CommonChristianity: June 2018

Monday, June 25, 2018

606 - Plain as Day

5:00 PM | Posted by Bob Walters | | Edit Post

Spirituality Column #606

June 26, 2018

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Plain as Day

By Bob Walters

"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried." - G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, 1908

The sincere mainline Protestant minister presiding over the huge, recent funeral spoke eloquently of the deep, comforting love of God that sustains us in our grief.

At a beautiful lakeside wedding – unsheltered outdoors at the edge of a pure forest by a pristine beach with ominous, awesome storm clouds rolling along the fog-dotted Great Lake – the hired officiant spoke with surety to the small assembly of the great love that exists and its power to hold us joyously closer to all things around us.

Yet … never at the funeral did the minister assert the truth that the great Godly love of which she spoke is known to humanity only because it is embodied in Jesus Christ. Never at the wedding – rich with love and atmosphere and the magnificence of God’s Creation – was God’s love mentioned or the name of Jesus uttered.

And yet surely, God was in every heart; Jesus not far from anyone’s mind.

Current secular, cultural evidence and polling suggest the “nones” – those with no religious affiliation – are ascendant. Christianity is fading and secularism is the new normal. Plainly, all popular roads these days seem to lead away from the heart of Jesus and into the great maw of worldly humanism. Jesus Christ says “I am the way and the truth and the life; No one comes to the father except through me” (John 14:6). Modern society, instead, says either, “I decide my own truth,” or “There is no truth.”

And yet, God and Jesus – and the Holy Spirit – absolutely illuminate in our hearts the sense of occasion, warmth, relationship, and cosmic yearning for a glimpse at that mysterious “greater thing” – God in all His glory – so plainly right in front of us. Our hearts know it, but our minds refuse to name it and even preachers refuse to say it.

I think of those among us whose souls in their moments of greatest grief and greatest joy are left with a pain they cannot assuage or a hope they cannot explain. Christ is plainly that comfort and that truth, available to all, but we are unwilling to believe. Chesterton (above) grasps the difficulty of grasping the obvious: our perfect companion in this imperfect, fallen world is the perfect person of Jesus. Our challenge, “our mission if we choose to accept it,” is to put in the work necessary to connect that famous “God shaped hole in our hearts” to an assured reality of Christ in our minds.

What’s hard about it? Faith is what’s hard about it. Lots of theology and religion professors have put in years of work understanding church and scripture with no faith in the truth of any of it. It’s merely an academic exercise in anthropology and psychology.

When everyone around you is convinced “God wouldn’t allow this” and every cultural institution and cause defines a god – actually an idol – to fit their worldly needs, of course these great moments of faith are going to fall short of the Glory of God.

Jesus is what makes those moments happen, and to me it is as plain as day.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes the irony that after the unexpectedly dry outdoor wedding, many folks shared the sentiment, “Thank God the rains held off.”

Labels: Christ with us, Christianity is hard, funeral, G.K. Chesterton, John 14:6, love, modern society, relationship, wedding | 0 comments

Monday, June 18, 2018

605 - I Didn't Ask, Part 2

5:00 PM | Posted by Bob Walters | | Edit Post

Spirituality Column #605

June 19, 2018

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

I Didn’t Ask, Part 2

By Bob Walters

"Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete." Jesus, John 16:24

Let’s build on last week’s discussion about what we can “name and claim” when we are in our “asking” mode in prayer before God.

This particular verse in John is a favorite among Christians who go to God in prayer to get stuff and solve problems. God can provide, certainly, but Satan is plenty active in these matters too. We underestimate how often our “gimme” prayers meant for God are claim-jumped and rerouted through Satan’s quagmire set amid our doubts.

To quickly set the scene for John 16:24, all of John 15 and 16 are Jesus talking to His disciples as they leave the Last Supper and walk to Gethsemane where Jesus prays (chapter 17),is arrested, tried … and you know the rest. Jesus says “you have not asked … in my name” noting the obvious that nobody realized they were supposed to. The disciples by now mostly “got” that Jesus was the Son of God, the Messiah, but remained clueless how true salvation worked: with sacrificial love, not brute force.

A good tandem verse is Matthew 21:22, where Jesus says, “If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” The key here is not “you will receive,” it is “If you believe.” When you believe in Jesus you have a far better idea of what to ask God for. It’s a common thread in the “ask and you shall receive” messages of Christ.

In this fallen world we encounter awful things God has no intention of changing until the last day. The atheists among us will deny both God’s existence and any true meaning of life. The libertines will dismiss God as an uncaring bully or worse. But the wise among us understand the long game. When we believe, we know how to ask and what to ask for, most notably for closeness to God, trust in his righteousness, peace in our situation, grace in our travails, generally at all times to be a witness to God’s glory, not a testament against it, and of course, to help us understand. “I know and trust Jesus” is what makes for truly high horsepower prayers. Lay out your heart; then listen.

The show-off, self-centered prayers of the Pharisees or of today’s “prosperity gospel” purveyors are surely open lanes for the demons to do what they do best – misrepresent God, spew distrust in God, and diminish humanity’s understanding of God’s glory by keeping our human minds on worldly desires and difficulties. Satan is the “friend” who gets you blamed and rejoices when you distort, pervert, or blame God.

Our true peace in Christ – which I’m here to affirm is our greatest gift this side Glory – is our only ticket to the joy Jesus mentions in John 16:24. If we understand that “happy” is about me and “joy” is about Jesus – and joy is closer to God’s glory – we’ll pray earnestly in relationship with Christ rather than selfishly in panic about the world.

Jesus came with unprecedented, unasked-for gifts from God: the defeat of death, an eternal, glorious life with God, assurance of His truth, and forgiveness of our sins.

We should take Him up on it, and then ask humbly for His help.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) listens more and talks less in prayer than he used to.

Labels: ask and you shall receive, asking God, happy, John 16:24, joy, Matthew 21:22, Name it and claim it, peace, prayer, Satan | 0 comments

Monday, June 11, 2018

604 - I Didn't Ask, Part 1

9:18 PM | Posted by Bob Walters | | Edit Post

Spirituality Column #604

June 12, 2018

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

I Didn’t Ask, Part 1

By Bob Walters

“Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.” Jesus, John 16:24

Despite 2,000 or more years of prior instruction, promises, and prophets, the disciples of Jesus and the Jews all around them never saw it coming.

Humanity didn’t see it coming. No potentate, philosopher, or poet anywhere on Earth conjured, scripted, or imagined God’s true and redemptive plan for fallen creation.

Nobody asked for it, nobody thought they wanted it, nobody understood they needed it.

Yet Jesus showed up, with divine countenance and angelic announcement. He grew into a youth of brilliant words of faith and knowledge. His ministry later burst forth with a shocking doctrinal rebellion presenting all humanity with the great, joyous passion of God’s forgiving, saving, righteous, sacrificial, and absolute love – the revelation of freedom from sin and death – for which absolutely no one had ever thought to ask.

Then as now people are wired to ask for immediate physical comforts, not for an avenue upon which to eternally glorify God. There are a dozen or so very specific New Testament scriptures, like John 16:24 above, that appear to say, “Tell God what you want … tell Him Jesus sent you … and it’s yours!” And oh how that screws up the truth of God’s grace and the power of Jesus’s mission. We think God is trying to honor us. I mean, He is – He loves us – but it is a plan far grander than our human vision allows.

It is very, very easy for any of us to imagine the things we need, like food, water, shelter, rest, money, family, community, and possibly power and prestige. These all amount to the stuff of physical security. When we pray “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11) what we really are asking for is 1) to be freed of the insecurity of want and 2) for God to help us trust Him to provide. However: “Thy will be done” (Matt 6:10).

God will provide to us what He wills, with a mysterious, wonderful freedom and un-coerced love thrown in. We are wired for worldly security we can see; Jesus came to reveal to us the world we cannot see: the eternal loving glory of God in heaven.

Our fallenness clouds our eyes, which I believe explains why nobody saw Jesus coming. The hoped-for Jewish Messiah was to come on their terms: in fearsome power and glory striking retributive wrath against the enemies of God’s chosen Hebrew people.

Instead Jesus showed up in powerlessness and humility – a baby – growing into a humble, loving deliverer of a message even the most knowledgeable Jewish legal minds could not, would not comprehend. Jesus came to tell them their reign in the law was now at end, and that He, Jesus, brought with him the New Covenant of grace and faith. The love of God and neighbor now overcame the Covenant of law and obedience.

It was a blindside threat the blind and power-hungry Pharisees could not abide.

Even today many Christian churches preach as though the Law still abides – a practicality because in legalism resides the organizational utility of coercion and control. As Jesus constantly told the crowds, disciples, and Pharisees – and as Paul later wrote to the Jews, Gentiles, and church – in Him humanity had received from God a New Covenant in faith for which it did not ask and established a love it did not understand.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) asks for your forbearance. More next week.

Labels: Ask and you will receive, fallenness, freedom, John 16:24, Law, Matthew 6:10, new covenant, security, worldly desires | 0 comments

Monday, June 4, 2018

603 - The Eyes of the Lord

5:00 PM | Posted by Bob Walters | | Edit Post

Spirituality Column #603

June 5, 2018

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

The Eyes of the Lord

By Bob Walters

“The eyes of the LORD are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good.” – Proverbs 15:3

“How do I know if I am saved?” wonders too-much of the Christian world.

While the answer to that divine Book-of-Life question is written on, or sometimes hidden in, our routinely conflicted human hearts, the place to start looking isn’t in “what I know” but rather in “what God knows.” And it’s pretty clear, God knows everything.

That right there should be enough to spiritually scare or functionally discourage any of us unless we go beyond the logical and brain-game retributional realm of “who knows what” and into the faith-laden truth of “what God promises.” It’s when one starts focusing on God’s promises and trusting God’s character that the melodrama of Hell eases and the peace and assurance of Christ’s victory over evil delivers us from our own evil into God’s glory, i.e., salvation.

We call that deliverance from evil “forgiveness,” but God’s saving forgiveness isn’t an action-reaction, weigh the options, trade-in our sins kind of thing. It is a God’s glorious loving gift through Jesus Christ kind of thing. We keep thinking it can’t happen without some kind of punishment – of us – because that’s how our legal and cultural system works. You sin, you pay. We complicate our image of salvation greatly by imputing our sin-weary worldly experience onto the authority and perfection of Christ.

Fact is, God’s ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55:8-9) and our best view of that piece of scripture should be, “Thank you, God,” not, “What are you hiding from me?” The work of Jesus is love, the motivation of God is love, and we ask, “How do I know?”

Funny we should ask when the entire point of salvation isn’t knowledge of things seen but “faith in things unseen.” (Hebrews 11:1) That makes it sort of not polite to ask a question like “How do I know?” Time and again in the Bible we see Jesus addressing such “prove it” inquiries from disciples, Pharisees, and others not with patience but with demonstrable hostility or withering parables. Faith is the point; not knowledge.

If you’re truly wondering if you are saved, that’s a good sign. It means you are just an inch or so from the proper forum for that inquiry, which is quiet prayer. It’ll never show up in your works, your station, your knowledge, or your wisdom. But if you are praying just to check on the status of your salvation, you must realize you are praying about your own glory, not the glory of God. You probably won’t like the answer.

Wicked or good, we can’t surprise God, fool God, or bargain with God. But we can talk with Him. Do you sincerely wonder about your salvation? Here’s a pretty good “tell”: Do you realize God is always there? He sees all. You may think He is absent but it is our own hearts that are hard. Confess to God all your sins because it will make you feel better. Trust all that the Bible reveals about Jesus. Love Him, and share the love.

When your love of God overcomes your love of self, you’ll likely quit worrying about whether you are “saved.” And that is the very best sign of all.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) finds peace in knowing he can’t hide from God, and in that “wicked and good” line personally senses the enormity of God’s forgiveness.

Labels: Book of Life, Can't surprise God, forgiveness, Hebrews 11:1, How do I know?, Isaiah 55:8-9, love of self, Proverbs 15:3 | 0 comments

606 - Plain as Day

605 - I Didn't Ask, Part 2

604 - I Didn't Ask, Part 1

603 - The Eyes of the Lord

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