Monday, January 8, 2018
582 - Optional Equipment
Spirituality Column #582
January 9, 2018
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
Optional Equipment
By Bob Walters
“I am the way and the
truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.” – Jesus,
John 14:6.
I don’t see a lot of options in this verse. I see freedom – come to the father or not; your call – but no suggestion of a by-way, other way, or highway. And no “my way.”
“Through me.” He says. No options. Jesus is it.
But, “it” for what? And what if I don’t want whatever “it” is? As a late-to-the-faith Christian myself, I spent 47 years of my life bouncing around the optional edges of “it,” er, Christianity. Yes, I went to church as a kid … all the time, in fact. But the world around me presented tons of options and distractions in my teen years, and then on into college, adulthood, career, marriage, parenting, successes, failures … life, in other words. But there was no church in those years. I was ideally set up for what qualifies as a razor thin, surface, secular, American cultural understanding of Christianity.
And in those terms of Jesus in the most limited sense, “it” is eternal life, heaven, and forgiveness. Oh, and going to church. Those four things are really all I knew about Jesus and probably cover the broadband understanding about Him of many non-Christians, “Nones,” disenchanted ex-Christians, agnostics, atheists, etc. They know a little about Jesus and likely have a dim view of more than a few Christians they know.
Why? Well, there is all that “judgment of sin.” You know, wrathful God, fires of hell, condemnation, etc. Christians are arrogant hypocrites; think they are better, etc.
Sheesh. No thanks. No fun there. What kind of valid options are those? Folks cannot really imagine eternal life. Most assume they’ll make it to heaven – if heaven’s not a myth – because “I’m a good person.” They don’t appreciate your tone when you suggest they need forgiveness. And they prefer Sundays on their own terms. “Why go to church and be judged? I have lots of other options. I just want to be happy.”
Sound like anyone you know?
Well, my young (to me anyway) late-to-the-faith friend Katie Crebo, a Carmel, Ind., attorney whose parents I’ve known for several decades, put the proper gloss on this topic recently, reviewing her own journey the past year. It included a fairly awful divorce but also a sincere surrender – finally – to Christ. Here’s what she noticed.
“So many people live and hold Jesus as an option, not a necessity, and that’s what I lived and held before I was saved. ‘Ah yes, there is Jesus,’ people say. ‘What a nice option to have. I will get to him when I can or really need to. No hurry.’”
Katie’s witness resonated truth; it was no fleeting cry of desperation after a tough year. She was paying attention, discovering the Spirit’s enduring revelation of what Jesus offers and actually is, and it’s the Gospel Gift A-List: divine relationship, sacrificial love, peace, truth, and adoption into God’s Kingdom sharing the glory of all creation.
Jesus is not some seasonal option; He is forever love showing a better way.
And out of necessity – and freedom – the only way. For all of us.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) asks: What’s truly necessary in your life?
I don’t see a lot of options in this verse. I see freedom – come to the father or not; your call – but no suggestion of a by-way, other way, or highway. And no “my way.”
“Through me.” He says. No options. Jesus is it.
But, “it” for what? And what if I don’t want whatever “it” is? As a late-to-the-faith Christian myself, I spent 47 years of my life bouncing around the optional edges of “it,” er, Christianity. Yes, I went to church as a kid … all the time, in fact. But the world around me presented tons of options and distractions in my teen years, and then on into college, adulthood, career, marriage, parenting, successes, failures … life, in other words. But there was no church in those years. I was ideally set up for what qualifies as a razor thin, surface, secular, American cultural understanding of Christianity.
And in those terms of Jesus in the most limited sense, “it” is eternal life, heaven, and forgiveness. Oh, and going to church. Those four things are really all I knew about Jesus and probably cover the broadband understanding about Him of many non-Christians, “Nones,” disenchanted ex-Christians, agnostics, atheists, etc. They know a little about Jesus and likely have a dim view of more than a few Christians they know.
Why? Well, there is all that “judgment of sin.” You know, wrathful God, fires of hell, condemnation, etc. Christians are arrogant hypocrites; think they are better, etc.
Sheesh. No thanks. No fun there. What kind of valid options are those? Folks cannot really imagine eternal life. Most assume they’ll make it to heaven – if heaven’s not a myth – because “I’m a good person.” They don’t appreciate your tone when you suggest they need forgiveness. And they prefer Sundays on their own terms. “Why go to church and be judged? I have lots of other options. I just want to be happy.”
Sound like anyone you know?
Well, my young (to me anyway) late-to-the-faith friend Katie Crebo, a Carmel, Ind., attorney whose parents I’ve known for several decades, put the proper gloss on this topic recently, reviewing her own journey the past year. It included a fairly awful divorce but also a sincere surrender – finally – to Christ. Here’s what she noticed.
“So many people live and hold Jesus as an option, not a necessity, and that’s what I lived and held before I was saved. ‘Ah yes, there is Jesus,’ people say. ‘What a nice option to have. I will get to him when I can or really need to. No hurry.’”
Katie’s witness resonated truth; it was no fleeting cry of desperation after a tough year. She was paying attention, discovering the Spirit’s enduring revelation of what Jesus offers and actually is, and it’s the Gospel Gift A-List: divine relationship, sacrificial love, peace, truth, and adoption into God’s Kingdom sharing the glory of all creation.
Jesus is not some seasonal option; He is forever love showing a better way.
And out of necessity – and freedom – the only way. For all of us.
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