Spirituality Column #331
March 19, 2013
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers – Zionsville

By Bob Walters

Spirituality Column #330
March 12, 2013
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers – Zionsville

By Bob Walters
 
Tip: Watch “The Bible,” History Channel, Sundays at 8 p.m. throughout March.

Spirituality Column #329
March 5, 2013
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers – Zionsville

By Bob Walters

Even people who are not especially close to God are often quick to blame God when things – health, relationships, jobs, money, dreams, etc. – fall apart in their lives.

“If God loved me,” they lament, “He wouldn’t let this happen …”

Conversely, believers are quick to blame Satan when things fall apart in theirs.  “The enemy is attacking me,” they piously claim.

And while I am convinced that both angels and demons – good spirits and evil spirits – exist and are active in this world (they appear frequently in the Bible), it is important to get a biblical handle on what God and Satan do and don’t do; who they are, and who they aren’t.

God is Creator (Genesis 1:1), God is love (1 John 4:8), God is good (1 Timothy 4:4), God is light (1 John 1:5 ) God is justice and righteousness (Isaiah 9:7), God is eternal (Genesis 21:33), God is eternal life (1 John 5:20), God is Father (John 1:18), Son (John 1:49), Holy Spirit (John 4:24) and sovereign (Daniel 4:25).

Satan is created (Revelation 12:7-9, Ezekiel 28:14), is the tempter of Jesus (Matthew 4:1), is the tempter of man (1 Thessalonians 3:4), is our accuser (Zechariah 3:2), is our tormenter (2 Corinthians 12:7), is a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44), wants control of this world (1 John 5:19), is the enemy of man (1 Peter 5:18), is the founder of sin (1 John 3:8), and the coin of his realm is death (Romans 6:23).

What’s critically important to understand is that God is not the God we want him to be … God is the God HE wants to be.  Goodness and righteousness are best defined as “what God actually is” (see Psalm 23).  Our human mistake is thinking ultimate goodness and righteousness should reflect our human opinions and experience founded in earthly pride and power, rather than in the humility and service of Jesus Christ.

And that mistake is precisely the flashpoint of Satan’s evil lordship on earth.

Satan – born of heaven as an angel who fell of his own pride (Ezekiel 28:17) – battles God by suggesting sin, not by inflicting it.  Satan suggested sin in the Garden, and he continues to suggest sin to us today.  He tempts us to dismiss God’s truth and accept his lies of fleeting earthly glory.  Way too often, we agree.  Willingly.

God is nobody’s enemy, and Satan is nobody’s friend.  The solution to life’s challenges is neither to blame God nor curse Satan, but simply to pray – earnestly – to be closer to Jesus Christ.  God never dismisses those prayers.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) wonders if anyone else remembers Flip Wilson’s character “Geraldine” saying, “The devil made me do it.”

Spirituality Column #328
February 26, 2013
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers – Zionsville

By Bob Walters

Spirituality Column #327
February 19, 2013
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers – Zionsville

By Bob Walters

“Quid pro quo” is a Latin idiom that means “this for that.”

Innocently it implies “I do a favor for you; you do a favor for me.” You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.  Tit for tat.  Barter.  Let’s make a deal.  Value is traded for value.

In a sinister connotation, “quid pro quo” is a legal test determining whether bribery, blackmail or coercion was used to create iniquity or inflict injustice.   It arises in workplace sexual harassment lawsuits, academic fraud (trading grades for favors, for example), disingenuous political schemes, and on and on.

For better and worse, the world is a “quid pro quo” place, and it trips up our Christian faith.  We are prone to imagine, mistakenly, that we are trading favors with God, either by being faithful in order to get something we want (health, wealth, love, success, whatever), or trying to pay God back for the gifts He has bestowed.  The first will leave us disappointed; the second will make us crazy.  Either will ultimately direct our focus onto ourselves rather than onto Christ’s glory.

Our life in Christ is not a game with a score – two points for Him, three points for me, how much time is left, hey that wasn’t a foul ….  God, you see, gives us what we need; not necessarily what we want (Matthew 6:8).  His thoughts are not our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8).  His righteousness is perfect, even when we do not understand (Psalm 19:7).  Faith in God is about the unseen; worldly evidence is about the seen (2 Corinthians 4:18).

Still, we panic and beg to know whether “we are saved.”  Our faith hangs in the balance.  Quid pro quo.

Well, I’m an old sportswriter; let’s look at the scorebook.

Divine Jesus entered humanity in complete humility, served others, healed the sick, fed the hungry, died on the cross, defeated death, forgave our sins, restored mankind’s fellowship with God, expressed the infinite depth of divine love, assured our eternal life in the company of God in heaven, fulfilled the Old Covenant, instructed us – with His life and Gospel – on the New Covenant, sent the Holy Spirit as our comforter, promised to return in perfect judgment and justice, and said (John 14:6), “I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me.”

There is simply nothing about that “quid” for which mankind has anything approaching a “quo.”  Thank the Lord, we are stuck at the humble mercy of God’s infinite grace and peace.

We can’t really ask Him for anything more; He’s not going to give us anything less.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) really was a sportswriter, but this isn’t about that.

Spirituality Column #326
February 12, 2013
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers – Zionsville

By Bob Walters

Spirituality Column #325
February 5, 2013
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers – Zionsville

By Bob Walters

Modern man loves logic.

From the ancient Greek philosophers before Christ to our science-laden academy of today, the Western mind has an abiding fascination with logic as the primary test of truth.

Yet for the nearly two millennia separating these eras, theology was the dominant academic pursuit.  The appearance, death, burial, resurrection, witness and story of Jesus Christ required an entirely new way of thinking about God, humanity, life, creation, relationships, love, and eternity.

Who was that Guy?

Philosophy and science are great at establishing logical systems and/or facts.  But they are entirely inadequate when it comes to explaining love and relationships, which are who and what Jesus is.  Mistakenly-coveted secular "truth" – what man can prove logically, philosophically or scientifically – is diminutive when compared with the Truth of the Lord and Creator of the universe.

Philosophy is man’s own intellectual search for life’s meaning, and science often substitutes as modern man’s empirical search for Creation.  The logic of sophisticated argument, or the evidence of repeatable science, tickles our sensibilities and imaginations.  As such, man by his own effort triumphantly and “logically” captures center stage in the carnal sweepstakes of cosmic purpose.

Except … that’s not our place, and not God’s plan.

Man’s logic can be used to prove almost any “truth” one might imagine: God exists; God doesn’t exist; God’s nature is this; man’s nature is that.  But logic’s limitation is that while it can define and categorize things, it can’t love things, and it can’t abide faith.  Evidence is great for the things one can see, but incomplete for the things of the heart, the mind and the eternal that we can’t see (2 Corinthians 4:18).

Faith, you see, is what ties it all together – logic, love, evidence, purpose.  Faith makes the world larger and more coherent to human intellect.  Faith allows man to put Jesus Christ, who is “all things” (John 1:3), properly at the center of our own lives and all Creation.  That’s where God puts Him, where God wants us to put Him, and the only place where we can truly recognize Him.

If we don’t recognize Jesus, we’ve put Him somewhere that’s not the center.

We can learn a great deal about God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit – the Trinity – by logical investigation (the Bible, study, etc.) and using the systems of philosophy and science.  But we cannot be in relationship with the divine without faith.

Sure, God gave us the freedom to try to figure things out on our own.  Logic suggests God will do a much better job of it.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes that theology fails to serve the Lord’s purpose when Christianity is explained as a system rather than as a relationship.