Spirituality Column #372
December 31, 2013
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

By Bob Walters

Spirituality Column #371
December 24, 2013
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

A Christmas Series - Part 4 of 4
Giftwrapping God’s Grace
By Bob Walters

 

It’s an emotion wrapped in the most profound and holy theme of Christmas, the loving grace of Almighty God that bequeaths to fallen mankind a death-defeating, sin-forgiving and divine-relationship-restoring savior: the incarnate God Jesus Christ.

 

Grace.  God’s grace.  Our loving grace to each other.  The grace of family.  The grace of Mary and Joseph, shepherds and wise men.  The grace of a simple gift under the tree.  The grace of transcendent peace, eternal rest, and glorious, heavenly expectation.  Grace that bestows unmerited favor; favor without a counterbalance.  Grace that preserves, cheers, and enlightens a soul and insists on its freedom.  Grace that is the eternal promise and present proof of everlasting joy.

 

This magnificent Godly grace is mysteriously devoid of worldly, observable “transaction.”  Divine grace is willfully and unselfishly doing something for somebody else out of love, not calculated return.  God’s grace fuels the warmth, peace, love, and giving of “that Christmas feeling.”

So with gift-giving, peace and love rooted in our modern Christmas activities, it seems that grace, worthily, should be the central conversational point and cosmic theme of celebrating Christmas.  But it’s a point often missed and a theme rarely mentioned.  For example, have you ever heard the word “grace” in a Christmas carol?

 

Shockingly, I don’t think you have, at least not in the common carols we sing in church and hear on the radio (in between Jingle Bells and Santa Baby).  I went looking for “grace” and couldn’t find it.

 

I found other words: truth, light, peace, hope, joy, glory, holy, triumphant, wondrous, power, gift, rejoice, praise, blessing, love, faithful, king, mortals, angels, salvation, savior, sweetly, glowing, glorious, tidings, comfort, cheer, Lord, baby, manger, God, brave, cradle, jubilee, heavenly, and divine.

 

Even the words Satan, oppression, fear, error, lowly and sin.

 

But not grace.  And trust me on this … I looked.  Google, Internet, time, creative searching … all expended without result.   If it’s there, I missed it.  In our prosaic musical lexicon celebrating the incarnation of Christ, “grace” seems to be missing.

 

The apostle Paul starts all 13 of his letters in the Bible with the greeting “grace and peace.”  It’s not an insignificant, rote salutation.  It bespeaks Paul’s bedrock grounding in the grace of Jesus Christ and the peace of man’s salvation.

 

The word “grace” is MIA in Christmas carols?  That’s OK.

 

As long as we know that God’s grace through Jesus Christ surpasses any earthly celebration or gift we can imagine, let’s not get wrapped up in a word.

 

Have a merry – and gracious – Christmas!

 

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) always had “that Christmas feeling” but never knew what it was until he found faith in Christ.

 

Spirituality Column #370
December 17, 2013
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

Giftwrapping God’s Glory
By Bob Walters

A helpless newborn baby in swaddling clothes lying in a borrowed manger isn’t exactly the expected image of ultimate, cosmic, all-powerful, Godly glory.

But then, you can’t always tell a gift by how it’s wrapped.

Isn’t the biggest surprise and rarest pleasure under the tree the gift you completely didn’t expect?  The gift someone picked out because they love you and had a better grasp of what you needed than your own idea of what you wanted?

And it was perfect?

That is the glory of Jesus Christ – the full glory of God (John 1:14; 13:3, Hebrews 1:1-4, Revelation 5:13) – who came not to punish man’s earthly appetites and prideful vices but to reveal God’s glory in unselfish, loving relationship and divine freedom.

That is a gift mankind, prior to Jesus, could not even imagine.

Nor is it a gift that fallen humanity, for the most part, has ever greeted easily, cheerfully, thankfully, and with the appropriate species-wide sense of relief.  No, our Satan-delivered fallenness leads us to think we already know what we need.  We expect God to deliver something in line with our own narrow, worldly expectations.

Everything mankind needs to know about the coming of Jesus Christ and the revelation of God’s glory is in the Old Testament.  Today, with an actual printed and annotated Old Testament as a reference, the prophecy can be plainly understood.  But in Biblical times even pious Jews deeply versed in Hebrew law, history and prophecy deemed God’s glorious, ultimate plan of graceful salvation in humble Jesus too fantastic, too counter-intuitive, too “out-there” to be believed.

Almighty God was power and glory and wrath and laws.  A savior coming in weakness (a baby!) and humility (a manger!) to deliver divine love (not wrath!) and freedom (not laws!), to defeat death (after being crucified!) and erase our sins (covered by His blood), while demanding only faith (not legal obeisance!) and faithful works (not rituals!) was not only opposite everything the Jews believed, it was flat-out unthinkable.

Of course the prophets, because they were getting their information from God, were dead-on accurate about God’s plan.  But it was a hard life being a Hebrew prophet.  No one understood God’s radical gift of salvation – i.e., eternal life – by the divine love, selfless service, and mysterious forgiveness embodied in the coming Christ.

Contemplating baby Jesus and the crucified Christ, mankind often asks the wrong question: “How could this weak God solve mankind’s earthly problems?”

Truth is, our biggest problems are eternal, not earthly, and the unexpected gift of God’s glory found in Jesus Christ – boldly unwrapped – is the only solution.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) spent most of his life leaving the gift of Christ unwrapped, under the tree.

Spirituality Column #369
December 10, 2013
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

Giftwrapping God’s Authority
By Bob Walters

The very-bright, 30-something atheist father of three young church-going children was explaining his revulsion for all things God to his life-long-Christian parents.

In his mind his views have nothing to do with confusion – moral, intellectual, cosmic, or otherwise.  They have everything to do with logic, reason, lack of “God” proof, what he sees as the empty crutch of faith and the hypocrisy of anything called “church.”   To his continually prayerful, loving, patient parents, he offers a distressing, emptily resolute, self-centered and unimaginatively standard litany of non-belief.

Its authority adds up to, “What has God done for me lately?”

The young atheist’s militantly lapsed-Catholic wife doesn’t think too hard about such issues.  They both love their three aforementioned children with all their hearts, and allow the aforementioned Christian grandparents to take the kids to church regularly.  Somehow, it works for everybody, sweetened by the kids’ Saturday night sleepovers with the grandparents.  Reflecting on her father’s conviction of there “not being a God,” the middle daughter said out loud on the ride home from church one Sunday, “Grandma and Grandpa wouldn’t lie to us about Jesus.”

Thank God for little children who see truth by the light of Christ.

Upon hearing this story, it occurred to me that the son neither sees nor appreciates the prayerful love of his parents, nor comprehends the gift God is giving to his children.  To boot, he has the bold manners to belittle and insult his parents’ faith.  Many parents can relate, as can faithful young adults with non-believing parents. 

But there is one thing lacking in the son’s appraisal of God, faith, and religion; one thing lacking in his vacant atheism: Authority.  There can be no authority in atheism because atheism is defined by there not being objective, righteous, cosmic, this-is-the-final-answer authority in anything.  The only thing with that kind of authority is God.  So: no God, no authority, no truth.  What’s left are strong personal opinions.

The believing Christian is assured by the authority of God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Church, the Bible, tradition and the fellowship of all believers, not to mention baptism, prayer, communion, spiritual gifts, faith, hope, love, peace that exceeds understanding, and every breath and moment of life that are great, mysterious, and entirely valid gifts from God Almighty.

In the Bible’s “Great Commission” (Matthew 28:19) Jesus directs believers to “make disciples of all nations.”  But for the authority-claiming atheist, there is a “Great Omission” one verse before where Jesus says, “All authority … is given to me.”

Atheism offers functional worldly logic, but the Bible giftwraps God’s authority.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) embraces mystery, noting that the great fun of Christmas is the mystery of what’s under the tree.

Spirituality Column #368
December 3, 2013
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

A Christmas Series - 1 of 4
By Bob Walters
 
Upon perusing one’s cosmic, Christian, Christmas shopping list, which of the following would you rather gift wrap for any random human:

- a loving, productive and rock-solid faith in Jesus Christ, or







I’ve often written in this space of my disdain for salvation fear-mongering; of the draconian “Christian” tracts distributed on street corners attempting to scare the lost into salvation by threatening Hell.  And I’m repulsed when I learn of Sunday school curriculums designed to scare children about sin and Satan rather than to teach the love of Jesus Christ.  I believe these are examples of awful, if occasionally useful, witness.

There is a certain utility in owning a healthy fear and understanding of Hell if it helps to turn one’s mind, heart, and discipline away from sin and toward the glory of a saving God.  A properly functioning, mature Christian can be both aware of sin and wary of Hell but still have a joyous, productive and glorifying faith in Christ. 

The Bible tells me so.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) urges a Hell check: visit Brent Riggs - What the Bible Says About Hell.  Read the outline that appears below the “listen” button.

Spirituality Column #367
November 26, 2013
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

By Bob Walters

Spirituality Column #366
November 19, 2013
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

By Bob Walters

I still wear a tie to church most Sundays.

My church’s “traditional” (read: Old Folks) worship crowd is mostly cured of the coat and tie habit.  Open collars and sweaters are de rigueur.  In the contemporary services, Colt’s jerseys or possibly the first t-shirt out of the closet seem the sartorial statements of choice.

Not me.  I grew up with a father in the 1950s who was always in a tie – he’d wear a tie for a long car trip … on vacation.  He taught me to tie a Full Windsor knot before I was old enough for school.  I like ties.  Sundays, weddings and funerals are about the only chances I have to wear one.  Interestingly, I was once fired from a pretty good job for not wearing a tie.  But that’s another story.

As for church, I feel good making the effort to dress up a little bit for God.

God doesn’t care what we’re wearing, I get it, but He can’t mind a tie and shined shoes any more than he minds a t-shirt and sandals.  So I’ll go with the tie … for now.

Regardless of wardrobe, going to church implies more than encountering in worship God the Father, our Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.  We also are meeting our Christian brothers and sisters in fellowship.

So consider: Are we at church to see, or to be seen?  By God?  By others?  What do our hearts hope to accomplish?  Am I there to get some help for me?  Am I there to love God and love others?  Am I there to strengthen my faith; to worship, praise and glorify the Lord Jesus Christ in communion with fellow believers?

Some churches and TV shows just preach “God” and, let’s be clear, that’s not a Christian message.  It’s a God message, maybe, or an idolatrous “god” message, but most likely it’s a push-marketed “See what God can do for you!” message.  That makes church about the glory of me, not the Glory of God, and that takes salvation off the table (Matthew 6:1-4, John 3:17, John 14:6).  If I don’t hear the J-word – Jesus – or anything about the Father-Son-Holy Spirit, then I’m at a self-help lecture or fund-raiser, not Christian worship.

Jesus preached God’s Glory.  He demonstrated selflessness dying on the cross.  He instructed us to love God, to love others, and to bear our own cross.  With humble, resolute faith in Christ, we are delivered from death and sin.

But the purpose of worship is defeated if we ever leave church thinking, “Hey, I’m glad you got to see me.”

No matter what we are wearing.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) wears Polos and button-downs in the summer.

Spirituality Column #365
November 12, 2013
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

By Bob Walters

“Is God punishing me?” – Jermichael Finley, injured Green Bay Packers football player, recounting his thoughts while lying paralyzed on the Lambeau Field turf during an NFL game Oct. 20 against the Cleveland Browns.

“Hear my cry, O God. … I take refuge in the shelter of your wings.” – Psalm 61

I never criticize anyone’s anger, fear or theology in the immediate season of traumatic stress.  We’ve all thought, said and done the darnedest things when pain ambushes the security of the moment, even on a football field.

Finley, unable to move or breathe, whispered breathless, desperate pleas for help to wide-eyed, terrified teammates. Fast-responding NFL medical help restored Finley’s breathing.  What turned out to be a bruised spinal cord un-shocked itself, quickly returning limited motion to the talented tight end’s extremities.

Finley – he of the famed “Lambeau Leap” into the celebratory end zone caress of Packer fans after touchdowns – could manage only half a determined wave to the silent stadium crowd minutes later as he was carted from the field.

Recovering rapidly in a Green Bay, Wis., hospital, Finley was standing and able to shower alone the next day.  Soon after, Finley and co-writer Peter King penned Finley’s first-person thoughts about the injury (Link – NFL Finley Story).

Finley pondered God’s punishment, and mentioned being blessed by the love and fellowship of his teammates, almost all of whom visited him in the hospital.  His 5-year-old son Kaydon prays for Dad before every game; Kaydon wondered if God hadn’t heard his prayers that day.  Finley values life and appreciates the amazing physical gifts, talents, discipline, and opportunities that have culminated in a top-notch – but now imperiled – NFL career.  We wish him well in his recovery and life’s journey.

It’s worth noting, as Western society largely rebels against religion overall, God generally, and Jesus Christ specifically, how often in a crisis our first, personal reaction involves some inclusion or mention of God – for better or worse.

So I had this thought upon reading Finley’s story: In our fear and pain, why do we so often think, reflexively, that God is punishing us?  Or ignoring prayers?  Or that our best blessings reside in our earthly family and friends?

If we think to call on God at all, we should know reflexively that He is our refuge and shelter.  Jesus Christ endured the cross to forgive us and save us in the Glory of God.  In Jesus reside our real, best blessings of hope, endurance, comfort and courage.

Our first thought in a crisis should always be: “Lord Jesus, give me strength.”

Doubting Him only compounds life’s pain.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) opines that merely believing “God is there” isn’t necessarily a comfort; trusting God’s goodness is.

Spirituality Column #364
November 5, 2013
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

By Bob Walters

“Christianity is the only religion on earth that felt omnipotence made God incomplete … [it] added courage to the virtues of the Creator.”

Spirituality Column #363
October 29, 2013
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

By Bob Walters

Let’s consider the confusing, co-existent Christian truths that while God never changes, the Bible’s Old and New Testaments make God seem very “changed” indeed.

The Old Testament tracks God as He creates the world, sets the heavens in motion, creates the firmament, fish, flora, fauna and mankind, declares His own glory, goodness and righteousness, instructs His nation Israel, demands obedience and worship, fearsomely inspires the prophets, and all along has a ring-side seat for a world of sin, calamity and chaos over which He reigns with wrath, judgment and retribution.

Who wants that God?

The New Testament gives us the suffering servant Jesus Christ.  He was God born fully-man into poverty and questionable family circumstances who toiled most of His earthly life in the remote obscurity of an un-respected village.  In His late 20s He began preaching a message of divine love and salvation few could fathom, drafted a ministry team of misfits few could understand, performed miracles few could ignore and professed truths few could grasp.  He drove out demons who knew who He was and befuddled religious leaders who didn’t.  Jesus was betrayed, arrested, abandoned, beaten, convicted, humiliated, tortured and crucified; dying gruesomely, miserably, alone on a cross.

Who wants to follow or obey or share the misery of that God?

We are to believe Jesus is the same strong God of the Old Testament, where 33 times we are told God is everlasting and unchanging.  How does the same eternal God of wrath, judgment, and retribution become a temporal man who suffers the wrath, judgment and retribution of mankind?

We need only to understand that it is not God who is different; it’s the end of the story that is different.  And Jesus Christ is the end of the story.

Notice that the New Testament actually has a conclusion – the Resurrection, Ascension, Reign, and Victory of Jesus Christ over death, sin and Satan, while the Old Testament – enormously and tellingly – sets up a narrative without an ending.

God’s Old Testament covenant of laws teaches us important truths about both God and humans alike.  Truths such as, God is good, creative, righteous, and demands glory.  And truths like, man generally does a miserable job of following God’s rules.

What’s changed in the New Testament isn’t God; it is God’s New Covenant of faith in Jesus Christ providing loving, flowing grace in the face of man’s many failures.

Mankind is still befallen by sin, calamity and chaos, so our merciful opportunity in Christ – for joy in this life and eternal life glorying God – is a real switcheroo.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes that while learning grace is the first lesson of Christ, forgetting grace is the first mistake of many Christians.

Spirituality Column #362
October 22, 2013
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

By Bob Walters
 
Aside from an occasional (and usually linguistically-cloaked) barb, this column avoids day-to-day politics and social controversies.

They detract from the eternal, loving, larger and truer story of Jesus Christ.

And as Jesus tells the multitudes in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:24) and the Pharisees in the Parable of the Shrewd manager (Luke 16:13), that man cannot serve two masters referring to God and money, it seems that no longer can modern culture manage to concurrently serve the two masters of God and politics.

Plenty of other folks besides me can tell you what they think you should think about a government shutdown, the debt ceiling, ObamaCare, politicians in general, Republicans and Democrats in particular, Conservatives, Liberals, the media, economics, civil rights, gay marriage, secular “faiths,” educational platforms, family priorities, global warming, etc.  In all these arenas, political correctness and social agendas outrun divine truths and human freedoms.

We mistakenly subordinate the prayerful inclusion of God to useless political chatter.  Hence, we are trapped in the land of “one or the other.”

Regarding God and politics, you may have noticed, we can only discuss one – publicly and coherently – at a time.  When openly conversing about the great issues of our times – although arguing is more usually the case – Christian perspective, whether it starts out in the mix or not, is quickly swept away.  Typically, the first casualty in a disagreement is sacrificial love.  And what was Jesus Christ all about?  Sacrificial love.

There’s not much Christian perspective left when sacrificial love goes away.

So I find great and enduring comfort in the divine Truth that God never changes, the gracious mission of Jesus Christ never changes, and the light of the Holy Spirit never loses its focus.  God created us and gave us life, Jesus Christ saved us and gave us His life, and the Holy Spirit illuminates these truths in our hearts, minds and souls.

That’s not to say we should never be upset by the treachery of political spin, secular educational agendas, media disingenuousness, government fraud, human greed and the amalgamation of sin toward which practically all of us contribute so mightily and miserably.

But God didn’t create the world to be bad.  God created the world in His image to be good, to be loved by Him, and to glorify Him.  Suppose mankind freely pursued that agenda and insisted that God’s truth – not sectarian, debate-riven church “truth” but the actual, sacrificial-love-of -Christ capital-T Truth – governed public discourse?

Now that would be change I could believe in.

Walters (rlwcom) isn’t fool enough to imagine mankind without political arguments, but He is faithful enough to be assured of the holy single-mindedness of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Spirituality Column #361

Spirituality Column #360
October 8, 2013
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville
 

Spirituality Column #359
October 1, 2013
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

By Bob Walters
 
“Complaining never helps us find God.” – Pope Francis, August 2013

I am a Jesus-first, Bible-believing Evangelical Christian, and also a bit of a gym-rat when it comes to religious news and commentary.

So it caught my full attention recently when the media reported that Pope Francis, six months into his papacy, declared with a possibly negative insinuation that the Catholic Church was “obsessed with abortion, gay marriage and contraception.”

Imagine, a Pope putting God above secular culture and political correctness.

I have a BA in journalism and my favorite definition for “news” is, “The news is what’s not supposed to happen.”  In the spirit of that definition, Popes aren’t supposed to minimize “abortion, gay marriage and contraception.”  But living daily with, and being sensitive to, the characteristic liberal agnostic slant and frequent technical ignorance of the mainstream media when it comes to all things religious, I hastened beyond the headlines to discover what the Pope actually said.

And as it turns out, Pope Francis, the first Jesuit Bishop of Rome, actually did say that.  It was in an unprecedented one-on-one interview conducted over three separate sessions in August, at the Vatican, by an Italian magazine editor (and brother Jesuit priest) at the behest of the U.S. Jesuit magazine, America.

The lengthy interview titled “A Big Heart Open to God” (link) was released Sept. 19 in 16 Jesuit journals worldwide including the post-dated Sept. 30 issue of America.  It covers the gamut of Church issues, doctrine, theology, cultural challenges, the Pope’s personality, tastes and pastoral concerns.  I read all 10,000 words.

My takeaway?  I think Christians everywhere should 1) read the actual interview before passing judgment and 2) applaud the Pope for his priorities.

The Pope sees the Church as a “field hospital” where the wounded and broken are healed and loved, not berated and punished.   That’s what Jesus did.  The Pope steadfastly champions Church teaching, says it’s a mistake for her to complain about culture, and says the Church’s time, energy, and spiritual capital should be primarily focused on the Glory of God and human salvation offered only through Jesus Christ.

My Evangelical friends likely wonder why I’m talking about the Pope, and my Catholic friends likely wonder why this is any of my business.  Let’s just say the Pope’s message covers several important Christian basics.

He’s not promoting the acceptance of sin; the Pope is extolling Christians to have compassion for sinners – all of us – including, he emphasizes, himself.

The Pope is telling us, without complaining, that Jesus is the best company we can find.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) recommends 1) having a dictionary handy when digesting the Pope’s interview, 2) reading America’s editorial The Pope’s Progress, and 3) viewing The New York Times’ story (excellent overview).

Spirituality Column #358
September 24, 2013
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville