Monday, December 30, 2013

372 - Wrapping Up the Christmas Story

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

Wrapping Up the Christmas Story
By Bob Walters

Another chapter of annual Yuletide festivities is pretty much closed.
 
Along with the lights, ornaments, trinkets and leftover giftwrap, we mostly shelve our personal Christmas stories until next year.  Baubles sit silently in boxes while memories marinate softly in our subconscious.  Emotions endure and details blur.
 
‘Til next year.
 
We’ll soon enough revisit the sublime mystery of the season’s peaceful reflection and holy meaning.  We’ll soon enough marshal the strength and fortitude necessary to outflank the mayhem of the season’s preparatory demands.
 
But that is months hence.  For now, for the most part, our stories rest.
 
As our emotionally-charged, tradition-rich, personal and family Christmas stories go dormant, it’s as good a time as any to take an academic look at the real story of Christmas.  Just as holiday memories are often leavened by emotion, many nativity facts don’t line-up with traditional Christmas hype.  The truth, now, is less likely to disturb anyone’s sternly personal seasonal “feelings.”
 
As for the basics, we know that Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ.  Regardless, a huge swath of today’s culture downplays, disparages and is often downright hostile to the “Jesus” thing.  Of course, plenty of people were hostile to the “Jesus” thing 2,000 years ago, too.  Nobody imagined mankind’s salvation would emanate out of a humble peasant manger.
 
Were Mary and Joseph really turned away at the “inn” and left alone in a stable or cave?  Not likely.  Kenneth Bailey’s fascinating book “Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes” discounts that narrative as an errant confluence of long-standing biblical mistranslation (“inn” actually means “extra room”), cultural misunderstanding (ignoring routine Middle Eastern hospitality) and spurious ancient legend (second-century folktales).  Jesus likely was born in a peasant home where at night animals were “stabled” inside for warmth.
 
Even if Mary and Joseph arrived in Bethlehem unannounced, being “of the line of David” they would be received as near-royalty in the “City of David.”  Any pregnant woman would have been aided by local mid-wives.  The shepherds being “glad at what they saw” (Luke 2:20) tells us the baby Jesus they visited was well-attended to.
 
And Christmas Day that we celebrate, December 25, is not the actual birthday of Jesus.  Nobody knows the true date but scholarship suggests early spring of 3-4 B.C. based on known political leaders (Caesar Augustus, Herod, etc.) mentioned in the Bible.  Celebrating Christ’s incarnation (John 1:14) on December 25 was a church-mandated over-write of the post-solstice Roman pagan feast of Saturnalia which celebrated the lengthening of days: in other words – fittingly – increasing light.
 
More light, of course, wraps up the best part of the Christmas story.
 
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) prays that the light of Christ will shine brightly on you and yours throughout 2014.
Monday, December 23, 2013

371 - Giftwrapping God's Grace

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

“That Christmas feeling” is among God’s most gracious gifts.
 
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.








 
 
 
Monday, December 16, 2013

370 - Giftwrapping God's Glory

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

A Christmas Series – 3 of 4
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.
Monday, December 9, 2013

369 - Giftwrapping God's Authority

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

A Christmas Series – 2 of 4
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.
Monday, December 2, 2013

368 - Giftwrapping the Cosmic Truth

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

A Christmas Series - 1 of 4
Giftwrapping the Cosmic Truth
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

- a no-bones-about-it fear of Hell?

Yeah, me too: let’s definitely go with gift number one.  Love and faith and Jesus are way more appealing than fear and Hell.  But make no mistake: the reality of Christian truth is that salvation available only through faith in Jesus Christ (John 14:6) is concurrently both the greatest gift on record and the only antidote to Hell.

And I make that statement knowing this much: people hate hearing about Hell. 

Contemporary culture at-large tends to reject the specifics of both Christ and Hell.  Not-completely-sure non-believers cautiously rationalize that avoiding faith in Christ altogether somehow exempts them from the calculus of judgment, Hell and damnation (the exact opposite of what the Bible says).  Plenty of sitting-in-church believing Christians – ironically and perilously – believe everything the Bible says about Christ and nothing it says about Hell.

Sadly, and incompletely, a lot of modern “churchianity” imagines the “carrot” of a loving Christ while ignoring the “stick” of eternal damnation.  And I say “imagines” here because the extant truth is the mystery of creation, salvation, love, glory and the Holy Trinity, not a trade-off of carrots and sticks; not a cosmic tit-for-tat.  Modern culture operates in the alternately attractive, and then horrific, muck of fallen worldliness, crazily demanding concrete answers to divine questions when it has forgotten about God and convinced itself to disregard Hell.

We must remember: the whole story of salvation in Christ – for everybody ever created – includes that which mankind is saved from, i.e., Hell, not just that which we are saved to, i.e., heaven.

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.
Monday, November 25, 2013

367 - Pride, Peace and Thanksgiving

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

Pride, Peace and Thanksgiving
By Bob Walters

I stopped being proud of my two sons about 12 years ago.  I decided to be thankful for them instead.
 
That shift in attitude and lexicon has not adversely affected either of them.  It has, however, had the positive, peaceful effect of sparing my close friends the “proud snorting” (Job 39:20) of me going on and on about how proud I am of my boys.
 
Now in their 20s, they are doing well and I am thankful.  The last thing I want to do is inflict my ego on their accomplishments and the first thing I want to avoid is an out-loud declaration of personal pride about anything.  Better in all cases – kids, career, business, athletics, religion, relatives, real estate, smart deals, dumb luck or whatever – to declare God-directed thanksgiving rather than to harbor personal pride.  Here’s why.
 
There are two kinds of pride in the Bible.  One is simple and obvious, and the other is complex and sublime.  One is the father of all sin, and the other is the mother of all love.  One is arrogance grounded in our worldly, fallen selves, and the other is confidence grounded in our faith and trust in Jesus Christ.
 
As to the first, prideful Satan (Genesis 3) tempted unfallen Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden with a proposition: Why should they not have the same knowledge as God?  When Adam and Eve used their God-given freedom to give themselves primacy over God’s promise, that was “The Fall,” the dawn of human pride: the chief of all sins.
 
The Bible’s second kind of pride is God-focused, internal, and unseen.  Hence, it was OK for the Apostle Paul to “take pride in his ministry” (Romans 5:12) and “in other followers of Christ” (2 Corinthians 7:4).  Deep pride in Christ, Paul explains, is necessary to “answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than what is in the heart” (2 Corinthians 5:12).  John plainly describes the difference: “… the pride of life comes not from the Father but from the world” (1 John 2:16).  In other words, the “seen” is the sinful world, and the “heart” is the love of God.
 
The first kind of pride is foolish, stubborn, and destructive, pulling life’s focus dangerously off of God and onto our own being.  The second reveals sacred focus and resolve in the divine love of Christ.  Hermeneutics aside, “I’m proud of …” – whatever – sounds grindingly self-serving.  It’s better to just continually, humbly, thank God because thanksgiving mutes pride, brings peace, and praises God.
 
They should have a holiday for that.
 
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is thankful for sons Eric and John, wife Pam, and the peace of trusting God’s faithfulness.  Happy Thanksgiving.

 
Monday, November 18, 2013

366 - 'I'm Glad You Got to See Me'

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

‘I’m Glad You Got to See Me’
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.
Monday, November 11, 2013

365 - Jumping to the Wrong Conclusions

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

Jumping to the Wrong Conclusions
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.
Tuesday, November 5, 2013

364 - Omnipotence Is Not Enough

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

Omnipotence Is Not Enough
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.”
 – G.K. Chesterton, “Orthodoxy”

G.K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy is a book I read every couple of years.  You can’t beat the pithy aphorisms, cultural observations, theological deductions, and plain-as-day, a-b-c Christian truth offered in this brief, classic British volume from 1908.
 
Orthodoxy is a great refresher of thoughtful faith: not in the way the Bible is mysteriously uplifting, cosmic, spiritual and personal, but in a “God and Christ and church and me and my brain against the world,” boots-on-the-ground kind of way.  Orthodoxy equips the faithful – intellectually and morally – to battle the relentless, dark and death-hearkening anti-God forces of fallen man in this fallen world.
 
Across 100 years – really, one may as well say 2,000 years – the problems pagan and secular elements of culture have with, and the challenges they make to, the Christian message have changed little.  Chesterton’s writing is fresh despite the fact that Orthodoxy predates the gross upheavals of the 20th century – two world wars, communism, Nazis, dictators, genocides, and the rise of evolution-fueled, post-modern, techno-centric philosophical nothingness.  Chesterton is a voice for the ages.
 
But horrible wars, terrible government, murderous politics, private deceit and heretical faith are nothing new in the history of mankind: just read the Bible.  What very much is new, dramatically new – even 2,000 thousand years hence – is Jesus Christ: God as man, God who loves, serves and forgives, God who is glorified by saving sinners through His own death and grace, and God whose courage declares our lives worthwhile and makes our deaths a triumphant transition to eternal life.
 
Yes, modern mankind wants to worship and glorify something, but it typically shades-over Christ’s truth on the Cross.  Instead, mankind’s own power, money, pride, fame – all temporal charades – are mistakenly deified.  Man may assign a vaunted priority and love for family and nation, but while that is good, it is incomplete; it’s merely an affection consigned to expire on this earth if it lacks faith in the eternity of Christ.
 
That we worship the almighty Creator God of love, action, freedom and courage – not to mention grace, mercy, forgiveness and truth – is the richest gift in the universe.  Yet empirical, “show-me,” “prove-it,” faith-throttling mankind, in the dark, cowering, Christ-less embrace of destructive appetites, rebuffs this profound, eternal gift that is graciously provided by a humble and courageous Jesus Christ on the Cross.
 
Christ never bragged about his power.  Maybe that’s because, though an all-powerful God can do anything, a courageous God can do so much more.
 
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) this week marks seven years – 364 consecutive weeks – of writing “In Spirit” for Current.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013

363 - Did God Pull a Switcheroo?

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

Did God Pull a Switcheroo?
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.

 
Tuesday, October 22, 2013

362 - The Sacrifice of Public Discourse

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

The Sacrifice of Public Discourse
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.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013

361 - A Faithful History of Jesus

Spirituality Column #361
October 15, 2013
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville
 
A Faithful History of Jesus
By Bob Walters
 
In his new book “Killing Jesus,” Bill O’Reilly presents a historical look at the life and times – and death – of Jesus Christ from a most unusual point of view:
 
That Jesus Christ was the Son of God.
 
The phrase “Historical Jesus” is contemporary cultural code for “Jesus wasn’t really the Son of God.”  It has become a common yet dreadful genre of written and video material typically dedicated to pooh-poohing and undoing the truths of the Gospels and the Church about the perfect, coexistent humanity and divinity of Jesus.
 
Television productions and print publications commonly herald newly-minted “truth” about the “Historical Jesus”; somebody has found Jesus’s bones over here or unearthed “evidence” of Jesus’s marriage and progeny over there.
 
Whether propagated by a cable channel documentary or a new Dan Brown novel, in recent decades it has been rigorously out of bounds for mainline, popular, and especially academic thought to purport that Jesus is exactly who He said He was, fulfilling the exact divine mission He said He was on.  It’s simply not institutionally hip to look at the history of Jesus Christ – the most impactful and famous person in the history of humanity – and not intellectually ridicule His Godly identity and purpose.
 
Funny, that’s what the Pharisees and Romans did 2,000 years ago.
 
“Killing Jesus,” currently the top-selling book on the planet, does not preach a sermon or teach the Bible.  Importantly, and somewhat uniquely, neither does it attempt to debunk Gospel truth.  It illuminates the historical goings on in and around the culture, religion, politics, personalities and scandals of the BC/AD era Roman Empire, Jewish nation, and especially Jerusalem.
 
It’s educational.  What was the deal with the Caesars?  The Herods?  Pontius Pilate?  Caiaphas? The beheading of John the Baptist?  All very enlightening.
 
How bad was crucifixion?  Really, really bad.
 
I had never before understood that the “money changers” in the Temple, who were Jews, were bilking Jewish pilgrims by charging exorbitant fees to exchange Roman “denarius” coins for Hebrew “shekels.”   Outside commerce was done with the denarius, but only shekels could purchase a Passover lamb.  Ergo, Jews ripping off other Jews for worship is what upset Jesus.
 
Jesus interrupting the flow of Temple income is what upset the Jewish elders.
 
There is a spiritual quality about reading the Bible unmatched in secular histories, including this one.  With faith and prayer, the Bible’s mystery and truth can be grasped if not entirely understood.  O’Reilly and co-writer Martin Dugard, both Roman Catholics, provide welcome perspective by animating the living-color context of the life Jesus lived.
 
Without insisting that Jesus is a lie.
 
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) applauds O’Reilly for invoking, on “60 Minutes,” the Holy Spirit’s inspiration.  It befuddled the secular media.
Monday, October 7, 2013

360 - There Goes a Christian

Spirituality Column #360
October 8, 2013
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville
 
There Goes a Christian
By Bob Walters

"If we Christians truly lived in Christ and actually did what we are told we can do, our lives would have such a strong effect on the world, that as we walked down the streets all the by-standers would point and say, wow; there goes a Christian." – Gert Behanna
 
I’ve never met my friend Larry face to face, but he is a faithful brother in Christ who for the past six years or so has been regularly emailing me from Tennessee with encouraging notes and salient thoughts about this weekly newspaper column.  Early on, somebody from here sent him the In Spirit column from Current in Carmel, Larry sent me a supportive email, I responded … and we’ve been electronic pen pals ever since.
 
So thanks to him for the above quote, which he sent last week responding to “Not That Many Atheists,” one of the “Classic” In Spirit columns republished each Friday at www.commonchristianity.blogspot.com.
 
Gert Behanna was a wealthy, wild-living, alcoholic American woman writer who found Christ and sobriety at age 53 in the mid-1950s.  Before dying in 1969, Gert became something of a legend as a speaker for Alcoholics Anonymous.  Her God Is Not Dead! (link to text here) speech is still available on audio CD at Amazon.
 
Behanna’s point testifies to the unimaginable light and attractiveness of faithful, loving Christian witness.  One might note, however, that it also harkens a less-flattering flip-side truth: it’s not that Christians should walk down the street wanting to be noticed. The sad fact is too many Christians do walk down the street wanting to be noticed.  And that’s why, too often, Christians are noticed for all the wrong reasons.  Pride, judgment, and arrogance do not Godly witness make.
 
A faithful life in Christ is humble in self but confident in God.  The Gospels teach us to be wary of the hypocrites praying pridefully on the street corners (Matthew 6:5), and that all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted (Luke 18:9-14, parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector).
 
This, of course, seems completely backward in our “Me, me, always me!” culture.  But Christ’s divine servant humility was also completely backward not only in biblical culture but also in virtually every other culture in history.  Sinful mankind has always tried to ride pride, power and wealth to false, worldly salvation.
 
Christians playing to the worldly standards of the by-standers will plow fallow fields.  Christians focused on loving others bring light to the world and glory to God.
 
We mustn’t ask if the world notices us; we must ask if the world notices God.
 
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) emails the Friday Classic posts upon request. No charge.
Monday, September 30, 2013

359 - Pope Francis: In the Company of Sinners

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

Pope Francis: In the Company of Sinners
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).
Monday, September 23, 2013

358 - Systems and Concepts and Christ

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

Systems and Concepts and Christ
By Bob Walters
 
Jesus Christ was a real person – a human being with feelings and actions who lived in and with a time, place and purpose in history.
 
Largely, these are accepted facts.
 
Jesus Christ is also the real son of God, fully God, equal to God, the Word of God, the creator of all things, beings, wisdom and truth, judge of all men, and the resurrected, divine still-living eternal savior of mankind who defeated death, forgave sin, and restored humanity’s relationship with God.  The Bible tells us so, and the Holy Spirit, when given the chance, confirms it in our hearts.
 
Largely, these are facts that only faith will allow.  For the majority of the world and more than a few Christians, the divine identity of Jesus becomes a collection of suppositional “facts” or conditional propositions because they are assertions reason cannot prove.  A common intellectual response is, “That’s a nice story, but …”
 
“But” is man trying to grab the steering wheel.
 
Man often hesitates to accept the very best parts of Jesus Christ – joy for example –because man, in general, has a tough time accepting God on God’s terms.  So man creates “systematic theology” and presents eloquent concepts of Christ, figuring – errantly – that man is smart enough to dictate terms and define God.  It’s an easy mistake to make.
 
Mankind possesses an animated lucidity and mental creativeness that works against the spiritual acceptance of “how” and maybe more especially “why” that lucidity and creativeness came to be in the first place.
 
“How” is “God made it that way.”  “Why” is “For God’s own glory.”
 
God didn’t create man to glorify man; God created man to glorify God.
 
Repackaging that truth in human terms of self-interest, egotism and arrogance, we fail to understand that our life’s purpose is far bigger than we can imagine.  Most of us can imagine glorifying ourselves; but glorifying God is a job that quite understandably seems above any earthly pay grade.  “God can’t possibly want me to do that.”
 
But, yes, He does. Jesus’ mission is hard to figure because fallen man is geared toward avoiding fear and gathering power, while the fearsome all-powerful God has provided a savior who promises peace and calls for humble service to others.  Words don’t adequately describe Christ’s mission; but the actions – and love – of Jesus do.
 
For nearly 2,000 years man has instituted systems of worship and concepts of Christ’s identity to animate and explain all this.  But systems and concepts – falling short – are liturgies and dogmas, man-made procedures and human ideas.
 
Man’s reality – and real purpose – is relationship with God through faith in Christ.
 
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is saying belief in a concept is no substitute for loving Jesus.

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