Why and How: The Limits of Love

Spirituality Column #260
November 1, 2011
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Why and How: The Limits of Love
By Bob Walters

We look at God and ask “Why?”

We struggle with faith and ask “How?”

Why should I believe? How can I know?

The Bible says much about why (For God so loved the world …) but not much about how. God could, so he did. Why? To be glorified and because He loves us. But, how did He do it? Why does it matter? Why did He bother?

Conversely, church is full of “how” but not much “why.” Do this, do that. Pray, read the Bible, repent and be baptized, obey, go to communion, make disciples, tithe, serve, show up. Repeat. That’s how. Amen. God said so.

But why? Why so many churches? There’s only one Father-Son-Holy Spirit. Why so many doctrines? John 14:6 plainly quotes Jesus Christ: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

But how? “Tell me why, Lord,” we beg, “and I’ll believe. But first, tell me how I’ll know!”

We’re desperate for faith and plead for answers. But we overlook the obvious. The Bible gives us a perfectly clear picture of who God is and what God does.

Our God is a God of action and stories and creativity; a God of life and love and courage and good. He’s a God of communion and relationship and freedom and doing for others. He is forgiving, fearsome, freeing and just. He is a God of accountability and generosity, of judgment and peace, of authority and purpose, of mercy and grace.

God is with us, about us, for us and in us. He created us. Jesus Christ His son is the author of all knowledge, the truth of all things, and the servant of all creation. He’s both “out there” and “in here.” The Holy Spirit is God’s light in our reverent lives and comfort in our human challenges. God is eternal and unrelenting. He pursues us.

What do we do? We get stuck at “why” and “how.” Rather than worshipping a great God of Love and Hope in faith, we worship the diminished idols of Why and How in knowledge. We focus on us, blur Jesus Christ, and Satan is all for it.

When we demand finite answers to God-sized questions, we limit faith. We also limit truth, stray from grace and lose focus on the awesome splendor, grandeur, bigness and everything-ness of God.

Love God, and love others … and limitations go away.

Not that anyone besides Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is counting, but this marks five years – 260 straight weeks dating back to November 7, 2006 – of filing this Christian column for Current newspapers. Thanks to all. A book is on the way. - Buy Book at Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

So Then What Happened?

Spirituality Column #253
September 13, 2011
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

So Then What Happened?
By Bob Walters

When I share my “Awake Date” with people – Sept. 2, 2001, the day I accepted Christ, sitting in church for the first time as an adult – it usually hastens an assumption.

And that assumption is that the ensuing pain and magnitude of 9/11 nine days later drew me further into the church; that my deepening faith was a palliative reaction to seek comfort after the awful events which rocked our nation.

Traumatized, in other words, I found Jesus.

That’s so not true.

What happened was that the Sunday after 9/11 I went to a church “Welcome” class instead of the worship service, and then ran into a work acquaintance in the lobby (“narthex” in church language). As we talked, retired pastor Russ Blowers came up to chat with him, and I was introduced to Russ as a newcomer. I ran into Russ again a few minutes later in another hallway and he said, “Hey Bob, we ought to have lunch.”

He came up to me, already remembering my name.

A few days later we had lunch at Sahm’s Restaurant in Fishers. Russ offered to say grace before the meal and my reaction while he prayed was to be embarrassed sitting there praying in public. I’ve since grown out of that.

We talked that day about many things – Russ was the epitome of a pastor, had multiple interests and he loved people. Discussing the 9/11 attacks, we decided to read Bernard Lewis’s “What Went Wrong” book about Islam. After several weeks of reading the book “together” and emailing back-and-forth, we were friends.

In October 2001 I took a four-week “Walking with Christ” class taught by our senior minister David Faust, discovering – surprisingly – that suddenly I could read and understand scripture. Following the last class I asked to be baptized … at 9 o’clock on a Sunday evening. In 2002 I read the entire Bible.

In May 2002, I met Cambridge theologian George Bebawi, new to this country, at a social gathering here in Indy. After helping to get his weekly class started at my church in 2004, I’ve been studying with George for seven years.

My walk with the Lord has been a run, really, of meeting fascinating people who I am convinced God sent my way. Because that’s what God does; He sends for us. And even though we think we seek God, what Christianity is really all about is that God sent His son Jesus Christ, in divine grace, to seek us.

It’s when humanity runs away from the grace of Christ that we have trouble.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) thinks America’s institutionalized long-term reaction to 9/11 has been just backwards: religion shouldn’t be minimized, Christ should be maximized.

Fact Finding vs. Faith Finding, Lent Part 2

Spirituality Column #227
March 15, 2011
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville – Current in Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Lenten Series 2011: Just Not that into God, Part 2
Fact Finding vs. Faith Finding
By Bob Walters

Some people just aren’t that into God because they are so busy fact finding that they ignore, shun, or ridicule faith finding.

Look at our educational system. Look at our legal system. Shoot, look at several aspects of our church system. Our modern culture is wired, networked, satellite-linked and surfing for a universe explained by facts.

Educationally, we shun faith, and I don’t mean prohibiting public school prayer. Schooling at every level, K-through-college, institutionally asserts that faith has no part of functioning intellect. Rubbish. Faith is, precisely, a function of intellect.

Legally, we expend enormous energies assessing the facts of various cultural conveniences, bringing our judicial system to the opinion that while it is not necessary to protect live, unborn fetuses or the “this-man-take-this-woman” institution of marriage, it is indeed necessary to protect itself from faith. Ten Commandments? Adios. Faith, you see, is “non-factual opinion.” It’s also the ultimate “inconvenient truth.”

Churches that are faith-based, faith-directed and faithful to the Gospel truth of Jesus Christ are awesome. Churches that survey the expediencies of current society and rewrite the truth of Jesus Christ into fashionably inoffensive – or incredibly fear-inducing – facts to better “market” or “sell” religion to “a non-believing world,” are awful, not awesome. Why go to church to find the “truth” if church is just as treacherous and self-serving with the facts as the rest of the world?

Truth is, the world’s game of facts is stacked against “the truth.” And by truth, I mean Jesus Christ. He’s the lightening rod of all lightening rods, and He’s the source of all truth, all light, and all joy that is truly worth having. That His “truth” doesn’t rise to the adequate level of “fact” in our public institutions is what day-by-day gives Satan hope.

Yet no matter what facts we find, the truth stays the truth 24/7/365: For His glory God loves us, Jesus Christ has saved us, the Holy Spirit is here with us, and the Bible tells us so. Amen.

Faith in just that much truth changes the complexion of every fact we can ever discover. Thinking we can reflect our own glory with facts is Satan’s most powerful weapon against us. Knowing in faith that all Glory is God’s, we discover the vast and true love, grace and beauty of God’s Kingdom; and it’s all around.

That’s the power of faith, and that’s a fact. Find it today.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) notes that cell phone texting and surfing has us all bowing our heads. How hard would it be to throw in a prayer of thanks to God once in a while?

Dig Deeper for Church Foundation

Spirituality Column #205
October 12, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Dig Deeper for Church Foundation
By Bob Walters

My friend, mentor, and our Hamilton County neighbor George – I’ve written about him before – is a renowned scholar on the Eastern Church, on general church history including the Fathers (“Patristics”), and is a multi-lingual Bible translator.

He has worked at the Vatican, been a missionary in sub-Saharan Africa, served as a medic with the International Red Cross, was mentored at the ancient monastery of St. Macarius in northern Egypt, and for a time was a Coptic cleric in his native Cairo.

George retired from the divinity faculty at Cambridge University, England, in 2004 and since then has been living, writing, and teaching here in central Indiana. We have his lovely wife May, with her American career in computer systems management, to thank for that.

Though “retired” George teaches seminars throughout America and England, has taught select classes at several area churches and colleges, and recently began his seventh year teaching Wednesday nights at Castleton’s East 91st St. Christian Church.

George can write maddeningly meticulous class notes dissecting linguistic and spiritual subtleties of Hebrew, Greek and Latin Biblical pronouns (of Christ, in the Spirit, unto the Lord, etc.). But he can also simplify obvious but stupefying theological questions into three or four understandable points.

His current E91 series is “Bible Themes.” During the “Temples” class, George noted that Jews built temples where God appeared (theophany) or commanded. God dwelled, or tabernacled, in these Holy Places.

Later in that lesson, George asked, “Why do Christians go to church?” The public class draws a diverse, church-savvy crowd, but the room fell silent. After all, Jesus said nothing about “keeping the Sabbath,” only loving God and each other. Plus, “Christ dwells in your hearts through faith” (Ephesians 3:17), not in temples.

So … why church? Typical George, “Three points …

“One, Jesus promised that when ‘two or three’ believers gather, He will be there.

“Two, to share the Lord’s Supper, the gift of the body and blood of Christ; that many may become one. This is highly symbolic, and also very, very real.

“Three, we are the ‘called,’ – the ecclesia. We are called to community, to worship Christ so He may give us strength and we will experience the love and commitment of our faith.”

Good answer. If you’re there for the music or so you can feel good about yourself … George would suggest you dig deeper and feel good about Christ.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), at George’s request, left out his last name. But the class is fascinating.

A Wooden Response to Real Faith

Spirituality Column #188
June 15, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

A Wooden Response to Real Faith
By Bob Walters

In the small-city, American innocence of my youth in the 1960s, it seemed that everybody went to church.

To my recollection nobody talked much about Jesus Christ but “Where do you go to church?” was a socially acceptable, non-invasive inquiry. God was at church, everyone went to church, everyone understood God was God, and God was good.

Of course, we didn’t go to church in the summer. We rode our bikes, played ball, and went swimming. We went to church during the school year.

And in school I learned that in 1776 our nation declared its independence in no small part because people “are endowed by their Creator (capital C) with certain unalienable Rights.” It made historical sense to recite daily the Pledge of Allegiance, facing the American flag as “one nation under God” (no comma).

How surprised I was to learn years later that the Pledge was relatively new (1892, Francis Bellamy), and “under God” was really new (1954, President Dwight Eisenhower). “In God We Trust” on our paper money first appeared in 1957, having been adopted officially as our national motto in July 1956.

Given that era’s bristling Cold War with the Soviet Union, the motto was a “purpose pitch” promoting American values like God and freedom. Some dismissed it as mere propaganda against godless Communism, but so what? Communism was a horrible idea, horribly applied, with horrible effect. Communism chokes individual freedom, creativity, wealth … and God.

Anyway, even today ninety percent of Americans like the motto.

So why is it that so many of us are willing, happy, even thankful, to Trust in God, while so many also blanch at any public confession of the miraculous, freeing character of redemption through the saving power of Jesus Christ?

These thoughts cross my mind when a great American like John Wooden dies. In his death, our culture reduces John Wooden’s enormous, demonstrated, lifelong, prosperous, humble faith in Jesus Christ to sports, championships and coaching.

Mercy gracious sakes.

It’s hypocrisy that all this reporting is done with an understood wink of the mass media’s eye. Everyone knows Wooden was a devout believer in Christ, and that every corner of his life witnessed to his Christian faith.

Wooden’s is what an abundant, American life in Christ is supposed to look like.

If truly “In God We Trust,” why is “Christ” so hard for so many Americans to say?

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes that while Wooden wasn’t shy about his faith, the media only reports on earthly rewards.

'God Loves Even You'

Spirituality Column #88
July 15, 2008
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current iIn Westfield (IN) newspaper

‘God Loves Even You’
By Bob Walters
Author of Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

In the gently rolling western Indiana farmland near Shades State Park one perfect, sunny day earlier this summer, a tidy country church had these words on its welcome sign:

“God loves even you.”

In the spirit of backhanded compliments like “Hey, your face is clearing up,” I considered the sign and burst out laughing. A question popped into my head:

Do you suppose God has a marketing department?

The obvious answer is: Yes He does. It’s called the Church.

With thousands of Christian “denominations” worldwide, it isn’t surprising that the “marketing” of the Christian message splits off in many directions.

“God loves even you” tells me this church fearlessly proclaims the Gospel truth that each of us is a sinner, and that no matter the hideousness of our individual squalor, Jesus Christ is the only avenue to a loving, personal and eternal relationship with God.

No serious, thinking Christian will deny our sin problem or our guilt, but I wonder if God’s marketing focus is better stated in the famous John 3:16 …

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Then there’s the oft-overlooked John 3:17:

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

Notice that sin is not mentioned. Condemnation is negated. Love and salvation compose the cornerstone of this passage, and of Christianity.

I suppose we each figure that in our sinfulness we are condemned … and well, OK, we are. That’s our guilt. But churches that market God’s product of love and salvation with a tagline hook focused on sin and guilt – and there are plenty of them – too often focus our Christian walk on our own sin, and therefore on our own works, and therefore on ourselves.

The danger is that if we focus only on our sin, we miss the more important and central point of God’s overwhelming love.

Simply knowing I’m a sinner will not put me in a church pew, or see me through tough times.

Knowing God loves me, will.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) once read that two things have to be present for humor to exist: truth and surprise. It was assuredly his own arrogance that made him laugh at the sign.

Money Matters to God

Spirituality Column #34
July 3, 2007
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper

Money Matters to God
By Bob Walters

God has a lot to say about how we handle money - 2,350 verses in the Bible address the subject.
Most of what the Bible says about money isn’t about giving, it’s about wisdom and stewardship; about handling money in a Godly way.

What God wants us to understand is:
1. It’s not how much money we have, it’s what we do with the money we do have.
2. It’s not “our” money any way. It’s God’s money.

The Bible points out that God made and owns everything in the earth (Psalm 24:1, Leviticus 25:23). The Old Testament outlines specific laws about tithing (giving one-tenth of money and assets to God), laws that do not appear in the New Testament.

The New Testament instead instructs us to give everything we have to the Lord. Luke 14:33 goes so far as to exhort us to give up all possessions to be a disciple of Christ. At the very least that means give all our possessions to God’s priorities.

Still, we’ve all sat in church and heard a sermon on tithing. A lot of us squirm on those days. Yet the most inspiring messages I’ve heard about church giving haven’t been from the pulpit, they’ve been from people who have literally given all they could of their worldly wealth, talent, time and love to the service of others in the name of Christ.

You can’t go wrong tithing and giving money to the poor – it’s a great start – and you also can’t go wrong studying the Bible for its wealth of all-encompassing money and stewardship principles.

Especially if your financial outlook is dark, Bible knowledge on money helps bring light.

There are many Biblical financial management studies available (Crown Financial Ministries, www.crown.org is one) available in many churches throughout the country. Ask your minister or pastor about what’s offered at your church.

Worship God not money; but money’s important, and so is what God has to say about it.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), figures we can never give back to Christ all that we owe Him for our salvation; but we should at least be diligent and smart in trying.