every moment of our lives, making each one glorious in some way, shape, or form. More on this later. In the mean time, back to God.


We should, to begin with, think that God leads a very interesting life, and that he is full of joy. Undoubtedly he is the most joyous being in the universe. All of the good and beautiful things from which we occasionally drink tiny droplets of soul-exhilarating joy, God continuously experiences in all their breadth and depth and richness. 

I guess I've never really thought of it that way. I know I've experienced joy and exhilaration, just as I know I've experienced love and kindness and compassion. I already credit God as being the most loving and compassionate being, why not also the most joyful? I suppose my excuse would be that I often consider God's sorrow and God's anger and God's mercy because those come easily to mind from scriptures. But have I simply read over the accounts of when God rejoices in his creation? When in Genesis he declares all things "good", is he not saying he takes pleasure in them? 

Or maybe it goes deeper. Maybe I do not want to consider a joyful God, because maybe I do not want to be joyful. I'm perfectly fine being optimistic in life, but taking joy in every moment... that almost seems like a burden. Yet I know it is not. Intellectually I know that Joy, as a fruit of the Spirit, is also something God cares deeply about. It is a part of his image, even as righteousness and peace and kindness are. I desire to be like him; should I not put just as much effort into being joyful as I do into being loving and holy?


We are enraptured by a well-one movie sequence or by a few bars from an opera or lines from a poem. We treasure our great experiences for a lifetime, and we may have very few of them. But God is simply one great inexhaustible and eternal experience of all that is good and true and beautiful and right.  That is what we must think of when we hear theologians and philosophers speak of him as a perfect being. This is his life.

Have you ever considered the life of God? Do you just assume that he sits up there somewhere above the clouds and constantly judges everything and everyone? Does he not take pleasure in his creation? In his creations? What is the life and existence of God? What does it entail? What composes his every moment? Perhaps these things are beyond our understanding. After all, who can really say how God experiences a moment? However, I would surmise that we can say God is joyful, for we know that, "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights." (James 1:17) And we know that joy is good. Ergo, joy comes from God. Ergo, God possesses infinite amounts of joy. God is a joyous being.

Deep in unfathomable mines

Of never ending skill,

He treasures up his bright designs,

And works his sovereign will.

~William Cowper

Not only are we given this wonderful description of God, but we also have a living image of him at work in Jesus Christ. Where does Jesus spend his time? Does he go careening around city after city calling judgment down on people and cringing at all the rule breaking? 

No. He spends his time at weddings and banquets and dinners. He goes walking with his friends and family. He goes sailing on lakes. He loves being around children. He engages with people everywhere. Sure, he has those moments where he's off by himself praying, or weeping for a lost one, or upset at the wrongness of the world. But these do not define his life. His life is a life of joy. And so is God's.

Out of the eternal freshness of his perpetually self-renewed being, the heavenly Father cherishes the earth and each human being upon it. The fondness, the endearment, the unstintingly affectionate regard of God toward all his creatures is the natural outflow of what he is to the core - which we vainly try to capture with our tired but indispensable old word... love.

 

 

Integration of Life and Faith

Wrapping up chapter 2 today. Let's just jump right in.

So as things now stand we have, on the one hand, some kind of "faith in Christ" and, on the other, the life of abundance and obedience he is and offers. But we have no effective bridge from faith to life.

This has actually proved somewhat frustrating even in these last few months. Reading so much about the life of abundance that Christ offers, I have often found myself desiring access to it immediately. However, my years of history discovering Christ has not given me an automatic berth into living the eternal life now.

Granted, things have been improving. I see so much growth in myself even in the past two months, and especially in the last year, as though God has known all along the path down which he was leading me. Actually, that's probably quite an accurate statement.

Moving on.

If we have not been living the life eternal, what have we been living?

We settle back into alienation of our religion from Jesus as a friend and teacher, and from our moment-to-moment existence as a holy calling or appointment with God. Some will substitute ritual behavior for divine vitality and personal integrity; others may be content with an isolated string of "experiences" rather than transformation of character. Right at the heart of this alienation lies the absence of Jesus the teacher from our lives.

All other thoughts aside, he makes a valid point here. We love to cling to rituals and experiences in religion, as though these alone will solve our spiritual problems and make us closer to God. But the unfortunate thing about both of these is that they require little to no effort on our part. Think about it, the pastor hands out communion, asks you to rise, asks you to sit, sends you his blessing and on your way you go.

How can you, as a being of free will, come upon a new life of abundance if you never consciously will yourself to take some part in it? If all you do is go from church service to church service hoping to "feel" God's presence one of these days like you did that one time when you were a kid, then you are accomplishing no more than a child who throws a basketball haphazardly towards sky hoping that it will again land in the hoop as it once did.

Let's call this fictional child Rich. Rich likes basketball. He's heard of Michael Jordan. He likes to play it because his friends and family play it. He is enthusiastic about going out every day and throwing the basketball in a random "up" direction and waiting to see if it falls through the large open hole.

The only problem here is that Rich will not get any better as a basketball player, even though he performs all the same rituals as other players. He walks out to the hoop every day. He stands where they stand; he looks where they look. The ball is in his hands, then it is in the air. One time he makes it in, and he spends the rest of his life explaining to the friends that he must be a pretty good player to have made the ball in the hoop, just like they did.

Years will pass. Rich's friends will steadily be pursuing the sport of basketball and they will learn how to become better basketball players. They will advance in their teams and careers and go on to play in high school and college and coach their own children. Meanwhile, Rich will remain exactly where he started, still performing the same rituals and occasionally reliving his glorious experience of seeing the ball go into the hoop.

Now come back in from the land of basketball metaphors and understand that when I speak of Rich, I am actually speaking of the spiritually poor. They are many, and they are everywhere. Take a look at your own past, and you may find that you are one of them. God is real, but seemingly inaccessible. Friends and family members talk to you occasionally about what they are "learning" about God. This confuses you because, "Isn't God just a feeling? Isn't he just out there? Aren't you just supposed to do your thing every Sunday and he's happy enough not to interfere in your life?"

Maybe this isn't you. But I'll bet you know someone that fits the description pretty well. Most of these people know Jesus' name while being utterly clueless on what he said, did, or preached. He is not a teacher in their lives any more than Michael Jordan was a teacher for Rich.

The disappearance of Jesus as teacher explains why today in Christian churches little effort is made to teach people to do what he did and taught. We do not seriously consider Jesus as our teacher on how to live, hence we cannot think of ourselves as his students or disciples. So we turn to popular speakers and writers on matters that concern us. Jesus' invitation to eternal life now - right in the midst of work, business, and profession - remains for the most part ignored and unspoken. 


And so ends this highly depressing chapter on the current state of affairs. Before we exit this darkness into a brighter land, answer me these questions three, dare the other side you see.


1) Does the gospel you preach and teach have a natural tendency to cause people who hear it o become full-time students of Jesus?


2) Would those who believe it become his apprentices as a natural "next step"?


3) What can you reasonably expect would result from people actually believing the substance of your message?




Think carefully about you answers before moving into the next chapter.

 

The Gospel on the Left

And now, once again, for something completely different.

At the opposite end of the theological spectrum stands a large number of ministers, priests, and congregations who take an entirely different view of what the issue is in the gospel. The gospel, or "good news," on this view, was that God himself stood behind liberation, equality, and community; that Jesus died to promote them, or at least for lack of them; and that he "lives on" in all efforts and tendencies favoring them.

A pretty quick summary of what roughly half the churches in the United States lean towards. One might even say my own church leans that way, since it quite adamantly does NOT lean to the right (see previous posts for summary). However, leaning left and leaning right are not the only two options available. We can always stand straight up, and we tend to rise higher when we do. This is my view of the direction my own church faces. It's the reason I go there, and will continue to go there, until I find a church that does an even better job of it; though I am skeptical to find such a place.

Let us carry on now where we left off.

The older liberal theology died and was resurrected in the form of a social ethic that one could share with people who had no reliance on a present God or a living Christ at all. Total inclusivism of all beliefs and practices except oppressive ones, such as the exclusivism of traditional Christianity, was the natural next step.

Love everyone no matter what their beliefs or practices and do so in the name of Christ. Christ showed people love by his dying, and we should do the same. In essence, the message of the Christian left is: Love Wins. Yes, I am quoting the title of the recently controversial book by Rob Bell, which I have read. It's actually quite good, as might well be imagined from something written with the objective to reveal the existence of God's love to all people.

However, in the same way that the "gospel of the right" takes the wonderfully good act of Christ's death and resurrection and lofts it up to the highest standard of the flag pole, so the "gospel of the left" does the same with Christ's love. Where once we had a foundational characteristic of Christ and Christians, now we have an ideal to want and to worship.

The real Jesus is "one who identified with and loves the oppressed people and those who are different," calling us to do the same.These words express the redemptive vision of the Christian left. But there is a problem with the precise nature of redemptive love. In this world where there are so many things called love, which love is it that is God?

A fair question. Why are we worshiping a difficult-to-define characteristic of God rather than God himself? Why focus on the love of God over the justice or mercy or righteousness or holiness or faithfulness or mightiness or creativeness or timelessness of God? Is this the view that we have of Jesus' life?

True, he did say, "A new command I give to you, love one another." (John 13:34) He also said that the greatest commandment was to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus commands quite a bit of love from us. It seems to be of great importance.

But we're missing a key point here. Just as salvation by faith begins or starts the Christian walk, so a life characterized by love is a natural conclusion to becoming a Christian. One produces Christianity, the other follows from it. In neither case does either define it. And that is the crux of the issue.

Which is better, to build your life starting on the second story of a building (any building) or to lay the foundation for your life on solid ground and never start building? In once case you have great potential. In the other you have ungrounded and unguided progress. In a trustworthy building, one step should natural progress to another to produce a completed work ready to stand the test of time. But we live in a society of shortcuts and limitations. Willard ties it up quite nicely in the following:

Could we have a bumper sticker that reads, "Christians aren't perfect, just committed to Liberation"? Quite possibly. The current gospels exhibit the very same type of conceptual disconnection from the personal integrity of believers. 

And both lack any essential bearing upon the individual's life as a whole. They concern sin guilt or structural evils (social sins) and what to do about them. That is all. Overall abundance of life and obedience to moral standards that we all know to be valid have no inherent connection to the gospels of sin management. Being "right" or "left" makes no difference on this basic point.

 Okay. We seem to have gone backwards from our kingdom living into our kingdom stagnating, but now that we've identified where we are actually starting, perhaps we can now move forward. Before, the eternal life we witnessed before us was trapped by misinformation and misdirection. We liked the idea of it, but our current "gospels" prevented us from actually believing that it could or did exist.

Let us brush aside our preconceptions and focus on finding the true gospel that Jesus spoke. It's time to knock down our poorly constructed and right/left leaning views of Christ and start building anew from a solid and fresh foundation.This is my goal today, tomorrow, and everyday after as we continue to traverse the pages of The Divine Conspiracy. Until next time, I bid you good reading.

The Foundation of Christianity

I must apologize, dear reader, for the lack of initiative on my part. At the point where I had to be posting around one o'clock in the morning, I decided I had best put the blog on hold until that was no longer the case. The time in now ten thirty in the evening, and this is much more reasonable. So without further adieu...

There has been much debate and discussion as to what really saves a person. Is it the moment they cross the line? Is it a lifetime guarantee? Can it be lost and regained? But where the disagreements abound, we can confidently say that the classical Christianese conservative case always stands firm on the following points.

1) Being saved is a forensic or legal condition rather than a vital reality or character. No one is in this "saved" condition until declared to be so by God.

2) We do not enter it by something that happens to us, or in virtue of a reality that moves into place in our life, even if that reality is God himself. It is about what must be true of us before God will declare us to be in the saved condition.

3) Getting into heaven after death is the sole target of divine and human efforts for salvation. It is what such efforts are aimed at, rather than a by-product or natural outcome of something else that is the target.

I've said this before, and I say it again here. This set of beliefs irks me. People say that Christians are only concerned with the afterlife. While I agree with C.S. Lewis in saying that those who put more value on the hereafter will more fully live in the herein, I disagree with those who ignore the present in order to put emphasis on the partially visible future.


And now for something completely different.

We get a totally different picture of salvation, faith, and forgiveness if we regard having life from the kingdom of the heavens now - the eternal kind of life - as the target. The words of Jesus naturally suggest that this is indeed salvation, with discipleship, forgiveness, and heaven to come as natural parts. The entire biblical tradition from beginning to end is one of the intimate involvement of God in human life.


Did you catch that? Did you pick up on the blog's namesake? It's highlighted in blue. Go back and read that again. Suddenly we have a new definition of what Christianity is all about. It's all about living the eternal kind of life now. It's all living the way Jesus lived. It's all about being "little Christs" as the name originally means. Wow. My "religion" just became a lot more real.

This is apparent not only in the life of Jesus, but also in the lives of the other biblical figures. Or did you think that Christianity only began with the birth of Christ? If what we believe is true about the universe, it should make sense all the way back to the beginning of the universe.

What did Abraham believe that led God to declare him righteous? He trusted God, of course, but it was for things involved in his current existence. He believed that God would interact with him now - just as those who later gathered around Jesus did. 

Reading this nearly caused my head to explode. I've always wondered how our faith could be the same as Abraham's if he didn't know Jesus. If faith was all about believing that Jesus died and rose again, and if faith was all about getting into heaven, then how could anyone from the old testament have or experience what we have? But Abraham did have the faith we can and should have.

In the face of such faith, God declared Abraham to be righteous. Does that mean he declared he would go to heaven when he died? Not precisely that, but certainly that Abraham's sins and failures would not cut him off from God in the present moment and in their ongoing relationship in life together.
 
So, would Abraham go to heaven when he died?

Of course! What else would God do with such a person? They were friends, as we are to be friends of Jesus by immersing ourselves in his work. No friend of God will be in hell. 

This is dangerous territory to anyone who has been raised to believe as heresy any statement that does not explicitly require expressed belief in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ as the waygate to an eternity spent in a far off place (i.e. heaven). Where is the forgiveness of sins? Where is the cross?

They are still there. They never left. But they may have moved from the driver's seat to the passenger's seat.

Certainly forgiveness and reconciliation are essential to any relationship where there has been offense, and also between us and God. Certainly it is Christ who made possible a transition into new life from above. We must be reconciled to God and he to us if we are going to have a life together. But such a reconciliation involves far more than the forgiveness of our sins or a clearing of the ledger. The issue, so far as the Gospels are concerned, is whether we are alive to God or dead to him. 

While one view gets us the necessities, the other provides us the sufficiencies. That is to say, the view of Christ's death as the end-all-be-all only provides the building blocks to an authentic Christian life, while leaving the life part out. But an authentic Christian life will have the building blocks already in place in order to function. This is what Abraham had, this is what I have begun to have, and this is what Jesus always promised we'd have when he promised us eternal life. See for yourselves.

"This is eternal life, that they [his disciples] may know you, the only real God, and Jesus the anointed, whom you have sent." (John 17:3) The biblical know always refers to an intimate, personal, interactive relationship.

So what do you have? What do your friends have? What does your church have? Have they only laid the foundation for a great, abundant life that they aren't yet living? Or is their house built on stone, ready to stand the test of time. Why not start building.

Salvation Cut Off From Life

Today's message:

Justification has taken the place of regeneration.

Okay, if you're like me, you didn't understand that last statement at first because it was phrased theologically. Here it is again, in layman's terms.


If you ask anyone from the 74 percent of Americans who say they have made a commitment to Jesus Christ what the Christian gospel is, you will probably be told that Jesus died to pay for our sins, and that if we will only believe he did this, we will go to heaven when we die. In this way what is only one theory of the "atonement" is made out to be the whole of the essential message of Jesus. 


We have been down this road. Perhaps last time you did not believe me or did not understand when I told you that we were being sold false advertising. Instead of going into depth on that side of things, let's talk about the gospel as it is commonly presented by what the world has labeled "conservative Christians".


We are justified, which is often explained by saying that, before God, it is "just-as-if-I'd" never sinned at all. We may not have done or become anything positive to speak of, but when we come to heaven's gate, they will not be able to find a reason to keep us out.

So what? What's wrong with a free ticket to heaven? We are talking about a one way trip to eternal life with God and Jesus and all our loved ones. Who wouldn't want that if they could have it? No hassle, 100% guarantee, although you don't get your life back if you're not satisfied. After all, we're not talking redemption here. We're talking about a get-out-of-jail free card.

The funny thing about people who get out of jail after so many years is that they often don't know what to do with themselves once they're there. Anyone who's seen "Shawshank Redemption" will know what I mean. Often times we're happier with what we know. Once we are outside the only life we've ever known, we look about helplessly, knowing that we now have something better, but with no idea of how to access it. The salvation of "the right" is much like this.

Practically, there has always been a great problem with knowing for sure that you have performed the right private or mental act, because its essential effect is a change in the books of heaven, and these cannot be seen now.

Okay, really? You experience something life-changing, and no one else can see its effects? Jesus said, "You shall know my followers by the fruit they produce." (Matthew 7:16)

The Christian tradition certainly deals with guilt and the afterlife, but by no means does it take them to be the only issues involved in salvation. The gospel certainly includes the death of Jesus for humankind, but much more besides.

It is this "much more" with which I am concerned. I am becoming more and more convinced that the issue of Jesus' death on the cross and subsequent resurrection solved for us the sin problem forever. It opened the gates of heaven to all mankind. Congratulations, heaven is now open for business.

But we are still on earth.

We still have a choice to make.

In James it says, "You believe there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that." (James 2:19) So believing that God exists makes you no better or worse than demons, the enemies of God.

What about believing Christ died and rose again? You don't think the demons believe that too? I can't think of any reason why they wouldn't. They seem to have a pretty good idea of what goes on in the spiritual realm. I imagine Christ descending into the depth of hell to redeem lost souls caused quite a stir and has not been forgotten. So let's look at that again.

"You believe Christ died and rose again? Good! Even the demons believe that, and shudder." (me)

Does that make you a Christian? No more than believing God exists makes you a Christian. No, you see later in James it talks of Abraham, the founding father of the faith. It speaks of Abraham believing God, acting on his beliefs, showing his faith in God, and that being credited to him as righteousness.

Nowhere does it say that Abraham did a bunch of righteous things, and that made him righteous. It says Abraham turned his faith in God into a reality for his life. His life changed as a direct result of that faith. It was seen by everyone, and it was that faith that made him righteous in God's eyes.

Our church today is no different than when James wrote his letter two thousand years ago. We seek to promise people a redeeming  salvation through a set of beliefs. But what we don't offer them is a redeeming life. We talk of baptism and salvation and streets of gold. But all we are offering is a picture of a place that exists.

If someone wants eternal life, I very much believe it is ready and available to them. Jesus has paid the price to grant everyone access. How sad it is then that so many stand and look at the life eternal without ever stepping foot in it. If you truly want to enter eternal life, but you aren't walking into it right now when you can, what makes you think that you will do so after you die? Walking with God is and always has been a choice. Take the first step today.

 

Shifting the Focus

I again must apologize for the depressing nature of the material in this chapter. It is disturbing, but it is real. We know it to be true. Most often we choose to ignore it, considering it a problem for the priests and not the common plebeian. This cannot be the case. The step to overcoming a problem is to admit that it exists. Let us then focus not on the existence of the problem, but in its solution. If we know what we do not want, we come all the closer to knowing what we do.

According to Gallup surveys, 94 percent of Americans believe in God and 74 percent claim to have made a commitment to Jesus Christ. These figures are shocking when compared to statistics on the same group for unethical behavior, crime, mental distress, family failures, addictions, financial misdealings, and the like. 

As I said, depressing. If Christianity is supposed to bring all sorts of new, eternal life to the individual, why do the lives of Christians appear so ordinary and messed up?

Could such combination of profession and failure really be the "life and life abundantly" that Jesus said he came to give? 

NO! The life Christ offers, the life he lived, is so much more than ordinary. It was world changing! It brought about the greatest, most influential shift in human culture to date. It broke the world and reformed it into something new, something lasting, something eternal. This is the life we see in the Bible. Barring a few exceptions, this is NOT the life we see in the world.

Are we to suppose that God gives us nothing that really influences character and spirituality? Are we to suppose that in fact Jesus has no substantial impact on our "real lives"?

Picture you were being sold a car. You are told it is an electric car, full of the latest and greatest gas-saving technology. It starts on a dime, requires less maintenance and work, and will make your life better in a hundredfold ways. You are told Thomas Edison actually drove one of these, and that is why he was able to make so many inventions and spend so much of his time improving the world for the rest of us.

Then you ask to see everyone who is currently driving these cars. Surely, you consider, if these cars are so very life changing, then I should see lives that have been changed. But as you look around your neighborhood at the people who have purchased vehicles from this dealer, you see them driving with the same angry faces. Every two hundred miles they stop to fill up their cars like everyone else. Their vehicles break down, cause them multiple expenses, and many people become so disillusioned with the vehicle that they give up and sell the cars. We would likely go back to that car dealer and ask him if he actually sells any of the cars he was telling us about. To which he would reply, "Well, no. But Thomas Edison drove one, so we know it's possible that some day our models could do what his did."

I think what we are "selling" is irrelevant to our real existence and without power over daily life. 

"But wait!" you cry. "Maybe we are "selling" the right thing, and people just aren't maintaining them correctly." Sure, maybe everyone around is driving their "Christian car" the wrong way in the wrong direction at the wrong time.

But now let us try out a subversive thought. Suppose our failures occur, not in spite of what we are doing, but precisely because of it. Why are we able to claim many conversions and enroll many church members but have less and less impact on our culture? Why are Christians indistinguishable from the world?

I believe there are those who, when sold this unimpressive car, decide to take it directly back to the manufacturer (God, for those who have been lost in my metaphor). After returning the vehicle that was sold to them, they go out driving a totally different model that seems to fulfill many, if not all, of the previous promises. At this point I would greatly imagine that the dealers are where we are getting it wrong.

History has brought us to the point where the Christian message is thought to be essentially concerned only with how to deal with sin. Life, our actual existence, is not included in what is now presented as the heart of the Christian message.The current gospel then becomes a "gospel of sin management". What is taught as the essential message about Jesus has no natural connection to entering a life of discipleship to him.

 Am I getting the picture across? We have this absolutely wonderful life, shown to us, preached to us, but always seemingly withheld from us. It is as though we are being sold something completely different than every brochure and advertisement we've ever seen. At first glance, the modern Christian message is false advertisement on a global scale. The good news is, we don't have to settle for what we're being given. We can trade-in. We can upgrade. We can get what we were promised and what we ought to have. 

At this point I will leave the metaphor of the car and wholly discuss the life and gospel of the modern day Christian. But not until tomorrow. I'll see you back here then.

 

The Invitation Diminished

Welcome to Chapter Two: Gospels of Sin Management.

It feels rather odd to be starting a new chapter on a Thursday, but things tend to work out best for those who make the best of the way things turn out. So here we are, smack in the middle of the week and entering into our second adventure in the Divine Conspiracy. I must warn you, in terms of adventures, this chapter depresses the imagination rather than exciting it. But it does bring forth deserving points that are seldom addressed in our church or society.

The first chapter of the book sets the tone for an exciting new life available to all which we have taken the liberty of labeling "The Eternal Life". It speaks of kingdoms and queendoms and governments and rules and destinies and dreams and wisdoms and fools. In many respects it is eye opening and uplifting. While this chapter possesses the former, it tends towards the opposite direction of the latter.

How does the grand invitation to life sound today? 

A bumper sticker gently imposes its little message:

Christians Aren't Perfect, Just Forgiven. 

What the slogan really conveys 

is that forgiveness alone 

is what Christianity is all about, 

what is genuinely essential to it.

 Such a simple little statement. Such deep theological roots. If there was one message I heard consistently throughout the Evangelical church of my childhood, it was the message to get everyone on earth to the point of being "forgiven." Now granted, that is a very admirable goal. We cannot approach the Father until our sin problem has been removed allowing us access. The sad news about the simplicity of this message, is that in many cases, the buck stops here. Inside this simple statement, along side its sweet and savory salute, seldom we find... substance. What does it mean when it says "just forgiven"?

It says that you can have a faith in Christ that brings forgiveness, while in every other respect your life is no different from that of others who have no faith in Christ at all. This view is by now worked out in many sober tomes of theology, lived out by multitudes of those who sincerely self-identify as Christians.

Does that not ring true? Is that not a major deblitating factor in presenting the modern Christian message? Do we offer nothing more than a statement of forgiveness, a get-out-of-jail-free card, worthy of a bumper sticker and a pat on the back, but without any life-changing mind-blowing eternal and lasting consequences to speak of?

I submit that we do not. But that is how it's heard.

A friend once asked me why they should be a Christian instead of just a better person. I offered "grace" as a desirable outcome, but they said they had no need of it at the time. How sad it is that I could not think upon any other reason to which they might cling. How sad it is that none was ever given me.

As it happens, that conversation I reference above happens to be one of the relative few that I've engaged in over the years. Perhaps if I'd known more of the life I could have been living, I would have been all the more eager to share it with others. Perhaps I would have been all the more giving, had I felt I had something to give. Intellectually I could never wrap my head around it. Don't get me wrong, I naturally want ever person I know to reach heaven in the afterlife. I've just never been fond of selling "fire insurance", which is what this type of "faith" has been called.

They contemptuously refer to it as "cheap grace." Some people actually reject Christianity because of it. But, to be quite frank, grace is cheap from the point of view of those who need it. And if a fire is likely, it would not be a mark of wisdom to forgo insurance that really is available. 

So in terms of this diminished invitation to a Christian faith, it is not a matter of going in the wrong direction. I consider it more a matter of giving a homeless man a sandwich when you could offer him a house. The first act is certainly praiseworthy, while the second should clearly be the goal.

Can we seriously believe that God would establish a plan for us that essentially bypasses the awesome needs of present human life and leaves human character untouched? Would he leaves us even temporarily marooned with no help in our kind of world? Can we believe that the essence of Christian faith and salvation covers nothing but death and after? Can we believe that being saved really has nothing whatever to do with the kind of persons we are?

More importantly, do we ever find Christ preaching this message? Or had he something else in mind.

In the Midst of Many Kingdoms

Welcome, my dear readers, to the conclusion of the first chapter of the book. It's only taken three weeks, but we made it, with much more to look forward to in the weeks to come. I did not feel the conclusion took a natural path from the previous portions; however, it does contain my favorite analogy from the book.

Ever since opening the gospels I have been confounded by Jesus' continuous statement:

"Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near!" (Matthew 3:2)

Other versions reword it as:

"Turn, for the Kingdom is at hand!"

What does it mean for the kingdom of heaven to be near or at hand? We've talked at great lengths of kingdoms and queendoms, and by now I have a fairly good understanding that God, too, must have a kingdom of influence.

Right beside and among the kingdoms that are not God's stands his kingdom, always "at hand." It is that of Jesus and his heavenly Father. It can be ours as well. 


But again I ask, what does it mean for it to be near? Can I reach out and touch it? Is it all encompassing? Is there a door or a castle? Isn't heaven in the clouds and not here on earth? Perhaps we shall learn more by reading a bit farther.

One thing that may mislead us about the meaning of "at hand" in Jesus' basic message is the fact that other "kingdoms" are still present on earth along with the kingdom of the heavens... So, along with the "already here" there obviously remains a "not yet" aspect with regard to God's present rule on earth.

Very well, God's kingdom is here in the midst of many other kingdoms. Yes, we've discussed those previously. Yours, mine, and everyone's we know. Plus I imagine quite a few kingdoms that we do not even realize. Kingdoms of darkness and kingdoms of hell. But that is a topic for another time.

Now that I have established the presence of God's kingdom, I enter the next piece of Jesus' proclamation. Repent. Turn. Change. What does it mean to repent? It's such a familiar word that it has lost all meaning. We often consider repentance only in the form of sin, as a means of apology and a request for forgiveness. I do not think this is what Jesus was saying in his original message of repentance. Certainly it involved sin, but rather than focusing on the penitent heart, I propose that the emphasis was on entering the new kind of life that awaited. This is where Willard offers such a beautiful analogy as to cause me to repeat it to everyone.

Think of visiting in a home where you have not been before. It is a fairly large house, and you sit for a while with your host. Dinner is announced, and he ushers you down a hall, saying at a certain point, "Turn, for the dining room is at hand," or more likely, "Here's the dining room." Similarly Jesus directs us to his kingdom.

What a beautiful, simple image that is. God's kingdom stares us in the face as we walk by. Jesus calls out to us. "Turn!" he says. "Enter in! My kingdom awaits your presence." And how many times do we wander by, trying to focus on the hallway in which we wait and marveling at all the other doorways. There is a matter of having to leave the hallway in which we currently reside, but how dull and drab that must seem compared to the room with a warm heart, a banquet table, and a dear friend on the other side. 

This, I believe, is the most profound explanation I have ever received on entrance into "The Kingdom of Heaven." It is profound in its simplicity. I have for years sought a clear, precise definition of what "repent" and "turn" and "near" meant, when all I had to do was look up and walk through. 

But perhaps even this simple image is to complicated when discussing what is really at hand. We live in our kingdoms. God's kingdom is at hand, right in front of us. We have access to it through Jesus who invites us in. All we have to do is accept and open the door. 

You cannot call upon Jesus Christ or upon God and not be heard. You live in their house. We usually call it simply "the universe." But they fully occupy it. It is their place, their "kingdom", where through their kindness and sacrificial love we can make our present life an eternal life.

Nothing more needs be said. Until next time, I bid you good reading.

The Kingdom is Now at Hand

I concluded last time that we, as human beings, are made to rule. We have a kingdom or dominion in which we have power over every decision. Along with have influence over our own thoughts and actions, we often are put in positions of influence over the lives of others as well. This is not what I was speaking of before when I mentioned control and manipulation. I refer here to parents having influence over their children, teachers over their students, and even coworkers over other coworkers. We often find that as soon as we seem to have our own lives on the verge of figuring out, God hands us a world of people who often seem impossible to figure out.

"Well done! You were faithful with a few things, and I will put you in charge of many things." (Matthew 25) 

 Indeed, it appears that that was God's plan from the start, to get us to the point where we can mesh our kingdom with his. It's as though he had a conspiracy all along to get us to take part in his work.

"Come you who are under my Father's blessing and take over the government assigned to you from the beginning." (Matthew 25:34)

 It's as though God's been reserving positions in his kingdom with our names on them before we even knew our names. Imagine if Obama approached you with an offer to fill a role in government he specifically designed with all of your abilities and talents and experience in mind. Now imagine a situation much more real, where God has already done that and is waiting for you to step into that role. 


This is not so difficult to imagine, and I know many of you have already done so without even trying. Picture the places in life where you feel and know you're needed every time you step into them. Picture the people who clearly want to spend time with you (children, grandparents, friends). Picture the conversations that last for hours. Picture the times you've volunteered and time has just flown by. Picture when you've given yourself away and seem to have received life in return. This is your government. This is your kingdom. 


Of course many of us are not fond of this government we've been assigned. Often those people I mentioned are the kind of people we don't want to spend a lot of time with. We can give them so much, but they often cannot give us anything in return (that we can see). We believe we were destined for something "greater". God's kingdom does not always line up with our kingdom. 


Contrary to a popular idea, the kingdom of God is not primarily something that is "in the hearts of men." That kingdom may be there, and it may govern human beings through their faith and allegiance to Christ. At the present time it governs them only through their hearts, if at all.

Thus we are left to pray:

 Our Father in heaven

Holy is your name

Your kingdom come

Your will be done

On earth as it is in heaven 

 
It is not a matter of God's kingdom not already being here. After all, if our kingdom is our effective will and influence, then God's kingdom, likewise defined, is everything in the known universe except our hearts, where we have been given free reign. Thus when we pray for God's kingdom to come, we are asking it to come into our hearts, to merge our separate kingdoms into one heavenly, eternal kingdom. Eventually, we are able to merge this with the kingdoms of others who have done the same.

Love of neighbor, rightly understood, will make this happen. But we can only love adequately by taking as our primary aim the integration of our rule with God's. That is why love of neighbor is the second, not the first, commandment and why we are told to seek first the kingdom, or rule, of God.

I've always understood this concept, but never been able to explain it. It is not sufficient to simply love others as we see fit because our best efforts are not enough. God is love, and any love shown apart from him will ultimately fall short of the standard written on our hearts. Having experienced a God who is love in all parts, no imperfect human love can match up. We must first align ourselves with God, and then we will find that divine love naturally overflowing to the other areas and people in our lives. 

New Testament passages make plain that the kingdom is not something to be "accepted" now and enjoyed later, but something to be entered now.

We see from this study that we are one step closer to living the eternal kind of life now. We must not abandon this trek we have begun but must carry it on to completion. We have a position of government with our names on it, a place in God's kingdom, a part of God's kingdom. We have the opportunity to live the life we were designed for. We have the time to start, and that time is now. Carpe Diem.

 

Made to Rule

Back from vacation and back to the discussion board. I have had many days to think whilst away, though given the lateness of this posting, my brain activity is not likely to be to par. However, you will find that the topic certainly is.

Made to Rule. Made to rule what? This reference is to our purpose in life, our design, if you will. We are made with a function and planned implementation. We are designed to complete a task. We are placed at the start of the track and asked to run the race to completion. So what does that look like? What is this purpose? What are we made to rule?

Every last one of us has a "kingdom" or "queendom" - a realm that is uniquely our own, where our choice determines what happens. Here is the truth that reaches into the deepest part of what it is to be a person.

Further reading extrapolates on this subject. Allow me to summarize: we have a kingdom that has been given to us. It consists of every action, thought, word, or deed that we can possibly choose to make and hence affect the outcome of. This simplifies to two words: Free Will.

Without free will it is impossible to "rule". This was the first task given to the man Adam when God formed him out of the dust. God did not give jobs to the stars or the plants or the animals. Those he created and called good in doing exactly as they did. But to man God gave free will; to man, God gave instruction. We were tasked to rule over all that is before us. Never did God instruct us to rule over others (in fact the Israelites had to beg to get a king for themselves), but always God instructed us to be masters over our own lives and our own dominions.

What are our dominions? In my opinion, every interaction you have in the day is your dominion. How you choose to respond to emails is your dominion. How you choose to interact with the checkout lady at the grocery store is your dominion. How you choose to play with your kids, to love your husband or wife, to greet strangers, to talk to friends, to work at work, to sing at church, to play sports, and every other action you could possibly think of. That is your kingdom. You freely choose the result of every one of those interactions. But there's more.

How you choose to think about other people, that's your dominion. How you choose to want or not want what others have, that's your dominion. How you choose to lie on a test or cheat on your taxes or insult a police officer or shove an opponent when the ref is not looking. These are all part of your "kingdom" because in each and every case you have the opportunity to make the choice of the thoughts you will think and the actions you will take. If you didn't, you could not claim free will, although many have tried that approach precisely to escape such responsibilities for their own lives.

On the bright side, should you choose to embrace part of your purpose for living, you will receive your very own kingdom over which you have complete control. That strikes a nerve, doesn't it? Don't we all, deep down, desire to control things in life? Often times we take this out towards others through manipulation. We were made to rule over our own lives, but for some reason that's not enough. Perhaps we realize what a poor job we do of it after all, and we seek another life where we can try again. I've realized this in my own life over the past few years and sought to correct it. But it's hard. I often fail at this task. It's so hard to make my own life the focus of... my life. This is where God steps in.

We are meant to exercise our "rule" only in union with God, as he acts with us. He intended to be our constant companion or coworker in the creative enterprise of life on earth. That is what his love for us means in practical terms.

Haven't you ever wondered what God's love really means for you? In practical terms it means that he has made it possible to reestablish relationship with him and to carry out your work on this earth in union with him. Think about all the excuses that come to mind when you try to be a better person. "It's too hard." "I just get caught up in the moment." "My emotions get the best of me." "Nobody's perfect." All very true statements reflecting an absence of a union with God necessary to achieve the results we have in mind.

What we can do by our unassisted strength is very small. What we can do acting with mechanical, electrical, or atomic power is much greater. But what we can do with these means is still very small compared to what we could do acting in union with God himself, who created and ultimately controls all other forces.

I like to think of it this way. Picture an old medieval kingdom. There's a king and a queen and the knights of the round table (who dance whenever they're able). Now picture yourself as someone in this kingdom. Pick a profession. Are you a blacksmith? A farmer? A merchant? A knight? You probably work hard, know your stuff, and would like to do well in the world. But you live in a kingdom under a king, and he has laws and regulations that must be followed. If you are a knight you could fight for the king and join his army and have provisions and quarters and weapons provided. Or you could be a bandit who lives in the forest and robs from the passer-byes or a mercenary who hires himself out to anyone with enough coin to afford him. If you are a merchant, you could do trade in the villages and cities, travel the king's roads and sell your goods across every border. Or you could be a traveling gypsy who sneaks into towns to peddle behind the tariffs and the law.

In each case you are given a choice. The king rules the kingdom with a purpose of seeing it flourish and grow. His laws may seem limiting at times, yet his influence is undeniable. We have a dominion in this kingdom, and it is our choice to work with him or apart from him. Work with the king and his kingdom is your kingdom. Work against him, and you have but your own measly resources and provisions to supply you.  

If we are faithful to him here, we learn his cooperative faithfulness to us in turn. We discover the effectiveness of his rule with us precisely in the details of day-to-day existence.

Imagine what it would be like to live every moment of every day in perfect harmony and union with what God is currently doing in the world. Do you think it possible? Do you think it prudent? It is certainly a desire of mine, although I have yet to discover how to do it. After nearly five years of trying, I seem only to succeed in this about ten percent of the time. I would like my "rule" to be as effective as possible, and for that, I need to leave the forest and enter the kingdom.