Praying for Grandma's Gravy

Spirituality Column #263
November 22, 2011
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Praying for Grandma’s Gravy
By Bob Walters

Thanksgiving dinner can be one of the spiritually richest and most comforting gatherings of the year – God’s bounty on our plates, loving family and dear friends at our reverently bent elbows.

Or, it can be a prickly, uneasy theatre of differing and generally incompatible intra-family opinions on relationships, culture, government, and God … simmering like grandma’s gravy that everyone hopes doesn’t get scorched by excessive heat or fractured by inattentive stirring.

Scenario One will likely have a rich pre-meal prayer of thanks for overflowing goodness and fellowship and abundance. It may or may not be a specifically religious prayer because not everyone’s spirit is connected, in an aware way, to a specific faith system. But don’t most of us just know, deep inside, that saying “Thanks” on Thanksgiving isn’t just an expression of appreciation? It’s an affirmation of the existence of God … whatever we understand that God to be. We look around the table, with love, and know that truth exists. God must be here somewhere. We are thankful.

Scenario Two can lead to the guests primarily being thankful when the meal is over and the ride home has begun. Even if family squabbles and political dissonance can be laid aside, the issue of whether God has a proper place at the table is a significant bellwether of enjoyable fellowship. This much I know from my own experience as a non-believer – it feels real weird to pray to a God you truly do not know.

During the 30 years of my life I didn’t go to church, I wasn’t mad at God; I simply didn’t know him and didn’t really care. I know many people today who gave up their faith “for cause.” It might have been a church scandal, the personal sleight or transgression of an insensitive Christian, or the feeling of abandonment by God. To some people, the whole “God” thing just seems stupid. Often, non-believers are simply ambivalent.

I would urge my Christian brothers and sisters to gird up for Scenario Two by praying deeply for understanding, wisdom, courage and patience. We can never argue our faith into another soul; we can only be an example another soul could choose to emulate. And remember … most people don’t have a problem with Jesus; they have a problem with Christians, the church, or “religion.” You’re an ambassador for all four.

Keep “grace” – the pre-meal prayer – simple, but pray clearly with the conviction that thanks is something truly worthy to give to God. It’s the sincerity and the love that you show to God and to others that will rub off on the souls of lost loved ones.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) advises praying for people by name. It works.

Only Sinners Need Grace of Christ

Spirituality Column #234
May 3, 2011
Current in Carmel - Westfield - Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Only Sinners Need Grace of Christ
By Bob Walters

There is no better way to explain the presence of Jesus Christ on this Earth than to say God has a special love for sinners.

And while the fallen world strives to condemn sinners, Jesus Christ came to save us from the fallenness of sin, not to condemn us for it. Jesus obeyed unto death, sharing His perfection so that we might not be condemned for our imperfections.

Don’t get me wrong … we can still be condemned, but it is us, we, ourselves, who do the condemning with our worldly disobedience. God loves us, wants us saved from our sins, sent his Son Jesus to seal the deal, and yet gives us the freedom to screw it up if we so choose.

John 3:16-18 and 14:6 pretty much make the entire case. God loved the world … Jesus came to save not to condemn … whoever does not believe is condemned already … no one goes to the Father except through Christ.

That’s it in a nutshell, paraphrasing Jesus’ own words. Where it gets sloppy, our stumbling block, is in discerning what “obedience” means in God’s divine context of love rather than in the fallen world’s context of power. Christ’s message isn’t “Obey Me or else!” It is “Follow me” (Matthew 4:19, plus 20 more times). It’s “repent and be baptized” (Peter in Acts 2:38).

Too often Christian doctrine – the kind even preached inside some churches – is mistakenly cast as an opportunity to condemn sinners, when the truth is just the opposite. Christ is our only chance for forgiveness, and it’s a forgiveness residing in God’s love, not our restitution.

And while condemnation avoidance should never be faith’s main point, what’s even worse is the false doctrine of “no condemnation.” From front to back, the Bible plainly reveals that there is indeed condemnation, Hell and a great opportunity to fail God. Only a false prophet would say otherwise, and the worst things about false prophets are their sweet sounding lies that hasten eternal condemnation.

“Be warned,” the Bible continually says.

Romans 8:1 provides a succinct, reassuring reminder about the truth: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus …”

Read those words carefully, “in Christ Jesus.”

The name of God’s special love for sinners is “grace,” and it is ours for the asking through Christ, freely and in faith. Only sinners need apply.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) quotes his Christian friend May, “Praise God that I am a sinner; it is my only qualification for receiving the grace of Christ.”

Finding Christ in Christmas, Part 3

Spirituality Column #214
December 14, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Finding Christ in Christmas, Part 3
By Bob Walters

I once visited a local church to hear an internationally known Christian minister and author preach at an evening worship service.

Shockingly, this visiting purveyor of the loving Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Holy Word of the Bible stopped speaking midway in his sermon and in mid-sentence demanded that a young mother – at whom he actually stretched out his arm and pointed – remove both herself and her somewhat-crying baby from the room.

The child was distracting him, he said. “Sorry,” he said. “That’s my fault,” he said. “I couldn’t concentrate.”

Nothing else the famous preacher said was as memorable as that. Most likely the humiliated young mother hasn’t forgotten the rebuke, either. As she retreated from the room holding her baby, my momentary relief at the silence turned to shame at my own impatience. My sympathies grew toward the mother, and away from the famous preacher’s broken concentration.

I thought of another young mother, a couple thousand years ago, who also had to hide a real, live human baby – Jesus – from earthly authority and social convention. Mary, with God’s grace, was patient with her circumstances.

I have narcissistic tendencies which make me not naturally patient. When we love ourselves too much, one finds, we have difficulty loving the world amid the world’s inconveniences. This would include lacking patience with crying babies, waiting in check-out lines, inconvenient stoplights, traffic, whatever.

Christmas too often is an exercise in impatience. One might rightly notice that the first victim of impatience is joy. Perhaps “Joy to the World” ought to be understood to mean, “Be patient with the world.”

God is. Christ is. The Holy Spirit is. Patient, I mean. Sinful man usually is not.

Try this as an antidote. Next time you’re inconvenienced, pray for the person that is inconveniencing you. That would include each person in line ahead of you. Or the relative whose Christmas plans conflict with yours. Or the baby crying in church.

As our Pastor Derek Duncan once advised, let a crying baby remind you of the one in the manger whose birth we celebrate at Christmas.

Christ came to reconnect mankind’s loving relationship with God, and to build our human communion with the Holy Trinity and with each other. Crowds at Christmas are an awesome time to do that, but to find Christ amid the chaos, you have to be patient.

Concentrate.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) doesn’t mind a baby’s cry in church as much as … alas … he minds its parents’ deafness.

Grace, Peace and Thanks

IS-Walters-11-23-10
Spirituality Column #211
November 23, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Grace, Peace and Thanks
By Bob Walters

“Please” and “Thank you,” we learn early in life, are “the magic words.” They help us create positive relationships with each other.

“Grace and Peace,” we learn in the Biblical letters of St. Paul, are the magic words of the Christian life. They help us understand our loving and eternal relationship with God.

Each of Paul’s 13 letters in the New Testament contain some version of the greeting “Grace and Peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Though occasionally dismissed as a routine greeting, “Grace and Peace” is loaded with meaning following the earthly arrival, life, teaching, passion, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Grace is Christ at work. It is God restoring us in a way no one would have thought to ask for, with the humble, loving servant Jesus – God incarnate – beating back death and erasing our sin. It is not a gift we can repay. It is not a gift we are somehow “charged” for. It wasn’t negotiated. It is not a transaction or trade. Grace is the love of God delivered through the work of Christ.

It is “the grace of God in all its truth” (Colossians 1:6).

Peace is our life in the risen person of Christ, not our life thinking about Christ or reading the Bible or going to church or “being a good person.”

It’s easy to get this one confused because we plainly see the world’s mayhem, chaos, evil, inequity, tragedy, disease and disaster. Let’s be clear: Satan is the engineer of the bad and eschews peace because he is against God.

Jesus Christ “himself is our peace” (Ephesians 2:14), because He is God.

As we celebrate Thanksgiving this week let’s note that in the Bible thanks is almost always directed at God. Let’s also note that faith, hope, love, truth, salvation and mercy – the Good News of the Gospel – are centered in Jesus Christ.

Thanksgiving is a public holiday but grounded in the Christian faith. The persecuted Puritans in Great Britain arrived in America on the Mayflower at Plymouth Rock in 1620. A year of hard survival later they celebrated a bountiful harvest by thanking God. Abe Lincoln made Thanksgiving official in 1863.

While there are lots of ways to tell our historical Thanksgiving story, it is God’s grace and peace that enable loving relationships and compose the true spirit of thanksgiving.

Please remember to thank Him.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) recommends Colossians 1 for a prayerful Thanksgiving Day devotion and reflection.

Sin and the World's Shortest Book

Spirituality Column #204
October 5, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Sin and the World’s Shortest Book
By Bob Walters

What is the world’s shortest book?

It’s not “Different Ways to Spell ‘Bob,’” “The Engineer’s Guide to Fashion” or “Al Gore, The Wild Years.”

And no, it’s not 3 John, the Bible’s shortest book.

The world’s shortest book is “Sins for Which Jesus Christ Did Not Die.”

Jesus, you see, died for them all (2 Corinthians 5:15, 1 Peter 3:18).

The human race is a motley lot. We seek Godly heights yet often stumble into the lowest of pits due to either our own sin or the fallenness of the world around us.

"We are,” to quote my worship minister friend Shockley Flick, “sinful, rebellious, willful, demanding, slow to learn, resistant to change, egocentric and sometimes just not very pleasant to be around.

“Yet,” he continues, “Jesus Christ, through His grace and love, reached out and lifted us up from our squalor to walk with Him.”

As Christians we are taught that we must deal with our sin, but sometimes forget that Jesus Christ has already dealt with our sin … all of it.

Every sinful thing we’ve done, are doing and will do is why Jesus died on the Cross. For the sake of our eternal salvation, our sin was forgiven, taken away, removed and erased.

The “debt” was cancelled on the Cross.

Despite this Biblical truth, non-believers scoff at Christ and salvation. Even some Christians cling to their own sin, wallow in their guilt, and speak somberly of their – or accusingly of someone else’s – “unresolved sin.” But that makes me want to ask, “What sins could anyone possibly have that Christ didn’t die for?”

In God’s eyes, Jesus Christ already resolved our sin by His sacrifice on the Cross. That forgiveness, that grace, is a gift for which humanity did not ask, but is a gift freely given to anyone who in faith believes and declares that Jesus Christ is the Son of the Living God and trusts Him as Lord and Savior.

Faith is the key. Trying to resolve one’s own sin, with effort or works, is a fool’s errand, a canard, an oxymoron, an impossibility.
We can’t resolve sin. Jesus can, and did.

Sin is death in each of our lives until we declare our faith in Jesus Christ, confess our sin, and live our life dedicated to His Glory rather than our effort, happiness and comfort.

That’s the long and short of it.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) figured out years ago you can’t hide anything from Jesus. Confess, repent, worship, try to do better. Above all, have faith.

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.

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.

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.

Strong Finish, New Beginning, Part 5

Spirituality Column #164
December 29, 2009
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Strong Finish, New Beginning, Part 5
By Bob Walters

The only New Year’s resolutions I’ve ever kept – maybe the only two I ever made – were to quit smoking (1994) and to read the entire Bible (2002).

I started early on both of them. I bought what I planned and hoped would be my last carton of cigarettes just before Christmas 1993, and started reading the Bible in December 2001.

I mentioned the resolution to quit smoking a couple of years ago (Jan. 1, 2008, Column #60, www.believerbob.blogspot.com) in the context of finding strength I didn’t know I had from a God I didn’t think I knew. It was one of several examples I trace in my previous non-church life of what minister Russ Blowers called “prevenient grace.”

That’s when God’s grace is mystically, actively bestowed upon us and we are sure we have a) done nothing to deserve it and b) not confessed faith in Christ.

“Prevenient” means antecedent and doesn’t appear in most dictionaries. “Prevenient Grace” is an actual theological construct within the Calvinist vs. Arminian, predestination vs. grace debate.

(As an aside: Calvinism vs. Arminianism typically is a heated conversation between believers. I don’t think it is of much value to seekers, skeptics and non-believers; only confusing and beside the main point. For an article that explains without preaching, go to www.bible-researcher.com and search “arminianism.” The “main point,” by the way, is Jesus Christ.)

Anyway, I quit smoking. Cold turkey. Prevenient grace. I’m still alive.

The resolution to read the entire Bible in 2002 followed my being baptized in November 2001. Many things fell in place that led me to Christ, and held me there, in the latter part of 2001.

One of the pieces was that my then-pastor Dave Faust announced a weekly walking-through-the-Bible class starting early 2002. As I contemplated Baptism, I wanted to know the Bible, and by taking my heart and mind through that door, I could “learn from Christ, not just about Him.” (Hat tip for that line goes to preacher Dave Mullins’ sermon at E91 a couple weeks ago.)

As I was in the final throes of the decision to be baptized, the Bible class was the last nudge I needed.

I could read, I could learn, I could walk in my new-found faith.

Smoking remains gone, and the Bible remains on board. These were not resolutions, they were gifts. They were the real Christ in Christmas, continued.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com or email rlwcom@aol.com) tends toward being a grace guy, with no specific prejudices against the predestination crowd.

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.

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.

Welcoming the Dalai Lama

Spirituality Column #50
October 23, 2007
Current! In Carmel (IN) Newspaper

Welcoming the Dalai Lama
By Bob Walters

I write as a Christian but the big religious news in Indiana this week is a visit by the Dalai Lama, head of the Buddhist faith.

He is speaking at both Indiana and Purdue Universities, celebrating the payoff of $1.5 million in debt on the Tibetan Cultural Center in Bloomington (announced by Elaine Mellencamp), and visiting his brother, Thubten Norbu, an IU professor emeritus. The Dalai Lama’s trip to the U.S. included visiting privately with President Bush and receiving the Congressional Gold Medal.

America has an affection for the Dalai Lama that I find logical. He is truly and deeply a man of peace (Nobel Peace Prize 1989), has mesmerizing star power, and is censured by the Chinese government. We like all that stuff. America always roots for Tibet (and Taiwan, et al) against the freedom-stifling muscle of the Chinese government.

Plus, don’t we all as Hoosiers get a kick out of the fact the Dalai Lama’s brother lives in Bloomington?

Still, my hunch is that most Americans (and Hoosiers) know precious little about Buddhism, which has both some interesting teachings and some huge theological holes. I have a parallel hunch that many Christians would stammer horribly if presented with the opportunity to meet the Dalai Lama (means “Ocean of Wisdom") personally and explain their faith in Christ.

Even if we don’t meet the Dalai Lama, there’s a good chance we’ll talk to a secular friend who will challenge us on why our Christianity works better for us than the peace-loving ways of Buddhism.

First of all, let’s not confuse Christians and our fallen world with Christ, the ultimate man of peace; God incarnate who died for our sins so we would have eternal life in the presence of the living, loving Creator God.

Christians get grace for eternity. A Buddhist is shooting for “consciousness.”

The most important aesthetic of Buddhism is “Emptiness” (that’s true). A Christian on the other hand seeks “fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13). Empty, or full? You decide.

Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths, Eightfold Path and 10 Precepts might remind one of the 10 Commandments and various Bible verses on, for example, suffering and wisdom. But Buddhism’s tenets are all self-directed, and mention nothing of love, community, family or God – the core of Christian theology.

As a Christian we can’t argue the Bible against a Buddhist (or even your secular neighbor) any more than a Buddhist can argue his Precepts against us. For one thing, a Buddhist is a lot less likely to argue. For another, it’s a fool’s errand to argue scripture with someone who doesn’t understand scripture.

Reveal instead the enormous gifts of life, love and grace we have in Christ. That’s the story to tell, and remember Jesus is the ultimate example of peace.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) encourages Christians to learn to step outside the Bible to defend their faith, which resides in one’s heart, not in a book.

Natural Conflict

Spirituality Column #43
September 4, 2007
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper

Natural Conflict
By Bob Walters

Charles Darwin may have failed to accurately explain how we all got here, but his theories succeeded in creating a secular religion – Naturalism.

Naturalism is the accurate “ism” to describe the opposite of “Creationism,” where the Bible tells us God created the world, man, morality and relationships. Naturalism tells us that the creation is all there is, and that, essentially, creation created creation. God isn’t there, morality is a figment of our imagination, and love is a collection of brain waves.

Not a Creator? Darwin’s “Origin of Species” left even the author unsure as to whether his theories were accurate (read Lee Stroebel’s Case for a Creator). Though Darwin’s science, true to his own suspicions, was dreadfully flawed, it was the best alternative yet to God’s story of Creation told in Genesis 1 and 2.

Darwin obviated a need for “God” in the grand scheme of things. Hence we become, if not Creators ourselves, masters of our own morality. We decide what is good and evil; and it doesn’t matter, because we are all just accidents of nature anyway.

I think there is way more mystery, drama, magnificence and truth in the Biblical story, but our secular world has arrived at a place in history where the Bible is largely dismissed, God is easily ignored, Christ is routinely ridiculed, and the Holy Spirit has been morphed into a spirit of man rather than God.

What is the difference? And what does it matter?

This:

Naturalism rejects a personal God, rejects absolutes, rejects morality and ridicules faith. It gives us nothing and explains nothing of our spirit. Instead of faith, hope and charity, the natural order is survival of the fittest.

We have a great gift in God’s love and the transforming grace of Jesus.

Why, in God’s name, would anyone give that up?

PS – You don’t really think we crawled out of the slime and started thinking, by ourselves, do you? God created science, too.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) has made plenty of mistakes, but knows God doesn’t look at him as a mistake. That’s true of everyone. God wants us all.

God's Strength & Grace

Spirituality Column #42
August 28, 2007
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper

God’s Strength and Grace
By Bob Walters

“God will never give you more than you can handle.”

I beg to differ.

My dear friend Tim, who recently traveled the impossible road of watching his young wife – mother of their two young children – die of cancer, offered this startling observation:

“Of course God gives you more than you can handle,” Tim said. “Otherwise how would you ever learn what to give over to God?”

Tim is a solid, spiritual Christian – a Catholic – with a remarkable command of scripture. He heard that old saying so many times that he went to his Bible to find where it says God won’t give us more than we can bear. Tim discovered the Bible doesn’t say that.

First Corinthians 10:13 tells us God will never tempt us beyond what we can bear. Close, but temptation isn’t sickness or turmoil or even a problem until you give in to it – remember that Jesus fasted for 40 days and was tempted by Satan (Matthew 4) but remained holy.

In 2 Corinthians 12 the Apostle Paul describes his own torment of the “thorn in my flesh” (v 4) and then (v 9) assures us the Lord’s grace is sufficient to bear whatever we may encounter.

Remember that part about grace; we are naked without it. But haven’t we all, at one time or another, encountered the seemingly unbearable?

Second Corinthians 4:10 is where the road gets really rough, “We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.” And then in verse 12, “Death is at work in us.”

Death, I would say, is more than we can bear. Our own strength cannot combat death and the countless miseries of a fallen world, but God’s grace gives us life eternal.

God can handle what we can’t, just don’t forget He is there.

Knowing and trusting He is there is called “Grace.”

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) isn’t so sure that just because a door closes, a window opens. However, he is sure God is with you regardless.