Reconcilable Differences

Spirituality Column #146
August 25, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Reconcilable Differences
By Bob Walters

Reconciliation (n) – To go back; to end a separation.

The most important thing we can do in this life is to reconcile ourselves to God.

With unquestioning faith in Christ – faith that He is Who He says He is, does what He says He does, and sits where He says He sits at the right hand of God – we have that reconciliation (John 14:6). And with that, our salvation: eternal life and communion with God in Heaven.

How we arrive at that faith is always a personal story. How we use it, show it, walk it and live it are all sources of enormous Christian doctrinal debates. For example:

Are you Calvinist (salvation is predestined) or Ariminian (salvation is a function of our free will)? Is Justification (grace of God) enough, or is Sanctification (second work of grace, i.e., our works in life) required for salvation? Can we lose our salvation? (Hebrews 11. Ohhhh! Hebrews 11.)

A firm answer to these or many other questions can split a church.

For the record, I believe faith is an ongoing thing – an act of the will – and that we have to live the best way we know how by the light of Christ in the Bible, the wisdom God gives to humanity, and the quickening of our souls by the Holy Spirit.

“Unquestioning faith,” though doesn’t mean “no more questions.” We all have a zillion questions for God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit … like, for starters, “How does this whole Trinity-thing work?”

Unquestioning faith is more like when a fire truck pulls up to a fire. We have unquestioning faith that the big red vehicle spraying water is a fire truck, even if we have endless questions about how the truck works, how the fire started, and how much damage the fire did.

But let’s not get lost in a “fire truck” metaphor – “fire” as final judgment; trying to extinguish hell, Satan, etc. Comparing Jesus to a fire truck isn’t the point.

Reconciling ourselves to God is the point, and that happened when Jesus Christ went to the Cross to defeat death, erase sin and secure our salvation.

God expresses and exhibits great anger at mankind’s sin in the Old Testament, but exhibits great love and forgiveness of our sins, through the divine and human person of Jesus, in the New Testament.

That, unquestionably, is reconciliation. With faith, it’s ours.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) started to get lost in the fire truck metaphor.

And In This Corner...

Spirituality Column #145
August 18, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

And In This Corner …
By Bob Walters

Let’s say life is a boxing ring.

If you think God is in the other corner, I’m here to tell you that is never the case.

Satan is the opponent we battle; God is always in our corner.

When the worst of the worst things happen in our lives – loss of a loved one, death of a child, encountering incalculable injustice, tyranny, suffering, or disaster – why do we blame God instead of Satan?

“How could God let this happen?” we ask, we demand, we plea.

But the enemy is never God. The enemy is always Satan.

Perhaps we blame God because deep in the soul of every human heart we know God, know He authors faith, hope and love, and want to trust His merciful perfection. We also know Satan, know he stands for merciless evil, temptation and death, and yet somehow overlook Satan’s authorship of imperfection.

In an oxymoronic but consistent human switch, we blame our miseries on God instead of Satan.

What our hearts tell us about God is true – He is merciful, perfect, and He knows us. Yet much about God baffles humanity; His thoughts and ways are higher than ours (Isaiah 55:8). We want to understand Him, but too often can’t.

The deeper I go in my Christian faith, the more I understand that God – the Father, Son and Holy Spirit – is always my advocate for righteousness.

The Bible tells me so (1 Samuel 26:23, Romans 4:24).

I think it’s a mistake to look at the Bible primarily as a history book, a rule book, or a science book. When we do that, we get lost in literalism and lose scripture’s central point, which is that the Bible is a relationship book … the comprehensive story of and operating manual for mankind’s relationship with God and God’s Creation.

That relationship, in Christ, is centered on God’s righteousness and His will for our salvation, period. God created a perfect world (Genesis 1 and 2), and we’ll end with a perfect world (Revelation 21-22). For now, though, we reside in a fallen world.

God is our strength and refuge in time of trouble or distress (Psalm 46:1, 59:16, Jeremiah 16:19), while Satan delights in destroying God’s perfection.

We ask God to take away our pain, because we know Satan won’t.

Good heavens, if you are going to blame somebody, blame Satan.

He’s in the other corner.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) knows that a good corner-man in boxing will always tell you the truth, no matter how much it hurts.

Choose Your Weapon

Spirituality Column #144
August 11, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Choose Your Weapon
By Bob Walters

Those of us who choose to follow Christ know we are in a spiritual battle.

But we aren’t the only combatants on the field.

Christianity teaches that every human soul is in a battle against Satan, and that the only possible victory in that battle is with faith in the eternal redemption promised by Christ.

No faith in Christ; no eternal salvation. John 14:6. Game over.

It sure makes things easier for Satan – who through temptation coaxes us to rebuke God, Christ and the Holy Spirit – when we ignore what the Bible says about salvation and figure God can’t be mean enough to have a place called Hell.

But that’s the battle line. Satan is out there working tirelessly to undermine our faith, blind us to the reality of Hell, understate the reality of Jesus Christ, and overstate our ability to save ourselves. Hell is Satan’s eternal turf, and thanks to The Fall (Adam and Eve, Sin, etc.), we’re all candidates for residency.

Wonderfully, blessedly, we can opt out of Satan’s scheme. When we profess faith in Christ, we have declared war on Satan, taken a step toward heaven, and a step away from Hell.

But don’t ever make the mistake of thinking Satan won’t fight back.

Satan’s favorite weapons are lies and temptations. He’ll try to come get us. Satan understands the miracle of what God has fearfully and wonderfully made in humanity; what God has knit together in our mother’s wombs. Anyone of us is a handsome prize in Satan’s eternal trophy room.

What we politely call “our walk with Christ” should maybe more rightly be called “our battle against Satan.” If we keep our faith in Christ, we win; that’s the “Victory” we like to pray, praise and shout about.

So what weapons do we marshal in our battle against Satan?

For starters, the love, grace and mercy of Jesus Christ. When those are central in our lives, we resist Satan’s weapons. We also have the Bible, our church, our families, our priests, pastors, spiritual leaders, elders and others who love us and teach us to walk in the Light of Christ.

But developing a personal and unshakeable faith in God’s love, grace and mercy – demonstrated by Christ on the Cross and by our witness of love for God and others – creates a righteous and Godly shield that dulls Satan’s sword when he attacks.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) sees selling Christianity with guilt, fear, condemnation, prosperity or healing as missing the point – badly – of God’s love, and instead playing into Satan’s temptations. But that’s just his opinion.

Pride, Humility and Humanity

Spirituality Column #143
August 4, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Pride, Humility and Humanity
By Bob Walters

While pride is the king of all sins and humility the queen of virtues, it is our humanity that Christ came to save.

Pride was the undoing of many strong people in the Bible. Humility, we learn, is the key both to wisdom (Proverbs 11:2) and to accepting the grace of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 5:5).

But our humanity is the real issue of Salvation. We are fallen and we can’t get up; not by ourselves. Pride, humility, guilt, condemnation … all those things … are but symptoms or conditions, not the disease Christ came to cure.

The disease, of course, is The Fall. In Genesis 3 Eve and then Adam, despite God’s goodness and clear instruction, decided – with Satan’s urging – to play it their own way; to live in the Garden on their own terms instead of God’s.

Perfection interrupted.

Christ eventually died on the Cross, not to kill our pride, to make us humble, to inflict guilt or to condemn us. Christ died to save us, so that humanity could return to perfect communion with God the Father in eternal, holy fellowship.

Nothing in the Bible suggests Christ’s saving mankind amounted to God inventing a Plan B after Satan and man interfered with Plan A – Perfection. God must have known what would happen when He created something perfect – humanity – and then gave His creation both a spirit and freedom.

How we use the spirit and freedom God gives us adds up to our humanity. The word “pride” in Hebrew, Greek and Latin means, essentially, “to make more of yourself than you really are.”

To be human certainly requires a sense of self awareness. Call it ego or whatever you want, but it is a gift from God that we can think and choose and act and create. We just need to be ever mindful that we are a creature, not the Creator.

If we boast that Christ gave us more than we deserve, because we deserve nothing, that is a very positive kind of pride. If we despair and feel unworthy or guilty of accepting Christ’s love for us, then that is a destructive humility.

So let’s keep it in perspective. In Christ we encounter saving grace, the Creator God, and history’s only perfect human. We must use our own humanity to temper our pride and humility so that we leave room for God to guide us.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) got this mnemonic from his friend Bill: PRIDE – Piously Recognizing I Do Everything.