Spirituality Column #332
March 26, 2013
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers – Zionsville

By Bob Walters

Most people in our culture know the basics of the Christian story.

Jesus was born peacefully in a manger, died violently on a cross, came back unexpectedly from the dead, and somehow because of all that our sins are graciously forgiven and we can go eternally to heaven.  And, oh yeah: Jesus Saves, Jesus is the Son of God, and Jesus loves me, the Bible tells me so.

Not everyone believes it, but almost everyone knows the story and understands they are a sinner in need of redeeming help.  Thanks to Christmas, Good Friday, and Easter, the majority of folks have at least a visceral attachment to Christian faith.  That’s one of the great gifts of our culture: that people generally accept and understand there is room for improvement in their moral being and they’d sincerely like to “be a better person.”  The problem is that the outlandishness of the whole “Jesus Story” – being a humble servant dedicated to glorifying God – doesn’t pass the secular sanity test of “Looking out for No. 1.”

Most people see “No. 1” in the mirror, not in their faith.  To paraphrase Rick Blaine in Casablanca, “Here’s looking at me, kid.”  After all, who can be more important than “me”?  Whose priorities can supersede mine?   We are coached by popular society to “find ourselves” and “define ourselves” and to organize our activities around the pursuit of “being as good as I can be.”  So we ask, “Who or what can help me achieve that goal?”  People might answer with “Jesus” or “church” or some other religious, spiritual, or self-help term, but too often the small and mistaken goal is “me.”

Turning toward church only works when we turn toward the Cross with the goal of discovering something about Jesus.  And that only works if we approach Jesus with our entire life: our heart, mind, soul, strength, personality, treasure … everything.  We cannot define one part of our life in Jesus, and another part in something else.

That’s because Jesus is bigger than anything else.  He is “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being” (Hebrews 1:3).  Jesus totally defines himself and anyone who truly follows Him.  In His life, His ministry, His trial, His torture, His death and His resurrection, Jesus submitted to the will and glory of God.

If I want to be like Jesus, to get to know Jesus, that’s what I have to do.

Because the real story and basic truth of Christianity is that Jesus Christ is No. 1, and I’m not.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) recommends an Easter Sunday trip to church focused on God’s love, not on one’s personal sins.  Try it, you’ll like it.

Spirituality Column #331
March 19, 2013
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers – Zionsville

By Bob Walters

Spirituality Column #330
March 12, 2013
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers – Zionsville

By Bob Walters
 
Tip: Watch “The Bible,” History Channel, Sundays at 8 p.m. throughout March.

Spirituality Column #329
March 5, 2013
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers – Zionsville

By Bob Walters

Even people who are not especially close to God are often quick to blame God when things – health, relationships, jobs, money, dreams, etc. – fall apart in their lives.

“If God loved me,” they lament, “He wouldn’t let this happen …”

Conversely, believers are quick to blame Satan when things fall apart in theirs.  “The enemy is attacking me,” they piously claim.

And while I am convinced that both angels and demons – good spirits and evil spirits – exist and are active in this world (they appear frequently in the Bible), it is important to get a biblical handle on what God and Satan do and don’t do; who they are, and who they aren’t.

God is Creator (Genesis 1:1), God is love (1 John 4:8), God is good (1 Timothy 4:4), God is light (1 John 1:5 ) God is justice and righteousness (Isaiah 9:7), God is eternal (Genesis 21:33), God is eternal life (1 John 5:20), God is Father (John 1:18), Son (John 1:49), Holy Spirit (John 4:24) and sovereign (Daniel 4:25).

Satan is created (Revelation 12:7-9, Ezekiel 28:14), is the tempter of Jesus (Matthew 4:1), is the tempter of man (1 Thessalonians 3:4), is our accuser (Zechariah 3:2), is our tormenter (2 Corinthians 12:7), is a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44), wants control of this world (1 John 5:19), is the enemy of man (1 Peter 5:18), is the founder of sin (1 John 3:8), and the coin of his realm is death (Romans 6:23).

What’s critically important to understand is that God is not the God we want him to be … God is the God HE wants to be.  Goodness and righteousness are best defined as “what God actually is” (see Psalm 23).  Our human mistake is thinking ultimate goodness and righteousness should reflect our human opinions and experience founded in earthly pride and power, rather than in the humility and service of Jesus Christ.

And that mistake is precisely the flashpoint of Satan’s evil lordship on earth.

Satan – born of heaven as an angel who fell of his own pride (Ezekiel 28:17) – battles God by suggesting sin, not by inflicting it.  Satan suggested sin in the Garden, and he continues to suggest sin to us today.  He tempts us to dismiss God’s truth and accept his lies of fleeting earthly glory.  Way too often, we agree.  Willingly.

God is nobody’s enemy, and Satan is nobody’s friend.  The solution to life’s challenges is neither to blame God nor curse Satan, but simply to pray – earnestly – to be closer to Jesus Christ.  God never dismisses those prayers.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) wonders if anyone else remembers Flip Wilson’s character “Geraldine” saying, “The devil made me do it.”