CommonChristianity: January 2017

Monday, January 30, 2017

533 - I Want That

4:51 PM | Posted by Bob Walters | | Edit Post

Spirituality Column No. 533
January 31, 2017
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

I Want That

By Bob Walters

“Sell everything you have … then come, follow me.” – Jesus to the rich ruler, Luke 18:22.

Leaving a known and worldly life behind and forging an unknown and eternal life in Christ ahead is difficult, scary, confusing and humbling.

And then it is easy, joyful and obvious.

Done right, it remains humbling though believers often don’t notice that part. We’re too busy being thankful and amazed by the vast depth, dimension and intensity of the love of God, the light, wisdom and sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the abiding closeness of the Holy Spirit. It’s all right there with us, by us, in us. We know it.

This is how I’d describe “coming to Christ” and living in His grace. The “find” is often more of a stumble than a ballet; quite likely a surprising accident not a systematic discovery. You can be sure that the most unshakeable Christian faith is founded in freedom and love, not bondage and coercion. The truth of Jesus arrives by accepting a relationship in love; not in losing or conceding an argument in anger.

We may not even be seeking the Kingdom of God – many of us are not. In fact we might resist it vigorously and mock the “weak-minded fools” who profess to truly know and trust Jesus; who in their faith uncritically love God and others.

In this fallen world we have no idea, no concept, no comparison by which to find the right and the wrong, the true and the false, the wise and foolish, the good and the evil by anything less than the love of Jesus. Oh, we think we do. But we don’t.

Jesus is why discernment of these things exists; He, in His person, is Truth.

The Bible verse above about the “Rich Ruler” or “Rich Young Man” is a basic idea presented in Matthew (19:24), Mark (10:21) and Luke – that those with great riches in this world have great difficulty accepting the greater glory of the world to come: the Kingdom of God. There is really nothing one can say to those steeped and probably trapped in the mortal coils of self-directed life. Debate will not unshackle their self-sustained opinion. Nor are our selfless love and example – not even the example of Christ – guarantors of transforming sometimes even an open human mind.

When we crave to share the truth, grace and glory of Christ but see any person, whether a rich ruler or more likely a beloved family member or friend, walk away from sChrist’s command to “Follow me,” don’t we want to say more? To plead, in love:

“Don’t go! You don’t know what you are missing.”

For a midlife convert to Christ, which I am, it was that specific line in the movie “The Resurrection of Gavin Stone” that nearly put me in a teary puddle on the floor of the theater. In a good way.

In finding Christ, I know from my experience on the outside what doesn’t work.

But I sure understand what did for Gavin Stone. See the movie. Take a tissue.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) shakes his head looking back on his life before Christ. He’s not bragging about humility; he’s reflecting on narrow-minded stupidity.

Labels: fallen world, finding Jesus, Luke 18:22, Mark 10:21, Matthew 19:24, new life, Rich Young Man, The Resurrection of Gavin Stone, Truth | 0 comments

Monday, January 23, 2017

532 - Let it Rain

4:44 PM | Posted by Bob Walters | | Edit Post

Spirituality Column No. 532
January 24, 2017
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Let it Rain

By Bob Walters

“In the Bible, it says rain is a sign of God’s blessing.” – Franklin Graham’s well-timed adlib at the slightly damp 2017 U.S. presidential inauguration of Donald Trump.

There is a Saul of Tarsus quality to Donald Trump’s surprising ascendency to the U.S. presidency. It is a true monument to cosmic unlikelihood.

Saul, of course, might be the New Testament’s leading bad guy if not for Pontius Pilate, King Herod, Judas Iscariot and Satan. Saul was a Jew, a high-ranking Pharisee, a Roman citizen, educated in Greek and a most vigorous persecutor of Christians in the early years following the crucifixion of Jesus and the beginnings of the Church. We meet Saul in Acts 8:1 supervising the stoning of St. Steven, the first Christian martyr.

Then in Acts 9:1 as Saul is still “breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples,” Jesus shows up, knocks him down, blinds him, challenges him and all Saul can say is, “Who are you, Lord?” Next thing you know, Saul is preaching Christ, traveling widely and is himself severely persecuted by the Jews. By Acts 13:9 he is known by the familiar name St. Paul the Apostle, writer of nearly half the New Testament and bedrock of the early church.

How did that guy become that leader? How did he get from there to here?

Are we not wondering the same thing about President Donald J. Trump? From his bully pulpit the tough talking, free-tweeting, thrice-married New York real estate and global construction billionaire, TV celebrity, and cultural icon of extraordinary proportion – “You’re Fired!” – somehow jiu-jitsued the entire American political system to capture a barely-believable but unmistakably controlling interest in truth, justice and the American Way. Disingenuous politicians, agenda-driven media, snooty academics, crazy cultural fascists, politically correct doctrinaires and self-righteous faux-philosophers of the entertainment industry were all pounded with a very large and consequential hammer of common sense, American reality and appropriate supplication to the divine.

To these bullying modern Pharisees of “correct” but dissembling thought, Trump – once approximately one of them – is now loathed; the “bad guy.” He is the threat, promise and unlikely messenger of restoring a central truth to our American consciousness: that our nation exists for “We the people.” And if you really heard the inaugural prayers, “We” – each person – exist for the glory of God. Shocking, and true.

Friday’s ceremony reportedly set a record for the most prayers in a U.S. presidential inaugural. Fine. What is undeniable is that scripture was quoted accurately and sincerely, Jesus Christ was invoked by name and station, and God was honored before the attending throngs, a divided nation and the entire world.

All I can say is, let it rain, Lord. Your truth is marching on … regardless.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) mentions that on Saturday there were in D.C. both a syncretistic pray-to-whatever-you-want prayer all-call and a “women’s rights” anti-Trump march closed to pro-lifers. O, for the Dr. King days when marches were God-fearing calls for human rights, not self-righteous demonstrations in support of human wrongs.

Labels: Donald Trump, Franklin Graham, human rights, human wrongs, jiu jitsu, Pharisees, political correctness, popular culture, prayer, Saul of Tarsus, St. Paul, US Presidential Inauguration 2017 | 0 comments

Monday, January 16, 2017

531 - When Christ is New

4:22 PM | Posted by Bob Walters | | Edit Post

Spirituality Column No. 531
January 17, 2017
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

When Christ is New

By Bob Walters

Fifteen years ago I couldn’t have predicted how I’d feel, now, a decade and a half into a life with Christ. At least I couldn’t have predicted this. I had no idea.

And here is what surprises me: it’s still all new, every day, this life with Christ. I’m more interested in Jesus now than I was 15 years ago on that November Sunday evening in 2001 when East 91^st Street Christian Church pastor Dave Faust in Indianapolis so graciously spent extra time after our final Walking with Christ class in leading our group to the E91 sanctuary baptistery where three of us buried our sins and came alive in Christ.

Coming up out of the water, with the peace and joy of salvation washing over me and a sense of the adventure before me, is so very vividly and forever in my memory. I can still feel the moment; I can see it.

Yet today I have so much more.

What I have now is assuredness in Jesus, in the Bible and in the fellowship of believers I’ve been so blessed to come to know, trust, lean on, learn from and love. In the baptismal pool there was the blossoming bud of faith and the expectant sapling of curiosity, but no way could I anticipate the life-altering depth of the journey ahead.

And that depth is the depth of Jesus. What a world-confining mistake it is to think our lives consist of our daily routines, successes, failures and challenges; our “overcomings” and our “underwhelmings.” The life-altering nature of Christ is in realizing real life only exists in Him.

I’ve heard “change” preached from pulpits in the profane sense of changing our daily habits and “being a better person.” When Christ altered my life, it has shown itself over the years in having blown the lid entirely off of what I thought “life” was all about in the finite realm of the daily habits of this world.

Through Christ we taste the mind of God, not the mere appetites of this physical world. We encounter this life’s delights and comforts, its sorrows and distresses, and the vagaries attendant to fear and desire. And Paul tells us they all mean precisely nothing compared to a life in Christ. Fifteen years ago – even in the hope and promise of baptism – I had no idea what that meant or why I’d want it or if I could even understand it. But now … I get it. And I know the more of it I get, the more God is glorified in the continuously expanding love of even one sinner like me who happily entertains every personal doubt of worldly being while reflexively trusting the doubtless goodness, faithfulness and love of the Father, Son and Spirit.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) adapted this column from his 2016 thank you, faith inventory and update letter he writes to Faust every year marking the November 18 anniversary of Dave baptizing him in 2001. Jesus is eternally new; Walters had no idea.

Labels: Dave Faust, East 91st Street Christian Church, life in Christ, my baptism, Walking with Christ | 0 comments

Monday, January 9, 2017

530 - God is Still Here

4:41 PM | Posted by Bob Walters | | Edit Post

Spirituality Column No. 530
January 10, 2017
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

God is Still Here
By Bob Walters

Perhaps the greatest arrogance of this or any age is the assumption that God’s existence is somehow dependent on the majority opinion of mankind.

Let’s remember that God is still here no matter what educators teach, the media reports, pollsters predict, commentators opine or celebrities spasmodically declare. Neither does a sincere preacher’s sermon nor a humble Christian’s service alter the unalterable divinity of God. The thing that can be made different is not God, but man’s faithful relationship and love with God and others. Beware; we live in an age – an arc or history, really – out of alignment with the pedestrian but supernatural truth of Christ.

This “arc” is the modernist march of philosophical humanity that for the last 300 years or so has walked Western man’s popular intellect further and further away from the foundational, always relevant reality of God. While I’m quite convinced man’s modernist inclinations have no impact whatsoever on the three-in-one person of God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, or on the eternal kingdom, divine glory and ultimate victory for God’s plan of salvation and love, we are wise to take heed that when we confuse our temporal intellectual fashions – modernism – with the unceasing reality of God, we are compromising our own eternal being.

We are electing eternal sides – Heaven or Hell – not fleeting flirtations.

“Modernism” doesn’t mean smart phones and driverless cars. Tracing its roots back to Thomas Aquinas and 13^th century naturalism, modernism is the seriously earnest academic trajectory of man taking over the definition and description of God. Humanity beheld the Age of Enlightenment – great philosophers, brilliant politicians, and revolutions both shedding kings (America) and killing them (France, Russia) – and this modernist Enlightenment “light” man has been trying to steal is the spotlight that shines properly, only, entirely and eternally on Jesus Christ, not human systems.

But human systems are what popular culture’s “best and brightest” human minds have been assembling and assimilating ever since in an attempt to replace the simple and traditional truth of God’s ultimate mastery over all Creation. God gave mankind freedom to concoct all manner of foolish ways to replace God – from the fall in Garden of Eden up through evolutionary theory, social science, reproductive rights, identity politics and on and on. Bounteous modern day ammo exists to locate, learn about and love God – Church, the Bible, communications’ tools – as does the ever-present, ineffable, stubborn sense human’s possess that “there must be something more.”

Yes, there is “something more” no matter the modern or ancient world’s fancy or arrogant arguments against it (Romans 16:18, 1 Corinthians 2:4, Colossians 2:4)

God is still here and our faith still counts.

He always is and it always does.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes that secularism suggests we don’t need to trust Jesus, glorify God or seek the Holy Spirit. Those are three pieces of very bad advice.

Labels: 1 Corinthians 2:4, academics, Aquinas, Colossians 2:4, Enlightenment, faith, modernism, Romans 16:18, secularism | 0 comments

Monday, January 2, 2017

529 - Is God Mad at Me?

7:54 PM | Posted by Bob Walters | | Edit Post

Spirituality Column No. 529

January 3, 2017

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Is God Mad at Me?

By Bob Walters

It wasn’t a sure thing that my wife Pam and I would actually make it to church this past Sunday morning … on New Year’s Day.

We visited friends New Year’s Eve and were home well before midnight but Pam was nursing a cold and we both were tired from a full day of tearing down and packing up Christmas decorations. Our intention had been, yes of course, to go to church on the holiday even if partly just to be counted and see who else showed up.

But in the winter dark and the cold and getting up … who would miss us?

Virtue won out, and on the way to church I mentioned to Pam that I was glad she felt well enough to go but that I already figured I would go regardless because I had this weekly column to write that afternoon. Normally I write on Saturdays but Christmas clean-up got in the way and skipping church was no way to start my writing day.

"Didn’t want God to be mad at you?” she teased.

And there we have today’s subject in the form of a question – “Is God mad at me?” – and an answer, “No, not even a little bit.” Also please be assured, God’s not mad at you either, not any more, not since Jesus. God loves us and always has, but we humans routinely underestimate God’s charity.

And Satan is all for it.

God cuts a fearsome swath through the Bible’s Old Testament. There is nothing cheerful or hopeful or nurturing about God’s reaction in Genesis 3 to Adam and Eve’s sin, to the world’s sin when God told Noah to build the ark in Genesis 6, and on through the 39 books of the Old Testament. What we know about God is that He created the world for his pleasure and made human beings in His own image that with their love and obedience, of Him, God in His Kingdom would be glorified.

With Satan’s help, mankind screwed that up with disobedience, bad choices, rebellion, misplaced legalism and on and on. God is perfect, man is imperfect and neither has changed. What has changed, what is new and what was unexpected was God’s New Covenant in Jesus Christ covering the sin of our disobedience and the Gospel of freeing us sinners to love God in His mercy, not fear Him in His wrath.

Satan wants us to fear God’s wrath. Jesus wants us to know the enormity of God’s love, mercy and compassion. Jesus, fully man and fully God, saves us – if we let Him – from sharing the certain and fierce hell of Satan’s eternal punishment. The Holy Spirit is our spiritual comfort in this physical life of occasional horrors, shining the glory of God and the light of Jesus into our lives, freeing us from the doubt, guilt and fear Satan relentlessly preaches into our hearts.

Even going to church on a holiday Sunday morning. And Pam knew it.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) wishes a Happy New Year to all and the joy of discovering ever-increasing freedom in Christ. Joy is Jesus; fear is Satan.

Labels: Genesis 3, Genesis 6, Is God mad at me?, mercy, new covenant, New Year, Satan, sin, wife Pam | 0 comments

533 - I Want That

532 - Let it Rain

531 - When Christ is New

530 - God is Still Here

529 - Is God Mad at Me?

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