The Salvation Seat

Spirituality Column #168
January 26, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

The Salvation Seat
By Bob Walters

The saving grace of Jesus Christ – salvation – is the central reality of the Christian faith.

We are sinners – either by nature or by practice depending on one’s theological point of view – and we live in a fallen world. Life can be great, good, bad or awful, but because of sin all Creation groans and we die. Salvation in Christ means we live.

Forever.

Without sin.

With God in Heaven.

And right up there with salvation, Christianity’s greatest blessings are love and forgiveness.

People often put health, money, power and maybe family in the top spots. But nothing eases the daily pains of life, or accentuates the daily joys, like love and forgiveness.

Health? Each of our bodies is going to die. Sure, get some exercise, drink some water, get some sleep and lay off the super-sized fries – you’ll feel better – but our earthly end is physical death. Be smart, but don’t worship health; it’s a good thing while it lasts but it’s not forever.

Money? A fickle commodity too often made into an idol. Getting it, holding it, worrying about it … money is more often a stumbling block to faith than a stairway to heaven. Pray about it and be wise, but don’t worship it. Money does not equal righteousness.

Power? Jesus Christ’s power was that he was a servant. Until we get that one right, until we realize life is not about “me” but about serving God and others, power is a dangerous, human, corrupting intoxicant. We are prone to worship ourselves.

Family? First, be happy to be in the family of God. Strive to be an example of God’s love and forgiveness in your family. Fight for your family and bear any burden for your family. Be responsible. But families can be crazy commodities because they are full of people, and we’re sinners all.

Health, money, power and family can be great blessings or horrendous curses. Our focus on salvation for eternity and on Christ in this life lifts us above these earthly, temporary things. Salvation is a blessing that won’t quit.

God loves us, as we must love others. God forgives us, as we must forgive others. And God saves us … because we are loved and forgiven. John 3:16.

Just be sure you know who or what is in the driver’s seat of your life. If Jesus is only your co-pilot … switch seats.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) wonders if we are all rich, smart and good-looking in heaven, but figures most likely it won’t matter.

Grace and Golf - a Tiger by the Tail

Spirituality Column #167
January 19, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Grace and Golf – a Tiger by the Tail
By Bob Walters

Renowned newscaster and analyst Brit Hume suggested on national TV recently that Jesus Christ is a source of comfort that our fellow sinner, the bedraggled golfer Tiger Woods, ought to look into.

Have you seen the ensuing national media outrage?

Or … not? I’m not sure which is the biggest story here:

- Hume describing Christianity succinctly and perfectly – it “offers forgiveness and redemption” – on the “Fox News Sunday” opinion show;

- That Hume’s gentle and accurate description of Buddhism’s difference from Christianity is cast as an affront when really it is a simple, academic truth;

- The ensuing adverse commentary by journalists and entertainers who close-mindedly (and I might add, naively) believe Christianity has no place amid public discourse (most of them feel the same way about Fox News);

- Or, the media’s general non-coverage of Hume’s comments.

It’s worth noting that the news and entertainment media are more than willing to focus on Tiger Woods’ awful fall from grace. Yet when an eminently intelligent voice – Hume – verbalizes a cogent, spiritual, kind, merciful and factual prescription for Woods of the extraordinary and freely available gift of grace from God through Jesus Christ, well, that’s an outrage.

I knew nothing of Hume’s comments Sunday morning Jan. 3 (I was in church) until Monday evening Jan. 4 when Hume was a guest on Bill O’Reilly’s Fox News show. I was surprised and elated to hear a replay of Hume’s Sunday comments – witness, really – and was equally intrigued by his follow-up remarks.

“Jesus Christ offers Tiger Woods something that Tiger Woods badly needs,” Hume said. “He needs something Christianity especially provides, redemption and forgiveness.”

Anybody want to argue about who needs redemption and forgiveness?

Surveying the mass media’s largely negative, predictably close-minded and distressingly uninformed response to Hume’s comments, conservative Ann Coulter wrote Jan. 6, “Christianity is the best deal in the universe. … Liberals constantly accuse Christians of being ‘judgmental.’ No, we’re relieved.”

Personally I wish it would have been a bigger controversy so more people would have heard Hume’s words. Liberal or Conservative, sinner or saint, God loves us all. It’s a great message, and an even greater promise. That’s news.

Pray for Tiger. Pray for Brit. Pray for grace. Matthew 9:5. Ephesians 2:8.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) suggests visiting AnnCoulter.com, click “archives.” Read Jan. 6 “If You Can Find a Better Deal, Take It!” It’s an accurate and entertaining recap.

Quandary of Our Culture

Spirituality Column #166
January 12, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Quandary of Our Culture
By Bob Walters

Most, if not all, of America’s early colleges and universities were established as some fashion of Christian religious training institution or seminary.

Knowledge was the province of God, academia was the servant of religion, and education’s foundation was scripture, morality, ethics, philosophy and truth.

The physical sciences were studied, but woe to the scientist who came up with anything really radical or new … truth lay exclusively within the purview of faith and the faithful. The sciences by comparison bordered on heretical curiosities, generally dismissed from the grander “truth” conversation.

My, how times have changed.

Dallas Willard is a philosophy professor at the University of Southern California. He was ordained a Baptist minister in the 1950s but turned his pursuits to philosophy and academia in the 1960s. Willard said God told him, “If you stay in the churches, the university will be closed to you, but if you stay in the university, the churches will be open to you.”

Therein resides the new truth, the conundrum of modern times: academia no longer reveres faith as viable knowledge. Our institutions and secular culture overwhelmingly enforce the diminishment of faith from its lofty stature of providing knowable life truths to a station not of knowledge, but of oft-ridiculed personal opinions.

In a recent conversation with noted Christian minister and author John Ortberg at Menlo Park (Calif.) Presbyterian Church south of San Francisco, Willard took on many of the toughest questions that can be asked of the Christian faith.

Ortberg posed that we’re all taught “the scientific method” as the only way to test for truth; the only thing that offers testable claims of knowledge.

Willard responded: “That’s the quandary of our culture, because everything that really matters in human life falls outside of science. Go over to the university and ask for the Department of Reality, or ask ‘where is your Department of the Good Life?’ or ‘who is a really good person?’ or ‘how do you become a really good person?’”

Ortberg replied, “We don’t think of these things being connected to knowledge.”

But they most certainly are, Willard explains in the very compelling video of this extended and thoughtful exchange with Ortberg at http://mppc.org/toughquestions (still there as of 5-10-13).

I came to Christ when – admittedly late in life – I realized what a smart guy Jesus was. Willard calls on Christians to reclaim knowledge in areas of human experience where science cannot help.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com)counted) 43 5-10-minute vignettes on tough topics in this Ortberg-Willard video. Brilliant. Amazing. Understandable. Have a look.

Grace, Not Flames

Spirituality Column #165
January 5, 2010
Current in Carmel - Westfield - Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Grace, Not Flames
By Bob Walters

A friend pondering a rare trip to church (possibly a life-time first … I didn’t ask) on Christmas Eve, commented, “I’ll probably burst into flames.”

Ho, ho, ho.

My, there is a lot packed into that statement: humor, surprise, humility, assumptions, conclusions, misinformation, and more than a hint of sarcasm.

But not much truth.

The comment reminded me of when I was baptized just a few years ago, wondering – considering my sin – if God would let me up out of the water.

Why is it that we think an encounter with God, like a baptism or a Christmas trip to church, is an exposure to punishment, rather than a bridge to the peace and safety of salvation?

Most of us – believer and non-believer alike – have figured out that our lives fall short of perfection; that “sin” isn’t a good thing. That my friend equated church with a Godly encounter is a good thing. Even wrapped in sarcasm, the fact that he “got” the sin thing is encouraging.

That he approached the throne of grace with fear and trepidation, i.e., “flames,” doesn’t say much for how we Christians present the throne of grace.

I wish more people readily understood that faith in Christ is the ultimate flame retardant; that any expression of that faith – even a mildly coerced Christmas trip to church – is an encounter with grace, not a fearful, flaming encounter with hell.

Christians should never allow the eternal, loving glory of God in heaven to be framed merely as the opposite of earthly sin, nor to think that what punches our ticket through the pearly gates on judgment day are fear, shame and guilt.

The Bible doesn’t provide many specifics about heaven or hell, but every bit of the Bible, ultimately, expresses God’s desire for a personal, loving, saving relationship with each of us.

God sent Jesus Christ to draw us near to Him, not to drive us away. Faith and God’s grace (Ephesians 2:8), not fear and our guilt, punch our ticket to salvation.

Quoting my wonderful Christian friend May: “Praise God that I am a sinner; it is the only thing that qualifies me for God’s grace.”

With Christmas – the birth of hope – a couple of weeks past, in this New Year let’s work on receiving, with hope and love, sinners like us into our churches. We’re all welcome.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) prays for the peace and wisdom of the Holy Spirit to dwell with us all in the coming year.