CommonChristianity: June 2014

Monday, June 30, 2014

398 - Thinking Like a Christian

8:22 PM | Posted by Bob Walters | | Edit Post

Spirituality Column #398
July 1, 2014
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

Thinking Like a Christian

By Bob Walters

The Bible tells us – plainly – that the New Covenant of Jesus Christ is founded in love, grace and faith.

That’s the New Testament. That’s Christianity. We are to focus on God and others in servant-hearted love. We are forgiven and freed from sin thanks to divine grace. Christianity has only one requirement: faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, Risen Christ, and Savior of Mankind. Believe that, and your life changes.

It couldn’t be simpler.

So why do churches routinely complicate Christianity with the Old Covenant, whose Law forces one to focus on the self by constantly asking, “Am I following the rules?” In the Law sin wasn’t forgiven; it was atoned for by sacrifices and works. A person’s faith was naked before God. God favored some, cursed others, confused many, chose a nation, provided commandments, laws, judges and kings, and, depending on which part of the Law a person happened to believe, implied salvation based on an unspecified formula of obedient righteousness.

The Old Testament is joyous to read once one understands that the whole point of the whole story is not the rules, but the coming Lordship and supremacy of Jesus Christ. The mistake made in modern Christian sermons is in cross-breeding the transactional, fearsome nature of the Old Testament with the grace-focused, sin-covering promise of the New Testament.

People try to explain the New Testament with the Old Law, and that’s exactly backwards: the New Testament reveals what God was up to in the Old Testament.

We learn that the Cross of Jesus Christ changed everything, except God. We discover what God intended for mankind the whole time, and what man needed to understand about himself before he could enter eternal relationship with God. Proper biblical teaching affirms that Christianity is about Christ, not about me.

The Law in the Old Testament was about what I do, who I am, and how I act in this life: i.e., entirely about “me.” Anyone carefully reading the Old Testament has to notice that if there is one, overriding lesson of the Old Covenant, it is that man is truly, truly terrible at following directions. Hence - God knows – the need for grace.

I love the Old Testament because it tells me about the character, faithfulness and person of God, the fallen nature of human beings, the glory of Creation, and the evil of Satan. It teaches that God is always faithful to his Word, not to man’s worldly desires.

Want wisdom, courage, strength, freedom and peace? Jesus Christ is our wisdom, courage, strength, freedom and peace. Always. The Holy Spirit tells us so.

Learn from the Old, but believe in the New.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) thinks, and believes.

Labels: fallen nature, Grace, Holy Spirit, knowledge, Law, new covenant, Old Covenant, Satan, wisdom | 0 comments

Monday, June 23, 2014

397 - Lost Without a Compass

5:28 PM | Posted by Bob Walters | | Edit Post

Spirituality Column #397
June 24, 2014
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

Lost Without a Compass

By Bob Walters

Our society tends to worry about the wrong things because it no longer is very good at diagnosing humanity’s most basic problems.

For 50 years America has systematically thrown public money at private problems and can’t understand why inner cities can’t educate their children, and places like Detroit have all but shut down. We are afraid to notice that Great Society giveaways initiated in the 1960s coincide precisely with the takeaway of school prayer. More money and less prayer led to an implosion of moral misdirection.

As the Bible has further disappeared from public life and education, the bedrock notion of the existence of right and wrong, of good and evil, of truth and lies, has dwindled into a sniveling cultural narrative that starts and stops with “Don’t judge.”

It’s secularism’s favorite Bible quote. Only a small bit of society any longer accurately comprehends where, how and why Jesus said, “don’t judge.” I like Brent Riggs’ explanation: “Luke 6:37 (“judge not lest you be judged”) tells us not to be hypocrites, not to judge without compassion or understanding, and not to judge based on our own standards rather than God’s.”

Did you catch that? “God’s standards.”

We think “don’t judge” means “invent your own standards.” No. It means God’s standards are real, authoritative, and supreme so don’t invent your own standards. God’s standards are in the Bible, not in government programs or humanist intellectual inclination. Morality is not about “going to church” and doing “the Christian thing.” It’s reading, knowing and acting on the Bible.

Society currently, bafflingly, assigns top moral priority to homosexuality, sexual freedom, gay marriage, and every non-traditional family structure. Christians are tricked into equivocating on “sexual sin.” Non-believers ignore “sin” entirely. Lacking biblical knowledge, our family foundations and civic morality are disintegrating in sin we can’t recognize.

Since 9/11 we’ve worried about Islam and its dramatically different religious and cultural order. My biblical mentor George Bebawi points out that Western culture is threatened less by Islam than its own biblical ignorance and rampant secularism.

“The Bible” TV miniseries (which morphed into this year’s movie “Son of God”) was birthed because its producers recognized the dearth of Bible education in schools. My wife Pam recently retired from 34 years of teaching public school English and noted the change in basic Bible knowledge students brought to class. In the 1970s, most had some idea of Noah and the flood. In recent years, most students had none.

The Bible is a moral compass pointing to the love and truth of Jesus Christ. Without Jesus, we are morally lost. Without a compass, we will stay lost.

That is society’s most basic problem.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) invites comment, and encourages good judgment.

Labels: Don't Judge, Great Society, Islam, Luke 6:37. Judge Not, moral compass, moral nation, morality, school prayer, society | 0 comments

Monday, June 16, 2014

396 - The Only Thing Jesus Ever Was

8:20 PM | Posted by Bob Walters | | Edit Post

Spirituality Column #396
June 17, 2014
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

The Only Thing Jesus Ever Was

By Bob Walters

We Christians believe Jesus is everything: life, love, joy, truth, knowledge and good. He is trustworthy, challenging and unchangeable. He is yesterday, today, tomorrow and forever.

Jesus is fully God and fully man. He is eternally present in the Kingdom, and eternally present tense when spoken of. Jesus is today’s news, whatever day it is.

A sermon on the radio recently offered an interesting point. Of all the things Jesus is, present tense, there is only one thing that Jesus ever was, past tense:

He was dead.

That struck me as a great thing to remember, containing great perspective, and a great way to explain our Christian faith.

We often hear in our churches that the thing that makes Jesus Christ different from every other philosopher, theologian, priest, king, poet, pastor, hero or religious leader in history – and “in history” means they lived as a human being – is that all the rest of them are dead.

Are dead. Still dead. Gonna’ stay dead. When we humans who are alive today pass on – and that’s all of us – we too will stay dead to this human realm.

That’s the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. He didn’t stay dead. Jesus died for our sins. He died to defeat death. He died to assure the eventual and eternal fellowship of all believers in Him to join Him in Heaven – alive – with God Almighty. Jesus died and was resurrected so we could share, trust, and have firm hope in God’s promise of our eternal relationship with Him and our adoption into His Kingdom. Jesus Christ is the way and the reason – “the way, and the truth, and the life” says John 14:6 – that God’s glorious Creation, now fallen, can return to God in glory forever.

When someone, perhaps our child or our neighbor, asks why we believe in Jesus, we can say with full confidence, “Because He died, but now is alive.”

When the world urges us to believe that “all gods are the same,” we can assert truthfully, “No, Jesus Christ – God and man – did what no one else has done: died and returned to life. He lives forever with authority over all things.”

When the libertine insists he must “believe in Himself,” with gracious tact we must affirm that when he, the libertine, dies, he will stay dead.

Only in Jesus Christ will man find life eternal, because Jesus is the only man with eternal life. Yes, Jesus was dead. That He is alive is the best news of all time.

Be sure to tell a friend, and to forgive an enemy. Jesus is alive and watching.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes that our faith can die, but Jesus cannot. He’s been there, done that.

Labels: dead, eternal, Jesus is alive, John 14:6, Kingdom, staying dead | 0 comments

Monday, June 9, 2014

395 - Worthy Opposition

4:50 PM | Posted by Bob Walters | | Edit Post

Spirituality Column #395
June 10, 2014
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

Worthy Opposition

By Bob Walters

We all wonder if we are “worthy.”

That’s easy … we’re not.

But still, consider for a moment the space “worthiness” occupies in Christian teaching.

We encounter “worthiness” in sermons, scripture and hymns. “Are you worthy?” “Worthy is the Lamb.” “Jesus alone is worthy.” We are fascinated by what’s worthy and what’s not.

In this context, “worthy” means living up to God’s standards. It means worthy of being saved into eternal heavenly fellowship with God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and all the saints. It means worthy of God’s love and grace, and worthy of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. Worthy means we’ve attained the perfection with which God created us. Worthy means equal in stature to the absolute truth of God’s Creation. The Bible, authoritatively, is a treatise on what’s worthy and what’s not.

Final Jeopardy answer: “Jesus is; we aren’t.” Question: “What is ‘worthy’?”

Modern culture, having jumped largely outside biblical authority, is addicted to asserting “I’m worth it!” having convinced itself that worth is a human commodity. Fallen man rarely contemplates his worthiness in God’s eyes because he is tricked by the mirage of worldly worthiness in his own eyes.

That’s what Satan did to Adam and Eve. He convinced them they were worthy of God’s knowledge. Turns out God’s knowledge, in the hands of mankind, leads to death (Genesis 3). Satan knew it, and reveled in his trickery. He’s reveled in it ever since.

We have a special problem with all this today because over the last couple hundred years individual freedom and human worth have been codified into the articles of civil organization (e.g., the U.S. Constitution). For thousands of years prior, any individual life just wasn’t worth that much to society at large. Our culture – ostensibly, anyway – finally has it right that there exists divinely Created, intrinsic worth in each individual. But we have it wrong, thinking that true worth resides anywhere but in God, or that we have worth in any way but through Christ.

Secular man errantly celebrates “self-esteem,” not worthiness. Plenty of popular preaching promotes the narcissistic theology of “God created me to be great!” That ignores biblical truth that God created us to praise Him, not the other way around. Other divisive preaching invokes guilt, digging out Old Testament this-for-that legalism which undercuts simple faith and problematically ignores the grace of Jesus Christ.

Grace isn’t a trade. It’s a gift, not a transaction. Our worthiness isn’t in our work or self-centered illusions; it resides exclusively in the grace, truth and sacrifice of Christ.

And it’s worth an eternity.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes that man generally prefers rules because he can judge rules, but not grace. Grace is God’s business.

Labels: Adam and Eve, Grace, legalism, Satan, self-esteem, U.S. Constitution, worthiness, worthy | 0 comments

Monday, June 2, 2014

394 - God and Country and the Indy 500

6:35 PM | Posted by Bob Walters | | Edit Post

Spirituality Column #394
June 3, 2014
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

God and Country and the Indy 500

By Bob Walters

“America, America, God shed his grace on thee …” – America the Beautiful, verses 1,2,3,4

Say what you will about the Indianapolis 500 as cultural theater – good or bad. It has to be among the most patriotic places in America on Memorial Day.

The crowd roars its heartfelt approval of the military representatives who are introduced. The renditions of “God Bless America” and “America the Beautiful” are my annual opportunity to sing in a 230,000-voice choir. With “Back Home Again in Indiana,” the only difference is that we all seem to sing a little louder. Conversely, the crowd is respectfully hushed, almost prayerful, during the National Anthem and Taps. Indianapolis Catholic Bishop Christopher Coyne has fun with pre-race prayer.

Can I get an Amen?

And then the race starts and the event itself is … thrilling. I’ll spot you the Super Bowl kick off, the first pitch of the World Series, tip-off of the NBA finals, and the start of the Daytona 500. I’ll take Turn 1 at Indianapolis. Acquired taste that auto racing may be – and I acquired it long ago – the 500 is even more meaningful to me because I’m standing beside my brother, two sons, wife and, this year, my sister and brother-in-law from Tucson. We share as a family. We share en masse as a nation. It’s not the car racing; it’s the miracle of community identity, the sparkle of America’s possibilities.

We share the love of country and the grace God shed on all of us – showered it, really. And one of the great expressions of God’s abundant grace on our nation on race day at Indy is the love I feel among family, friends, and the patriotic ambience magnifique out there on West 16^th Street.

Yeah … Brickyard behavior is a bit rough sometimes. Regarding the crowd, I like to joke that “everything you learned in kindergarten” (see Robert Fulghum’s poster) doesn’t apply at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. But in the patriotic light of Memorial Day, it’s love that makes that gathering so special.

What got me thinking about all this, oddly enough, was the nasty-tempered and incredibly ungracious, unloving Westboro Baptist Church protestors expressing, spitting their hate for so much of what Americans celebrate as God’s grace. Their vile signs and loud mouths greeted us along 16^th Street on race morning.

God is love, and He surely laments lives governed by hate. Let’s remember to pray for those shackled to darkness, but not miss the love we enjoy together in the light of grace, even at Indy on Memorial Day.

God doesn’t want to lose anybody.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) figures that “grace” verse is repeated because God’s grace is the point of the whole song.

Labels: America the Beautiful, Bishop Christopher Coyne, God Bless America, Indianapolis, Indy 500, Jim Nabors, patriotism, Star Spangled Banner, Westboro Baptist Church | 0 comments

398 - Thinking Like a Christian

397 - Lost Without a Compass

396 - The Only Thing Jesus Ever Was

395 - Worthy Opposition

394 - God and Country and the Indy 500

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