Spirituality Column #393
May 27, 2014
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

By Bob Walters

What’s the defining moment in your life?  Do you have one?

I’ve just celebrated my 60^th birthday and can remember plenty of big moments, but not an exclusive, explains-it-all “defining” moment.

Life is a series, a mosaic, a dance.  It can be organized, artistic, and graceful.  It can be chaotic, disjointed, and clumsy.  Mine has been a mixture of all that.  Choices, ambition, circumstances, challenges, aspirations, disappointments, affections, disdain, talents, labor, triumph and tragedy compose and comprise life’s definable moments.  Cramming life’s totality into a single moment, for most of us I suspect, just isn’t possible.

I’m a Christian so, yes, being baptized into Christ at age 47 was a big moment.  But it was making the earlier and completely unexpected step of actually going to church – and then sitting in the pew crying – that was a bigger, life-changing moment.  Baptism, after that, was a formality.

I’ve been blessed with jobs, love, family, and health, yet on occasion felt cursed by various aspects of those same things.  When I was nine years old my family moved from Battle Creek, Mich., to Kokomo, Ind.  I cannot imagine my life being anywhere close to the same – not better or worse, just dramatically not the same – had that not happened.  The move didn’t define my life, but it sure changed it.

I think of people I’ve encountered, work I’ve done, mistakes I’ve made, sins I’ve committed, and providential protections I’ve been afforded.  Occasionally, there has been a good deed.  Some moments I’ve defined, and some moments have defined me.  Single moments that define an entire life are rare in the human experience.

But pull back to the cosmic long view, and consider the moment in history that defines all history, all life, and all humanity: the Cross of Jesus Christ.  Nothing else in the history of the world or in any of our individual lives is as consequential as that.

Yes, one could point out the obvious importance and pre-condition of Creation.  Without that we wouldn’t have much to talk about, would we?  But Christ is from the beginning (Genesis 1, John 1) and His work on the Cross reaches into all eternity.  He is the shepherd of all mankind (John 3:16) who is the light of the glory of God (Revelation 21:23).

There is a timeline diagram I like: an arrow pointing left (history prior to Christ) beside an arrow pointing right (history since Christ), with the Cross in between.  Before Christ … with Christ.

Seeking a defining moment anywhere but the Cross is looking for life in all the wrong places.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) cites Bible scholar Dr. George Bebawi – “The Cross didn’t divide God, it divided history.”  Now that’s a defining moment.

Spirituality Column #392
May 20, 2014
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

By Bob Walters

Christians aren’t necessarily here to argue.  Our primary mission is to shine God’s glory, love and light on Jesus Christ for the whole world to see.

But God help us all, humans love to argue anyway.  Jesus wasn’t like that.

Jesus, in fact, rarely argued.  Yes, at age 12 He rebuked his parents because they panicked when he’d not made the trip home with them after Passover (Luke 2:41-52).  When they found Him teaching in Jerusalem’s temple, he said, “Don’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”  No one understood all Jesus was saying but everyone was astonished at Jesus’ teaching, wisdom and stature.

At Cana, Jesus’ mother Mary suggested He replenish the dwindling wine supply (John 2:1-11).  Jesus replied, “My time has not yet come,” but then ordered servants to fill the wine jars with water, which became exquisite wine – His first miracle.

Jesus didn’t argue with Satan in the desert; He quoted scripture (Matthew 4:1-11).  After the resurrection Jesus gently told Peter, who had denied him three times, “Feed my sheep” (John 21:15-19).   Jesus only showed anger once, scorning the money changers in the Temple (John 2:12-25, Matthew 21:12-13).

But nowhere in the Bible does Jesus mimic a modern CNN or Fox News guest by arguing vehemently against someone else’s opinion of truth or propriety.  That’s because the truth of Christ is not dependent on human opinion.  Jesus leads His flock, because He is the Way.  He tells the truth, because He is the Truth.  And He offers rebirth and new life, because He is Life.

Jesus sees all that is wrong with the world but avoids being a “clanging gong” (1 Corinthians 13:1) of angry argument.  He calmly, often shrewdly, preaches the truth of a loving, forgiving God who is the worthy Lord of all Creation.

Rather than argue or even directly answer spiritual misstatements like those of the woman at the well, the Pharisees, his own disciples, and even his own family, Jesus tells parables, knowing the faithful will hear truth.  Throughout, Jesus reveals God’s glory, sovereignty, Lordship and the new covenant in faith for human salvation.

This is on my mind as I consider society today that bullies those who would protect life in the womb (NARAL vs. Life Centers), cancels TV shows of Christian believers who think mom-dad-and-the kids is the Biblical and most practical definition of family (HGTV vs. the Benham brothers), and strives (ala Freedom From Religion) to silence those who would thank Jesus Christ publicly in prayer for His heavenly grace.

Jesus came not to win arguments, but to tell the truth.

That’s something we Christians should remember.

Spirituality Column #391
May 13, 2014
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

By Bob Walters

Before we try to figure out who Jesus is to me, we first should be clear about who Jesus is in the Bible.

Modern culture preemptively subordinates Jesus and promotes man’s assumed primacy of intellect, philosophy, creativity, productivity, ownership and – of all over-reaching imaginings – moral righteousness.  “Modern” here isn’t “modern times,” it’s “modern thought,” a man-honoring philosophical emanation from the Enlightenment era of roughly the late 1600s through the late 1800s.  Jesus wound up on trial … again.

This was the era of big thinkers of big ideas who led Western culture to big changes.  Thinkers like Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Newton, Jefferson, Paine, Madison, Nietzsche, Kant, Darwin and others crafted secular humanism (testing humanity’s ability to get along without God), personal freedom (endowed by a Creator to whom obeisance became increasingly optional), democracy (American Revolution), new science (Evolution), and eventually, incredible technology (just look around).

Certainly, Jesus and the Bible were firmly embedded in society.  Even ardent non-believers understood that a properly ordered democratic society had to be founded on objective morality.  Man governing himself required men behaving in a moral manner toward their neighbors.  Jesus and the Bible provided the requisite moral narrative.

Centuries of church upheaval in Europe and freedom’s new calculus in America allowed big thinkers on both sides of the Atlantic to believe they could redefine relationships among God, Jesus, morality and religion into an entity accommodating man’s ever-expanding vision of his own philosophical preeminence and moral righteousness.  Meanwhile, burgeoning scientific discovery intensified mankind’s belief that technology could master and ultimately explain the physical and moral universe.

It became acceptable to ask: Who is Jesus, to me?  And different Jesus’s began to appear – to new religious groups, adventurous spiritual spinoffs, fast-talking false prophets, Bible-twisting entrepreneurs, prosperity preaching frauds, self-help charlatans  and basically to anyone preferring a customized vision of Jesus heavy on personal presumption but light on biblical truth.

So society’s become a moral free-for-all, with the Bible, Jesus, prayer, and even the objective existence of Godly moral absolutes kicked out of education, politics, most of the media, entertainment and popular culture.  A current consumerist spiritual narrative might be: “If you must mention Jesus – and I’d rather you didn’t – just tell me how He’s going to help me, not some moral ‘truth’ I just can’t believe.  I don’t need a Lord; I need a God who can fix things to my liking.  I have plenty of faith in myself.”

Go look at Revelation 19:11-16.  Faithful.  True.  Sword.  Blood.  Scepter.  King of Kings.  Lord of Lords.

That’s who Jesus is.  For all of us.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) asserts that searching for Jesus is a search for truth, not self.  If it is too comfortable, it’s not Jesus.

Spirituality Column #390
May 6, 2014
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

By Bob Walters

Accepting Jesus Christ as Savior is easy.  Accepting Him as Lord is hard.

I mean, who wouldn’t want salvation?  Jesus did all the work, undertook all the risk, endured all the pain, did it without being asked, and did it for love.  And, He is, after all, God – the Son of Man, the Son of God, God incarnate, fully God, fully man, fully worthy and powerful to be our savior.  With no effort on our part, we receive divine, eternal love, forgiveness, mercy, grace, hope and joy in exchange for simple, childlike faith.  It’s a pretty good deal.

Even if we don’t quite understand salvation, aren’t sure why we want or need it, think heaven is a longshot, and at any rate figure “I am a good person,” salvation still is the ultimate free lunch.  Jesus on the Cross, dead then resurrected, presents mankind with a never-ending, glorious fellowship with God Almighty in heaven.

“Jesus saves!” Hallelujah!  All we have to do is get in line.

But as truly as “Jesus is savior” describes how Jesus treats us, believing “Jesus is Lord” implies a monumental and frequently frightening responsibility for how we are supposed to treat God.  God is serious about it.  Often we are not.

Our faith in Jesus as savior is one thing, a good thing.  But faith in Jesus as Lord isn’t about God giving us something like salvation which we haven’t and couldn’t possibly earn; it’s about trusting God to be who He says He is, and then trusting Him with our lives not only in heaven, but here on earth.  Saying “Jesus is Lord” demands our obedience, confession, humility, surrender, perseverance, suffering and the ceding of all authority.  These are abdications few can bear.

For sinful humans – and that’s everybody – worldly things (money, lust, power, comfort, etc.) typically “lord” over our lives.  We want God’s saving gifts, but we also want carnal control.  Selfishly we proclaim, “Jesus is my savior!” but insist, “I’m in the best position to decide what and who are going to lord over my life.”

Naming Jesus as Lord implies an uncomfortable debt on our part, even though our debts were erased by Jesus on the cross.  Our salvation is not a transaction – technically I suppose it’s not even a “deal" – it’s a miracle, a mystery, a promise, and God’s love.  We all know that saying “Lord, Lord,” (Matthew 7:2, Luke 6:46) does not open heaven; but following Jesus’s command to love God and love others, does.

“Lord and Savior” is the whole truth.  We don’t get one without the other.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) cautions against seeing our salvation in Christ as the Good News and his Lordship as the bad news.