Spirituality Column #692

February 18, 2020

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Close Call

By Bob Walters

“They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.” – Acts 2:46-47

I love this picture of the early church.

They weren’t dissecting personal problems (What about me?), railing against Roman rule (politics), denigrating the Pharisees (doctrine), dwelling on organizational protocols (churchianity), or focusing much on sins or Are you / Am I really saved?  (legalistic doubts and judgment).  They marveled at what Jesus had done.  They didn’t ask God for “stuff;” they praised Christ’s courage.  They took loving care of each other.

This early church pre-dated the “nature-of-Jesus” heresies soon to come and the navel-gazing of later theologians and philosophers.  These first worshipers likely wouldn’t recognize much of the modern church – any modern church – but would have great compassion for our distance of time from the events they experienced.

These earliest Christians were driven into sincere and loving fellowship by their witness of Christ to each other and the outside world.  They had seen Him, Jesus.  Or if they personally had not seen Jesus, in their midst likely were one or several who had.  There were eyewitnesses everywhere not only to His pain and suffering but also to His obedience and majesty, to His teaching, miracles, and passion, and to His resurrection.

It is a story of life, success, and relationship; not death, failure, and punishment.

Acts chapter 2 is thrilling in its descriptions: Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit, Peter’s earliest preaching, the risen Lord, the ancient prophesies, and the direct simplicity of “church” participation – “Repent and be baptized.”  The Cross was near.

It is hard to imagine that the topics of personal needs or comfort, of politics and interpretations, of organization and actions, of “Jesus fix this for me!” – so prevalent in myriad congregations today – arose.  In that startlingly new and divine bright light of the resurrected Jesus, in their closeness to the Cross, redemption, salvation and the person of Jesus Christ, their easy fellowship was underscored by unrestrained joy and charity.

Others in culture around them noticed “and many were added to their number.”

Despite the words of the revered hymn The Old Rugged Cross, that Cross is anywhere but “On a hill far away.”  The Cross of Christ is in my life here and now and if you are reading this, likely in yours.  It is the Cross we joyously bear in our hearts that, yes, convicts us of our sin but also gloriously convinces us of the truth of Christ.  The Cross binds us in fellowship to other Christians.  The Cross invites, insists, requires sharing its promise with “glad and sincere hearts” as reflected in that earliest church. 

Jesus succeeded in His mission.  The early Christians quickly realized that the horror of the Cross and what initially was a dispiriting death and apparent failure was but a labored pass-through to resurrection and sharing the eternal glory of God’s love.

The lesson of the Cross isn’t failure, nor is it “suffering and shame” as the hymn suggests.  The lessons of the Cross are joy and truth; they are courage and purpose and obedience.  The deep message of Christ is hope and love driven by our faith in the full light of His truth – the truth – that God exists, God is with us, and God loves us.

That’s salvation, that’s our purpose, that’s the truth … and we do it together.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) hears that hymn and – shazam – another column.

Spirituality Column #691

February 11, 2020

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Careful Whom You Criticize

By Bob Walters

“…blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.” – Jesus, Matthew 12:31

You may have noticed we live in a largely criticism-driven and unforgiving culture these days.  But I think truly only the specifics – not the convention – are unique.

Jesus carried Godly truth, peace, grace, forgiveness, love, hope, and so much more into the fallen realm of mankind.  And it wasn’t just a message of those things; in Christ it was the reality of their existence, God’s existence, God’s abiding presence, and God’s saving promise.  Jesus on earth and His everlasting example of obedience, sacrifice, humility, and love were humanity’s keys to God’s Kingdom and glory. Jesus was an eternal gift of everything humanity needed to understand and join God.  Yet …

In Jesus’s own time and in His own place Pharisees had sinfully fashioned for themselves their own kingdom and their own ideas of material needs from God.  And they rejected outright the notion that this preaching carpenter from Nazareth – miracles and all – was the revealed God and saving Messiah Christ promised in the scriptures.

These Pharisees stared the revealed God in the eye and called him Satan.

Now that blasphemed the Holy Spirit.

We read this story (Matthew 12:22-37) of the Pharisees’ saying Jesus’s miracles were of “Beelzebub” and demons, not of God.  Jesus fired back with a message aimed specifically at the Pharisees that is equal parts familiar, remarkable, and confounding.

It is familiar because it contains famous catch phrases: “[a] kingdom divided against itself will not stand” (v25), “the Kingdom of God has come upon you” (v28), “he who is not with me is against me” (v30), and “out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks” (v34).  For good measure Jesus calls the Pharisees “a brood of vipers” (v34). 

It is remarkable because Jesus 1) is so bold, 2) points out the impossibility that demons are driven out by Beelzebub because Satan cannot drive out Satan, and 3) because the parables and metaphors condemning the Pharisees flow effortlessly.

But it is confounding because of verses 31-32: “…every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or the age to come.”

Catch that?  All man’s sins will be forgiven and yes, it’s OK to blaspheme the Son Jesus.  But … blaspheme the Holy Spirit and you’re condemned forever.  What?

First, you can’t divide the Father-Son-Spirit Trinity so don’t try; you blaspheme one, you blaspheme them all.  Second, Jesus knew that not everyone would understand His salvation message, but being human He knows our temptations and being God He forgives our weaknesses.  Third, Jesus is clearly and directly addressing the Pharisees, not those who would come later, believe, be baptized, and sin again, i.e., you and me.

And fourth, the issue here isn’t common sin; it is the raw blasphemy of the Pharisees in assigning God’s miracles and message – i.e., Jesus – to Satan, not God. They denied God’s truth, ignored His nature, refused His gift, and said He was Satan.

From that vile, empty heresy there is no path to – or back to – the Spirit of God.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) has been reading Athanasius again.

Spirituality Column #690

February 4, 2020

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Getting the Picture

By Bob Walters

“Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed,” Jesus in John 12:24

God’s glory is a tricky, mysterious, and seemingly impossible thing. 

It never changes, but it always grows. We cannot make God’s glory greater or smaller, yet our faith in Christ is for the glory of God.  We were created in God’s image for God’s glory, but were given the freedom to pursue God’s glory or not.

The purpose of our life is to glorify God, which we accomplish by loving God and loving others.  But the ultimate demonstration and revelation of – the revealing of –God’s glory and God’s love is not the life Jesus lived but the death Jesus died.  Jesus died in obedience to the Father; but Jesus also died in a profound act of divine love so that all humanity might live.

We view our own human glory – most often – as conquest and comfort in life. Jesus lived so that God’s glory would be revealed through his own sacrifice and death.

God’s glory very truly is a life and death matter, and in Jesus we see the truest picture of why life and death matter so much.  Life matters because it is our opportunity to freely pursue God in love as we know He pursues us.  Death matters because that is where we grow into and discover perfect sinless fellowship in the Kingdom of God.

Jesus didn’t die so the Romans and Jews could be rid of His rebellion; Jesus died so all humanity could discover God’s truth and the assured hope of eternal life.  His resurrection showed us that God’s promise would bring life and what Jesus’s obedience mysteriously meant: that our own death is the doorway to God’s eternal glory.

Human glory is not nearly so mysterious.  What we see as our own glory in the course of our earthly lives will ebb and flow, shrink and grow, stumble here, succeed there and generally be entirely situational and, to paraphrase author Tom Wolfe, a bonfire of our own vanities.  It’s all about us until we lock into the visual of Christ on the Cross in His perfect obedience to/of God and eternal love for God and God’s creation.

Then we begin to catch on that the “kernel of wheat” falling into the ground, as Jesus mentions, is what transforms a static and until-then useless piece of flora into a useful, life-giving, and gloriously growing exhibition of God’s endless creativity.  The seed – Jesus, us, our faith – goes into the ground and responds with new life.  

We trod this earthly stage for a season, limited by our appetites, yearnings, fears, death, and a hooded understanding of God’s eternal reality.  But we are encouraged by our discoveries, faith, accomplishments, hopes, and loves.  We survive good days and bad; we want more comfort and less discomfort.  We want to get “more” in this life, but wisdom teaches us that joy is learning to give away that thing most valuable to us: life.

That is the single, magnificent seed of Jesus.  We needn’t ask Jesus what we get for our faith; let’s instead seek the thrill of being invited into divine life’s renewed picture.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) concedes you may well have your own answer(s) to the question, “Why are life and death important?”  He encourages you to think about it.

Spirituality Column #689

January 28, 2020

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

The Race

By Bob Walters

“Let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.” – Hebrews 12:1

This week, a short poem …

Sacrifice and price

          Do not suffice.

Pain must not reign

          For our loss is gain.

Through Christ alive

Joyous truth fills our eyes.

As I walk God’s way

          I am renewed every day.

Everlasting life

          Eases temporary strife.

Love and grace

          Will win the race.

          Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) wrote this a few weeks back and

Pam insisted it was worth sharing …

Spirituality Column #688

January 21, 2020

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Over Priced

By Bob Walters

“A cynic … knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.” – Oscar Wilde

Wilde’s words are a wise assessment of mankind’s common conflation of price and value: knowing one does not mean one knows the other.

And just here I’d like to explore the value of our salvation in Christ without a theological reliance on its price.  I’ve always thought it a point of rudeness to ask how much a gift cost, and considered it a mark of grace to simply appreciate a gift’s value as an expression of the giver’s esteem.  You know … it’s the thought that counts.

When accepting and believing the deliverance of our eternal salvation in all that Christ did, it looks to me that it is a gift from a God who wants us to have it as badly as we – may or may not realize – need it ourselves. God surely sees salvation’s value as grace and peace in His book of life, not a price-driven ledger entry of pending doom.

Yet that’s modern Christianity’s brand: “Jesus paid a price, so you gotta’ believe.”

I roll my eyes at “paid a price,” but it’s not surprising that humanity’s greatest-ever bestowed gift – salvation in Christ – is pervasively dumbed down to an exercise in market economics:  Jesus paid a price for our sins!  What do we owe Him in return?!?!

With all my heart I think the answer is … we don’t “owe” Him a thing, any more than He owed us His obedience and faithfulness on the cross.  It’s what Jesus did because that is what a loving God does.  It was a divine “get to,” not a “have to.” 

Same with us … faith in Christ is a “get to” because He came and taught us and the Bible supports it and explains it.  We “get to” participate with Christ and be restored to Godly relationship.  My faith never feels like I’m paying somebody back for a price that was exacted.  I’m thankful, not “debt-ful.”  I ring up the love, not the cash register.

If Jesus’s point and God’s plan were to forever put us in bondage to a price rather than provide an avenue of grace, peace, love, and free acceptance of the eternal gift of sharing divine glory … I guess I’m thinking the story the Bible tells would be quite different.  Love would not have been so central.  Salvation would have quoted a price.

With faith in Christ, we participate in God’s glory; the glory that I believe is life’s profound purpose and the locus of life’s ultimate value.  That’s not something one buys.

We are supposed to teach the world truth, not barter our forgiveness.  There’s nothing more we can or need to do.  Faith and obedience take care of the rest.

That’s the example of Jesus; that’s what He did.  He had faith in the Father, love for mankind, and was obedient unto death.  It was a gift nobody imagined or thought they needed.  Only God knew its value, and we still today see it as conditional: focusing on Jesus having to “pay a price” for our salvation, not providing a gracious gift.  Such a swap-sacrifice would not harken love; it would harken guilt, shame, and negotiation.

Sacrifice as price is a worldly and culturally commercial construct that devalues the grace of “giving something away” for love.  Divine sacrifice doesn’t come with a price tag; it comes with the very highest of Godly value: love.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is aware almost no one agrees with this assessment of faith but doesn’t understand why anyone thinks price is a better sales pitch than love.

Spirituality Column #687

January 14, 2020

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Sure-Footed in Christ

By Bob Walters

“He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the son does not have the life.” 1 John 5:12

If we are fortunate enough to have a life in Christ – and I mean A Life In Christ we know and that has long since passed “I wonder if it is true?” – my oh my, aren’t we encouraged daily – by other Christians – to fret over whether we are “doing it right”?

Sure, the “world” challenges much: our faith, God’s existence, Jesus’s goodness, and the Holy Spirit’s truth.  The “world” will ask, “How do you know?”  The “world” will blame Satan’s mischief on a faithful God.  The “world’s” calling card is stamped with doubt, derision, distrust, and dissension.  Not everyone “gets it” when it comes to Jesus, and isn’t it funny/sad how many of those “D” word issues exist within the church, too?

But let’s focus Christian-to-Christian on the holy life that many of us would call our “personal relationship with Christ.”  It is a life’s reality we can probably explain to our own satisfaction, and maybe to other Christians.  To non-believers?  Not so much. 

We try!  Lord, that’s our “Job #1”.  We are to be witnesses to the truth of Christ and make Him known to all the world.  Happy to do it!  But it’s a “sale” only the Holy Spirit truly makes.  Our best play as Christian witnesses is to discern our gifts and share them with love.  Jesus is known to all, but the faith, trust, and life thing still eludes many.

Which is why I lament among shared Christian lives that we find fault, not grace.

It might be in a sermon, a book, a Sunday school class, a fellowship ministry, on the radio, or really anywhere one encounters Christian thought.  Here we have this wonderful and nearly unimaginable gift through Jesus Christ of the ongoing spiritual sharing of God’s eternal life, truth, and love.  And the in-house message often is, “Are you challenged enough!?”  “Are you doing it right?”  “Let’s focus on your problems!!!”

Fine, but I do not see faith or church or fellowship or even Christian theology as an exercise in negotiation.  Truth is truth, mystery is mystery, and hope is both a present and eternal quality.  I do not view life in Christ from the standpoint of problems, challenges, failures, conflicts, or barriers.  Instead I see joy, love, and opportunity; and view Jesus as a welcome and complete Cosmic truth.   I am as sure I am a sinner as I am sure that Jesus is Lord, God is in Heaven, the Holy Spirit is real … and I am saved.

Personally I intend – and believe we are encouraged by scripture – to live our Christianity in the joy of knowing God’s truth and love, not in perpetual fear of either our own shortcomings or the Christian “world’s” self-focusing assessments, criticisms, claims, and judgments for how we could be doing it better.  It keeps us wrong-footed and un-free if we focus on the shifting sands of sin, shame, guilt, debts, and penalties.  No, I’ll stand sure-footed in the unwavering freedom of the solid rock of Jesus Christ.

My life in Christ is not based on what Satan did to me, it is based on what Jesus did for me.  Not on what Satan did to humanity, but on what Jesus did for humanity.  Not upon Satan’s hate for and the world’s opposition to God, but on Jesus’s love of God.

The world presents challenges enough.  Life in Christ overcomes … if we let it.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) has lived with and without faith.  Faith is better.

Spirituality Column #686

January 7, 2020

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Hope that Assures

By Bob Walters

“We have this hope [Jesus] as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.” – Hebrews 6:19

Coulda, shoulda, woulda, maybe, might, perhaps, someday, if only … sigh …

Alas … whither hope?  And oh, by the way … prove it.

Is hope a wish or a fact?  Is it faith to come, or faith in action?  And how in the world do we prove it?  Is hope something we already have or something we “hope” to attain?  Or is hope, in fact, the living presence of Jesus?  I’d say, let’s go with that.

I can’t think of a less appealing and less useful way to describe one’s trust in God – “the hope we have,” etc. (1 Peter 3:15) –  than to think the fruits of our relationship with the eternal God through Christ are something indeterminate and far off in the future: a big, subjunctive “maybe” of expectation someday later rather than the active, inspiring, and assuring truth of God’s presence, grace, and relationship today.  In Christ.

Jesus can’t be much of an anchor if His truth is still bouncing along the ocean bottom, dragged uncertainly by its tether to the boat above being tossed by the winds, currents, and vagaries of life’s – and the fallen world’s – temptations, untruths, dangers, and deceptions.   A “set” anchor is a sure and present truth to a voyager in a storm:

We are the voyagers, the world is the storm, and Jesus is the set anchor we trust.

Hope is neither subjective nor subjunctive nor far off; it is the truth we know now.  It is the Jesus truth of mankind.  It is Christ resurrected and the Holy Spirit in our hearts, today.  Hope that hasn’t happened yet is the longing of unmet truth; the patient waiting we see throughout the Old Testament.  The arrival of Jesus brings human life’s greatest gift: humanity’s restoration of relationship to God and participation in His glory.

For Abraham, hope meant patiently waiting.

For us, hope – the baptism by the Holy Spirit – arrived in the person of Jesus.  Our joy is not in the faith and patience of something still to come; we have it right now in our love for Christ and love for each other.  It occurs to me that to love God and to love others are the two great commandments because love is the gearbox of putting our hope in motion in our lives.  We miss out horribly if we think the Kingdom is relegated to some unknown time years hence and defined by that which we cannot know.

“Hope” infused with “maybe” inspires no one; unanchored expectations are the bane of good will.  “I hope so!” is unpersuasive, like when one “hopes” all that stuff in the Bible about salvation and heaven and forgiveness is true.  Instead of being anchored assuredly – now – to the greatest truth of existence, Jesus, one’s modern tires are spinning in the muck of the current, ill-defined culture of self-interest, satisfaction of personal appetites, and transmission of Satan’s soul-killing sacrilege.

Our redemption in Christ is now … and forever.  Be thankful.  Use the hope of Jesus – the anchor of our soul – to live in His kingdom, in His hope, in the here and now.  “Thy Kingdom come; thy will be done …”  is Jesus teaching us to pray for, attain, and internalize the assurance of who He really is.  He, Jesus, is our rest and our peace.

Our joy in knowing through Jesus that God is real, God is truth, God is eternal, and God wants us with Him, is the Kingdom that has come in Christ’s holy relationship.

Hope is assured today; firm and secure.  No waiting required.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) hopes you’ll believe him that he just noticed, halfway through writing this, that his coffee cup has an anchor and Hebrews 6:19 on the side.