Spirituality Column #780

October 26, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Settled Faith

By Bob Walters

“But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord.  Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect …” – 1 Peter 3:15

Some years back, being “prepared to give an answer” ceased being a difficult thing for me. 

At age 47 I set my heart – and mind – on Christ as Lord, though those close to me could still see the evident chinks in my armor.  I grew in Godly faith, knowledge, hope, and resolve through reading, study, prayer, and with the mentorship and encouragement of beloved pastors, teachers, and friends. With all I was learning and thinking, it was natural to share it … in writing.  Writing is what I do.

And with a few scattered mea culpas and the tolerance and abiding grace of many Christian brothers and sisters, “gentleness and respect” in these writings have been generally more present than absent … I hope.  Jesus is my favorite subject.

This writing marks 15 years of the weekly joy that has produced 780 consecutive Common Christianity columns.  As I hear a seemingly and increasingly lost world debate and reverence various elements of “settled science” and take opinion polls suggesting doubt about the grace, presence, and efficacy of God, Christianity, and the spiritual surety of the truth of Jesus, I confidently peck away at these weekly missives.

My faith and hope in Christ are settled because in all my studies, prayer, spiritual perceptions, life experiences, quiet times, and the occasional uproar of chaotic challenges, I’ve learned two essential and unwaveringly settled things:

1. God doesn’t change, and 2. Humanity hasn’t changed. 

God is love, He is righteous, He is the Creator, Logos, Word, and Spirit, and His eternal life is unchanging yet creative, reactive, seeking, and filled with personality.  It is the mystery of all mysteries how He does it, but the truth of all truths that He does.  

People can change, sure.  I have, perhaps you have, and I’ve seen many others who have.  But we learn a lesson from all those folks in the Bible, Genesis through Revelation, on up to today’s news headlines and unchanged neighbors.  Simply put, humanity, its joy transient, thin, and limited, has never shaken its fallen, sin nature. 

It is a nature that makes us chase many worldly things seeking life and security and, as Satan promotes, denying the truth and goodness of God.  We are happy to “settle science” – as mightily helpful as science is – but deny the God science reveals.

Individuals change by discovering the divine purpose that resides not in our pride, greed, or fear, but in the joy, peace, and trust in God’s life and goodness.  We may discover a purpose and meaning within our own being, but it will die with us.  Jesus arrived amid humanity as proof – that we see in His resurrection – that a life of humility, obedience, intelligence, and sacrifice bring to us – now – God’s joy and eternal hope.

Not everybody accepts, seeks, or wants God’s unwavering truth and hope.  A stated truth of the Bible is that some folks will get it, and some won’t.  But Jesus came to settle this issue once for all humanity; God’s invitation back into the Garden stands.

Science will never settle faith or meaning; Jesus settles them every day.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), Lord willing, and with thanks, will keep writing.

Spirituality Column #779

October 19, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

First Light

By Bob Walters

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. – Genesis 1:3

Into the formless and void world with the Spirit hovering over the darkness on the deep, on the first day of creation, the first thing God created was light.

Fast forward to the Gospel of John: Jesus is asserting His identity with the argumentative and intractable Pharisees, saying in John 8:12, “I am the light of the world.”  OK, obvious question: Is Jesus this “light” God created?

Please don’t panic.  The answer is no.

Christ Jesus wasn’t “created,” for the simple reason that Jesus, as the Christ, is the second person of the eternal Father-Son-Spirit Trinity. Jesus Christ, like the entire Godhead, is “un-created.”  Nobody knows “where He came from.”  God just always was and will be.  Worry about something else.

But this “light” created on the first day of creation is fascinating, because the sun, moon, stars, and apparently all the things that cause physical light, weren’t created until the fourth day of creation (Genesis 1:14-19).  So this first light was a creation of, if not Christ, then what?

My hunch is that everyone who regularly studies the Bible has their own answer for that one, but here’s mine.  The light created on Creation’s first day was God’s proclamation of His intention, will, purpose, and mission to divide the darkness and declare His glory in a world that “In the beginning”  was nothingness.  He molded it into a world only God’s love, truth, righteousness, perfection, and goodness could create.

And the Light of the first day is the authority bestowed on Christ to do so.

It was a good first week … then “very good” when man in God’s image was created on Day 6.  But we all know about the Garden, Adam, Eve, Satan, temptation, the apple, sin, the Fall, the curse, the expulsion, and God posting the Angel with the flaming sword barring Adam and Eve – all mankind – from re-entering the Garden.

We were “post-paradise” and on our own in a now-hostile world.  What happened to all that love, truth, perfection, etc., that was to mark the glory of God’s creation?  Did God change His mind? Change His heart?  Change his purpose?

No … far from it.  God’s light was the absolute diagram of love that would brook no part of sin.  But God, loving His Creation, kept a close eye on the creatures who had betrayed Him then and continue to betray Him to this day.

The light of life, purpose, and God’s glory that was Christ’s mission continued to shine in the heavenly realms of creation, tirelessly peeking at, prodding, and pronouncing to mankind God’s unwavering righteousness.

Mankind, with few exceptions, preferred/prefers the mantle of Satan’s darkness to hide its unrighteousness.  Jesus stepped into our midst as the perfect, restorative sacrifice to remove the angel with the flaming sword and light our way back into life in the Garden.

It is a gift we cannot buy, and a light that is ours, and yours, by asking in faith.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is confident this isn’t heresy (lmk if I need light<><).

Spirituality Column #778

October 12, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Christianity

Long Division   

By Bob Walters

“Thus, the people were divided because of Jesus.” – John 7:43

At the announcement of our Lord’s birth, the angels proclaim “peace on earth.”

Then as Jesus moved toward the cross, He seemed to be dancing to a very different piper when He said this to His disciples:

“Do you think I came to bring peace on earth?  No, I tell you.  But division.  From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three.” (Luke 12:51-52)

Were the angels wrong? (No.)  Did Jesus change? (No.)  Is He a psycho? (No.) Can we trust this guy? (Yes.)  Just don’t look in the mirror and expect to see Jesus.

I’m convinced most of the world has the Jesus thing backwards – either by will, by philosophy, or by ignorance – because so much of “The World” expects in Jesus a reflection of its own errant image of “kindness”: an affirming, unifying, non-judgmental, apparently passive, soft-humored, gift-giving, flock-building, cuddly, good-time Charlie.

Like, say, an unprincipled rich uncle: not especially serious, not authentically real.

And then the World discovers that Jesus’s first principle is the unwavering love and righteousness of God.  The World says “No thanks; that’s not what I want. Jesus is a myth.” No, I’m afraid it’s the unprincipled rich uncle who is the myth; he cannot save.

Jesus as the salvation of mankind is as serious and real as serious and real get.

A Christian believer who asserts the truth of Christ will, like Jesus, be hated by the World which thinks peace is merely the absence of divisive struggle.  But the struggle, in the world, will always be with us while Satan, the great divider, is around.

It is Jesus who provides peace in the midst of struggle, of the fight for our eternal souls that is the province of Jesus.  We reduce the Christian religion to “sin and forgiveness” when the Gospels repeatedly affirm that Jesus is less ruffled by sin than by people not knowing who He is.  Salvation comes from identifying and loving Jesus. 

Notice that Jesus consistently heals, helps, and is nice to sinners; He roars at the unbelieving Jews.  Jesus isn’t angry at the sinful woman, or the Roman centurion, or the woman at the well.  But among those who should know who He is, often including His disciples and always the “brood of vipers” as he calls the Pharisees, Jesus holds them to severe account for their doubt and/or ignorance of His identity as the Son of God.

It’s not surprising that the world thinks first of sin; Satan is lord of the world and man’s sins are Satan’s reins.  We take sin’s bit and prance to Satan’s goal of stealing God’s glory as, by pride and greed, he hinders humanity’s ability to recognize Jesus.

We implore others to “Be Kind” (saw that today on a sweatshirt).  We’d rather be “spiritual” than religious.  We need only “believe” (in what?) to find goodness.  And we are happy and confident to self-affirm, “I’m a good person.”  I shake my head.

I’m afraid that’s the long dividing line.  If Jesus were wearing that sweatshirt, I sort of imagine it would instead read, “Be Righteous.”  That’s what Jesus is all the time. 

Yes, Jesus is kind, but our salvation is in identifying His righteousness and His true personhood in God.  That’s how His grace is multiplied and our peace is achieved.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) relies first on Christ’s righteousness; His truth too.

 Spirituality Column #777

October 5, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

All Day Long

By Bob Walters

“Do you sense that Christ is yours all day long?” – Ray Stedman

Several years ago I piped up in a church Bible study group that I thought the key to knowing Christ and living with Jesus was to keep it simple.

The teacher looked horrified.

It’s been long enough ago that I remember barely any specifics of what we were discussing, nor the teacher’s barely audible response.  I only remember the teacher’s look. And it was a look that seemed mainly sad, and I don’t know if that was for my benefit or his.  We had generally, I think, been having one of those “How do we know we are Christian?” and “How do we know we are pleasing Christ?” type conversations.

I said something close to, and no more profound than, “Why worry about it?  The simplest thing is to trust Jesus.”  The teacher’s look and posture suggested, sternly, not only that my solution was inadequate, but a sadness that he knew he couldn’t do it.

Keep it simple, I mean. 

He trusted Jesus … but I sensed it was a great mental, spiritual, and emotional strain to accept whether he was “doing it right.”  He didn’t know, and when we don’t know, our joy in the Lord and comfort of the Holy Spirit grows thin and develops holes.

(As an FYI, for those of you who know me well, the teacher wasn’t George.)

Almost as many years ago (15? 16?) I got into the habit of reading Ray Stedman’s online daily devotional The Power of His Presence (link).  It is short, themed, free, focuses on one Bible book per month and one scripture passage per day.  Last month the book was 2 Corinthians, and the above quote appeared Sept. 24 suggesting we can sense Christ being ours “all day long.”  To me, that’s as simple as it gets.

All day long?  Yeah … you just live with Him.  I sort of liken it to a spouse who you don’t have to really think about to be with them in spirit all the time, because you just are.  Who forgets they are married?  Who doesn’t weigh their daily decisions and actions in consideration of their spouse?  Or their kids?  Or career or commitments?

Christ should be no different, except that Christ should be first.  I recently read a note somewhere that said a great marriage focuses on Christ, a good marriage focuses on your spouse, and a bad marriage focuses on yourself.  Any relationship on any terms can be trying, but Jesus being a part of our intimate, all-day-long daily life eliminates the need to go back to the Lord in prayer, saying, “Now where was I?”

You’re just there, and you live in your faith and in His light and truth.  The point isn’t that one’s life is easy, or without sorrow and challenges.  The point is the abiding bedrock trust in Jesus that leads one through life’s complications.  We may wonder, “What am I going to do?” Or, “What is Jesus going to do?”  Fair questions, but the simplest path to joy is knowing Jesus is right there at our sides all the time.

All we have to do is invite Him in, with love for Him and others.

If you let it, it’s as simple as that … all day long.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) offers this link to the 9/24 Stedman devotional The Simplicity Of Christ (2 Cor 11:3-15).  Also, Bob is now reading “Seeing is Believing” by scientist Michael Guillen (see column #776) and loving it.  Highly recommended!