Of Disasters and Salvation

Spirituality Column #181
April 27, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Of Disasters and Salvation
By Bob Walters

“What we know about Jesus Christ tells us everything we need to know about God.”

That was a pretty good comment in a recent sermon by our co-preacher Daron. He was making excellent points about how we try to assign common social roles to God (sheriff, judge, Santa Claus, dad), separating God from Christ.

I got to thinking, “Man … how true is that?” We figure God will give us stuff and spare us pain if He likes us, which only happens if we do good things. “Watch out for God!” we think. “It’s Jesus who loves us unconditionally, while God is that horrible, wrathful guy from the Old Testament.”

No. Don’t ever separate God and Jesus. Here’s why.

Consider a few “must know” things about the person of Jesus. One is that He was fully man and fully God. Another is that He was blameless.

See? Fully God, and blameless. Was, is, and always will be.

That means just as Jesus loves us, God loves us. And just as Jesus is blameless, so God is blameless. Hebrews 1:3 says “the son (Jesus) is the … exact representation of his (God’s) being.”

But don’t we just love to blame God when bad things happen? 1 Peter 4:11 is crystal clear, “… that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ.” We’re supposed to praise God, not blame him.

So who do we blame?

Looking closely, it is the fallen world that is to blame. Examine Adam and Eve and the Fall (Genesis 3). The perfect, good, ordered world God created has been groaning ever since. Disasters are evidence of that.

Remember that the Lord of this “world” – Lord of the Bad Stuff – is Satan. When we peg our miseries on God, we are missing the peace and joy that a right relationship with God brings.

And we are cutting Satan slack he doesn’t deserve.

Disasters, cruelty, disease, assorted miseries … nobody ever blames those worldly things on Jesus, yet we are quick to blame them on God. Even our insurance policies call them “acts of God.”

They aren’t. They are acts of a Fallen World. God is “the Good.”

Don’t worry about whether God loves you; Jesus proves that He does. Worry about whether you love Him back. That’s our Salvation, and our only shelter from the disasters we encounter in this world.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) thanks Daron Earlewine at E91 Church for the wise words. (Update: Daron now preaches at various churches around Carmel and continues his "Pub Theology" ministry.)

God: A Burden or a Blessing?

Spirituality Column #180
April 20, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

God: A Burden or a Blessing?
By Bob Walters

As though co-habitation of Traditional and Contemporary worship styles in one church isn’t challenge enough, our young-ish, spiky-haired co-preacher Daron recently invited congregants to text-in live sermon questions by cell phone.

During the Traditional service. On Sunday morning.

iWorship has arrived.

Plenty of churches have split merely over what kind of music is played. Can we survive interactive sermon texting?

We already know Christians fight about many silly things, too often turning the Holy Spirit’s great gift of faith in the Body of Christ – which should be a sanctuary for Christ’s mercy and grace – into a theater of wrathful, schismatic combat.

Why question music or technology (or spiky hair) when perhaps the only question should be: What is the true nature of this God we are worshipping?

First of all, we ask about God because He hardwired it into our mortal souls to seek Him; to wonder who we are, who He is, how we were made, who created everything, and what is the truth about right and wrong, good and evil. God either provides – or is – the answer to all those questions.

Granted, the God of the Old Testament often looks mean, wrathful, and scary; quite different from the merciful, forgiving visage of Jesus Christ in the New Testament.

Truth is, human beings fouled up Truth in the Old Testament. And even since the enormous event of the Cross, people still foul up the Truth of the New Testament.

Do we think God brings the burden of “Do what I say”? That His purpose is to curse our lives promising punishment, wrath, judgment and guilt?

Or, do we correctly learn that God is saying, emphatically, “Love what I love”? That when we know and understand Jesus, we can rest easy and trust that God’s nature is a blessing, promising love, grace, peace and joy?

I pick No. 2, thank you.

That should be one’s conclusion when one finishes reading the Bible. The Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, and God are all God, all have the same goal, and they’re all on the same page. Scriptural evidence is heavily on that side.

John 3:16 says “God so loved the world.”

1 John 4:8 and 4:16 say “God is love.”

Matthew 11:30 quotes Jesus, “… my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

And know this: God is easier to understand than church.

Believe it. Trust it. Text it to someone you love.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notices that both OT God and NT Jesus are VERY particular about how believers represent their faith and God’s Truth to others.

The Face of a Christian

Spirituality Column #179
April 13, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

The Face of a Christian
By Bob Walters

Do you know anyone at church, or elsewhere, who is just a real sourpuss?

I heard a good sermon on Easter about the ongoing joy Christians should experience. Easter teaches us that Jesus knows our human frailties, carries us in our troubles, forgives us of our sins, and that his resurrection – Easter’s main point – should transform our grief, guilt and fear into perpetual courage, hope and joy.

Christ did all that for love, for freedom, and for communion.

So … I thought about all the times I’m not joyful; when I’m impatient or scared or nervous: i.e., when I’m a sourpuss.

I also thought of a lovely funeral service I attended in Anderson a few weeks ago for a sweet Christian lady who died at age 97.

She had lived well, had failed physically in her last few years, but had her mental capacity to the end. What her preacher said at the funeral was glowing and gracious, but one particular comment stuck out.

Through her decades of marriage, raising children and generations (through great-great grandchildren), being an energetic and generous servant-saint in the church and community, and in those last, difficult months in a nursing home as her mortal body shut down, “she never complained,” he said.

We know someone has lived well and died well when we attend a funeral like that. We Christians are a funny bunch when it comes to death … we cry like everyone else, but know that the eternal point of our faith is meeting Jesus on the other side.

So not every death is heartbreaking, although some are. Neither is every life uplifting, although each one can be. Christ forgave each one of us, saved each one of us, and asks faith of each one of us. The ball of salvation is in our court.

As we think deeply about how faith and fear cannot be compatible, and about how our faith and love are acts of will, not accidents of fate, we should also contemplate our response to this amazing gift of forgiveness. We can’t repay it, nor should we try.

Whether one believes faith is preordained or not, one’s actions are definitely not. Accepting God’s love means managing – for His Glory – pure freedom.

So a Christian’s face should reflect grace and courage, not impatience or fear.

Don’t be a sourpuss. Choose, always, to let your face show God’s love.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) thanks Derek Duncan at E91 for the sermon, and Doris Edgecomb (1913-2010) for the example.

After Easter - The Season of Seeing

Spirituality Column #178
April 6, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

After Easter – The Season of Seeing
By Bob Walters

In the hours and days following the Resurrection, those closest to Jesus – those who loved Him, followed him, doubted him, misunderstood Him, denied Him, fled from Him, stood by him, and mourned him – learned their Lord Jesus was indeed God the Messiah, Christ the Redeemer, and the Savior of mankind.

Jesus had defeated death, would soon join the Father in heaven, and promised his followers the same ultimate victory over the flesh and suffering of this world. They too could join eternal communion with God in heaven … if they would trust Him, have faith in Him, love Him, and love people as God loves each one of us.

Christ died on Good Friday and rose from the dead on Easter. Today the ensuing seven weeks mark the official “Easter” season of the church calendar. The Gospels recount the many physical visits of the resurrected Christ …

- To the 11 remaining disciples (Matthew 28:16-20, Mark 16:14-19),

- On the road to Emmaus and as “flesh and bones” sharing a meal with the disciples (Luke 24:13-53),

- In the locked room to the doubting disciple Thomas; on the shore directing the fishermen; and by telling Peter to “feed my sheep” (John 20:19 – 21:25).

Following Christ’s Ascension to the right hand of God weeks later, Pentecost marked the descent of the Holy Spirit into the disciples and the establishment of the fellowship of believers (Acts 2).

It was during these Easter weeks that the flesh and blood Jesus, in multiple ways, proved that He was Who He said He was … and is. Replacing Jesus on Earth, into our hearts came the Holy Spirit, also fully God, and the perfect completion of the Communion of the Holy Trinity – the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The disciples, with their own eyes, saw the Truth of, and promises kept by, Jesus. Today, it is the Holy Spirit Who is with us, Who abides in us, and of Whom we ask in the words of the popular Christian song, to “open the eyes of my heart.”

These weeks are when the death and resurrection of Jesus are most fresh in our minds and hearts. It is a most opportune time to ask the Holy Spirit to teach us, as Christ taught the disciples, that God’s love and gift of salvation are truth marked in faith.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) notes that the Holy Spirit has the toughest job in the Trinity … living with us.