How the Rest Was One

Spirituality Column #254
September 20, 2011
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

How the Rest Was One
By Bob Walters

One of the great big things largely missing from contemporary Christianity is a coherent understanding of church history.

And by church history, I don’t mean Vatican II, the Billy Graham Crusades, or the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution’s first amendment. I mean the years and decades immediately following Jesus Christ’s ministry, death and resurrection, followed by centuries of doctrinal and church development.

Why, or rather, how, did Christianity thrive in those early years when no modern understanding of popular faith can explain its survival? Jesus wasn’t especially well known. Christians were killed, oftentimes in horrible ways, for the crime of simply being Christian. Jewish scripture was not widely known outside of Judaism. There were no Bibles, and the New Testament was unwritten.

And yet, here were these spirit-filled Christians.

Pagan idols were manmade. The mythic gods provided stories but no consequential teaching. Roman law dictated worship of Caesar. Academics of the day relied on the Greek understanding of evidence and logical proof. Yet here were these Christians, worshipping the living Son of the Creator God incarnate among mankind, revealing the truth of God’s love for His creation, and dying to erase mankind’s sin. How do you explain that?

The thing is … you can’t explain it. What happened in those earliest years of Christianity was that eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus shared what they saw and heard, and in faith followed Christ as their Lord. There was evidence and proof in the hearts of the eyewitnesses, and by the power of the Holy Spirit those hearts continued in faith through the generations of mankind. The Spirit remains with us even now.

It’s not enough for today’s Christian to read the Bible’s Book of Acts (written by the Apostle Luke), memorize verse 2:42, and say, “OK, let’s sing some breezy modern worship songs, feel good about Jesus, and come back to church next week.”

The story of Christianity is magnificent, because Jesus Christ is magnificent.

Those early Christians understood the human heart’s hunger for something infinite, experienced man’s thirst for things that last (immortality), shared the human desire for life beyond death, and found the fulfillment of those truths in their joyous community of Christ, the early church, that’s now stretched forward 2,000 years.

Jesus, our rest, is eternal and infinite … but hard to explain. Knowing where the faith has been can build our hope in where our faith, as one body of believers, is going.

Walters, who knows Christianity is more about where we’re going than where we’ve been, nonetheless recommend’s Alister McGrath’s “Christian Theology” and Robert Wilken’s “The Spirit of Early Christian Thought.” Don’t just “look up” … look it up!

Christianity Begs to Differ

Spirituality Column #248
August 9, 2011
Current in Carmel - Westfield - Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Christianity Begs to Differ
By Bob Walters

“The things said most confidently by advanced persons to crowded audiences are generally those quite opposite to the fact; it is actually our truisms that are untrue.”
– G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

In the spheres of modern religion, morality, politics, education, science – quick, name some more spheres – I can’t think of a more frighteningly accurate assessment or warning about mass-marketed “truth” than this nugget Christian essayist Gilbert K. Chesterton wrote in 1908.

And by “modern” we mean in the philosophical, intellectual sense which – over the past 500 years or so – has come to mean “intelligence invented by man” (e.g. secular humanism, faith in man) as opposed to “intelligence that emanates from the Creator” (e.g. religion, faith in God).

This is relevant in today’s Christian conversation because “modern” culture has overtaken most of civilization’s greatest institutions thereby narrowing the influence of Christian truth. The modern culture of education, the media, “intellectual elites,” most governments (including ours), and even distressingly many churches – all insist that man not only is on at least an even plane with God, but that to be politically correct man must be “one” with everything around him, such as the universe, the planet, animals, the trees, the weather, each other … whatever.

The fact is we are not one. Even God is not One but a society, the Trinity. Our love, creativity, rebellion, decisions, industry, loyalties, talents and freedom all prove that it’s the differences in the universe that animate God’s plan, not the similarities.

Where modern thought identifies patterns and sameness, it frequently and mistakenly imputes “truth” where none exists. Here’s an example: “The religions of the earth differ in rites and forms, but they are the same in what they teach.”

Observes Chesterton, “It is false; it is the opposite of the fact. The religions of the earth do not greatly differ in rites and forms; they do differ greatly in what they teach … they are alike in everything except the fact that they don’t say the same thing.”

Chesterton uses the massive differences of Christianity and Buddhism – the external, creative “otherness” of the Christian God vs. the inward, quiet “oneness” of the Buddha – to make his case. His larger point though is that it is easier and more “modern” simply to say “they are the same” than to deeply consider why they are not.

“Go along to get along” was not the teaching of Christ.

Orthodoxy clearly explains why Christ makes a difference, not just to Chesterton, but to all Creation. God’s truth – Jesus Christ – is a truism we can trust.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) celebrates our differences while marveling at God’s cohesiveness. Next: Chesterton explains his faith.

Memorial Day in War and Peace

Spirituality Column #238
May 31, 2011
Current in Carmel - Westfield - Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Memorial Day in War and Peace
By Bob Walters

’Some thoughts for Memorial Day, when America remembers her war heroes who died that we might be free, fought that we might know peace, and served us that we might serve others.

-Memorial Day easily captures the context of Christian faith, as we offer to God prayers of thanks and remembrance for the sacrifice of others.

-Jesus Christ, it is supremely worth noting, died for our freedom. He invented the concept, really. It is something that never occurred to or in humanity until Christ died on the Cross, defeating death and erasing our sin: we were free. It was a gift we didn’t request, solved a problem we didn’t know we had and, with faith, provided a victory impossible to imagine: eternal loving relationship with the Creator God in heaven. That's what God wants for us.

-The Bible exhorts, “God is love.” Christ’s example teaches that love requires freedom. That must be God’s toughest task – loving us enough to provide our freedom, with which we choose whether to love God or not. God knows love resides only in the presence of freedom and the absence of coercion, for coercion robs freedom, drains the soul, stifles hope and strangles faith. Love dies. That’s not what God wants for us.

-The Bible does not mandate systems or festivals commemorating Christ, because Jesus appeared once for all, took on our sins once for all, was cleansed once for all, died once for all, and we were entrusted with His faith once for all. It’s why Jesus says of taking the bread and cup, His body and blood, “Do this in remembrance of me.”

- “Once for all” means the eternal God appeared in mortal time as Jesus Christ and entirely changed the game for humanity’s relationship with God. God no longer mandated a place or a time or a behavior – like a temple or a festival or a commandment – to access divine relationship. Christ, by His work once for all, is to be alive in our hearts always and everywhere … in faith.

-The greatest war is our war with Satan … we fight it every moment of our lives.

-The greatest memorial is our communion with Christ.

-The greatest peace is in Christ.

-The greatest victory abides not with the swift or strong, but belongs reliably to the humble and faithful.

-Victory is not a remembrance of yesterday, but a hope for tomorrow.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is named after his mother’s brother Bob, a naval aviator who died in WWII.

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.”

Of Denials, Thorns and Truth

Spirituality Column #233
April 26, 2011
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville – Current in Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Of Denials, Thorns and Truth
By Bob Walters

Peter famously denies Christ three times (Matthew 26:69-75) in the pre-dawn hours of Good Friday, the day Jesus was crucified.

Paul suffers a “thorn” in his flesh (2 Corinthians 12:7), described as a “messenger of Satan” to prevent Paul’s conceit in possessing the great revelations of Christ with which he is entrusted.

Whether by denials or thorns, don’t we all encounter temptations to fashion our own truths about God and ourselves despite the Bible’s plain instruction, revelation and truth of the primacy of Jesus Christ in our overall world and individual lives?

Every day we witness modern culture’s continuing academic, legal, social, and scientific broadsides on all things God, yet often it is from within the Christian community that the most disturbing and direct assaults on Jesus Christ emanate.

Here’s a huge church that doesn’t mention Christ. There’s a preacher who won’t preach against sin. Over on the best seller list is a book saying Hell won’t happen. Denials and thorns; Satan loves to see man worship at the altar of self-importance.

The danger in all this is not to God the Father, Christ the Son, or the Holy Spirit. The danger is to us, to people, to anyone led astray from the truth of Jesus Christ by the fuzzy theology of don’t-worry-be-happy pop-culture doctrines.

To be clear, I don’t think Hell is a doctrine. The Bible tells me Hell is a real place, no matter how many feel-good contemporary “Christian” preachers, writers and churches deny it. In these denials is Satan’s effort to whitewash the blood of Christ away from us. Whether we are planted in good spiritual soil or not, we all suffer the thorns of life’s challenges and worldly temptations with every breath we take.

I love God, trust Jesus, and pray with the Holy Spirit not because I fear Hell but because of the autonomy of love – God’s gift of freedom and truth embodied in Jesus Christ. Even amid my own self-interested denials and worldly thorns, that’s what my head, heart, trusted Christian mentors and Bible all lead me to do.

If we are led by any church, any book, any one or any thing that denies Hell, minimizes sin, does not challenge the wretchedness of our sin and tells us Christ isn’t Who the Bible says He is, well, then we had better be warned and take a hard look at who is holding the leash.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) just finished reading Pope Benedict XVI’s excellent book “Jesus of Nazareth, Part 2” and saw nothing citing Jesus Christ as an optional aspect of Church, or Hell as a mistranslation.

Trust in God Trumps Understanding, Lent Part 4

Spirituality Column #229
March 29, 2011
Current in Carmel - Westfield - Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Lenten Series 2011: Just Not That into God, Part 4
Trust in God Trumps Understanding
By Bob Walters

Some people are just not that into God because He’s too big to fully understand.

He’s infinite, eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent … and we’re not.

We seek the truth, chase the good, and pursue righteousness. God actually is all those things. He’s the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The “good” is all that resides in and with Him. His righteousness is the final answer.

In our humanness, we require an intellectual middle ground for discussion, rationale and knowledge. We crave to learn but we need context. We strive to form an opinion, find the logic, or settle an issue. God is different. Way different.

“My thoughts are not your thoughts,” God tells mankind plainly in Isaiah 55:8. God is so big He hides from knowledge as we define it. “God,” theologian Joseph Bottum notices, “reveals himself only to faith.”

As people we have a contradictory mix of good and bad in us. Our human truths have limits and conflicts. We debate righteousness. We divide our loyalties on a sliding scale of convenience between human concerns and divine providence.

On truth, good and righteousness, God is everything, but He’s not a mix of anything. He’s an absolute, not a sliding scale. We want logical answers, and God wants obedient faith. When we trust with faith, God makes sense. When we trust with logic, we trip over syllogisms.
For example: If God is everything, and evil exists, then God is evil. Blame God.

Wrong answer. Try it again with discernment and faith.

When we encounter evil – and evil assuredly exists – it is because something is in disharmony with the perfection of God. The starting point is: God is good and created a perfect world. Since the sin of Adam, “… the whole creation has been groaning,” we read in Romans 8:21-23. We’re in “bondage to decay.”

Examples are everywhere: an earthquake in Japan, a ruthless dictator in Libya, my friend’s baby granddaughter diagnosed with cancer. Our faith must surpass all understanding, trusting God to shoulder every tragedy borne of a fallen world, earthly sin or human mortality, and ultimately make the world right.

Make the world right. That was the work of Jesus Christ on the Cross. Trust in that, and God starts to makes sense. His ultimate, eternal compassion isn’t about the greatness of our understanding; it is about the greatness of God’s faithfulness.

Now that’s big.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) predicts that if we understood God, we’d want a bigger God we didn’t understand.

Blessings

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?

Sold on Faith, Not on Sales

Spirituality Column #223
February 15, 2011
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville – Current in Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Sold on Faith, Not on Sales
By Bob Walters

Looking back on the Super Bowl and Valentine’s Day, are you at all weary from being in the cross-hairs of America’s high powered marketing mechanism?

Be the MVP, we’re told. Everybody’s a VIP. Sit on the 50-yard line. Buy a big TV. Win love with a gift. Say it with flowers. And on, and on.

Back in the late fall there was all the election hoopla, followed by Christmas. More marketing. Vote now. Buy this. Consume that. Experience the magic.

As consumers we are bombarded with sales messages encouraging us to maximize our personal feelings of importance. That’s the coin of the realm these days – personal esteem – and oh how it’s laid on thick, aimed at our hungry egos.

Is it any wonder that churches often struggle to create effective marketing plans? The whole world is telling people how to buy personal specialness and importance, and the message of Jesus Christ – of humility and service – is just the opposite.

Our world, or at least our nation, is filled with people whose profession it is to make sure we have fun and they make money. Through a trade, purchase, transaction or “deal,” our personal prestige is a commodity vigorously sought, bought and sold. We learn to be savvy, to trust no one, and to look out for Number 1.

Antithetically, Jesus Christ tells us to have faith, love God and love others. Our faith and love become our Christian life, loving the Christian community and serving mankind as best we can. No marketing, just trust.

For a consumer, that’s not much of a deal. But salvation is a gift, not a transaction. There’s nothing in it for the marketer; you can’t make money on free gifts.

In Philippians 3:20 we read, “Our citizenship is in heaven …” I haven’t always “gotten” what that scripture meant. But I recently read an interesting theological/political commentary which described “consumers” and “citizens” as opposite sorts of creatures. A consumer waits for the best deal and looks out for himself. A citizen focuses his or her own life on selfless service to others.

The difference is the basis of relationship. As a consumer, it’s money, pride, “me” and maximized value. As a citizen, it’s love, truth, service and the right thing.

Our relationship with Christ is a tough sell, because it’s not a sale; it’s a gift.

No purchase necessary.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) spent most of his career in public relations, frequently at odds with marketing people.

Finding Christ in Christmas, Part 4

Spirituality Column #215
December 21, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Finding Christ in Christmas, Part 4
By Bob Walters

I wandered away from religion as a teen and no part of college or career the next 30 years pointed me toward God, church, or Jesus.

Not that I especially wanted it to, or expected it to.

Little about secular society points us to anything resembling Truth. Do your own thing. Believe what you want. Try to do something nice for others once in a while, but look out for No. 1. Half truths, blind ignorance and personal arrogance are completely OK with Satan, the lord of this life’s shiny falsehoods.

But I’m a sucker for tradition and, church or not, when Christmas rolled around every year I was hungry for the “Spirit of Christmas” I knew so well as a child.

Presents were a minor part of it. Our feast was always Christmas Eve, during which Dad played a German recording of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. Before saying grace he read the beautifully lyrical King James Version of Luke 2:1-14 …

And it came to pass … Mary was great with child … no room in the inn … firstborn son … swaddling cloths in a manger … shepherds in the field … sore afraid … multitude of the heavenly host … fear not … good tidings of great joy …

For unto you is born this day a savior ... Christ the Lord … Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

The first time I tried to read that to my own young family, I had a hard time finding a Bible in the house, a harder time finding the verse, and no clue why the words had changed (different Bible translation). I was in my mid-30s.

In my mid-40s I finally “got it,” the truth of that annual Christmas heart-tug.

The Holy Spirit on behalf of the Savior patiently abides – waits – and when given the chance, lights our yearning for Christ, for truth, for love. After all, that’s what God is, and our yearning for Christ grows immense because God is immense.

Satan works overtime to darken the truth of the season but I wish we would all “get it” that Jesus Christ arrived on earth and became flesh (John 1:14) to save us all (John 3:16). That’s the light of Christmas, the reason for the season.

And why not find Christ in Christmas? He’s been looking for us all along.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) worries not when Christ was actually born, but rejoices that in fact He actually was.

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.

Throwing God's Weight Around

Spirituality Column #210
November 16, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Throwing God’s Weight Around
By Bob Walters

“My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:30)

That is Jesus talking to the Galileans about resting their souls in Him. Jesus isn’t saying “take Me lightly.” Jesus is saying that since God the Father Almighty and Creator of All Things has committed all things to Him (11:27) – think about it – the smartest play is to take Jesus very, very seriously.

Jesus is saying – to the weak, the weary, the beat down, the sinners – that He is the answer to all questions, provides the strength to face all problems, and shows us with humility and gentleness that our faith is safe with Him.

Thankfully, most of us enjoy an occasional earthly success when we feel upbeat instead of beat down. Jesus is telling us that in Him, our own joy can be a permanent condition, not an occasional symptom.

This good news follows some really bad news in verse 20 when Jesus denounces the cities that heard Him teach but did not repent. “Woe to them,” He says.

There was a long period when I was not secure in my faith in Jesus Christ, but there was never a time as a church slacker, agnostic or whatever (don’t know if you can relate) that I would have wanted to bear the weight – with the certainty of having heard it from Jesus Himself – of Jesus the Son of God denouncing me.

“Woe to Bob …” Yikes.

That weight, the weight of God, is more than we can imagine. Jesus Christ on the Cross is what makes that weight bearable.

And you know, God throws His weight around. God’s weight, in fact, is an almost perfect way to describe God’s Glory. When God appears, his weight makes the earth quake. We see it over and over in the Bible.

Life being the surprising banquet it is, I found myself in Dallas, Tex., on a recent Sunday morning sitting with my elder son Eric in Northway Village Church, listening to Matt Chandler preach an engaging, convicting, 50-minute-that-seemed-like-20-minute sermon about God’s glory, weight, and reality.

Have we learned yet that God doesn’t flex His muscles for us, but for His own glory? Have we learned that the purpose, point and power of our own existence are to seek and understand the reality, weight and glory of God?

Only in Jesus Christ can we know it, bear it, and hopefully reflect it.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) urges you to pray for Chandler, his family and the 10,000 or so weekly “Village” attendees. Matt is battling brain cancer.

Blurry Survey Sees God

Spirituality Column #209
November 9, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Blurry Survey Sees God
By Bob Walters

A much-ballyhooed news story recently reported that 95 percent of Americans, according to the new book “America’s Four Gods,” have an opinion what God is like.

In a (presumably random) survey of 1,648 adults, God was broken into four pieces – Authoritative, Benevolent, Critical, Distant. “Which of these is how you view God?” was the question. The results came back evenly divided among the four. Five percent of respondents said they are atheists or agnostics.

And that, the authors claim, is how Americans see God. I would guess, too, that the secular news media was happy to see that mystery solved: “Here’s what people think of God. Next question.”

Oh dear. We do like to put God in a box, don’t we?

Here’s some news: We can’t divide God.

Presumably the comforting aspect of the survey for non-believers is that God can be a “settled thing.” Here’s what God is, here’s what people think, here’s how people behave who think about God in certain ways. If we can just define God, I took the story to say, we can get on with the truly important affairs of our lives. You know, our needs.

While I am thankful and joyful to have God to think about, to praise, to worship, man’s opinion of God does not define God; God defines God.

Better to ask, “What is God’s opinion of man?”

Psalm 8:4 eloquently pleads of God, “… what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?” The all-time best answer for that one came in the person of Jesus Christ, when God arrived on earth. Talk about huge news.

A survey of who believes that will sort out more about the current state of man’s relationship with God than any survey assessing man’s opinion of a divided God. God sent Jesus into a fallen world amid broken humanity, because the Truth is … God loved us, and wanted us back.

The totality of God is unknowable, but the part of God that is in our hearts is to be treasured. We should pay Him back by loving and trusting his Son, and by rejoicing in the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Surveys and knowledge don’t really do that. God reveals Himself only to faith.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com), beginning his fifth year writing this column, thanks and congratulates Current publications for four years of being a light in this community.

Hearing Music Between the Notes

Spirituality Column #207
October 26, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Hearing Music between the Notes
By Bob Walters

“Be still, and know that I am God.” – Psalm 46:10

There was a 30-year period of my life from my mid-teens to my mid-40s that I didn’t go to church and was utterly without conviction about God.

God was quiet and I wasn’t listening anyway.

College and career and home and family filled life’s gaps. The idea of “going to church” or “being a Christian” seemed a grim, limiting, monochromatic, spirit-shrinking, intellect-killing enterprise.

My experience since coming to Christ has been the opposite of that. Any Christian who strides humbly but confidently in his or her walk with the Lord can relate to the joy, wonder, color, freedom and thought of Christian life.

I’ve been reading A Place for Truth, a thought-inspiring new book which recounts various “Truth” discussions at leading U.S. college campuses sponsored by the Christian Veritas Forum. Jeremy Begbie’s dissertation on music revealed to me new and surprising dimension and depth of the faith experience:

Christians must learn “to hear between the notes.”

Begbie is a theology professor at Duke Divinity School, an Anglican priest and also a classically trained musician. In his 2007 presentation at Cal-Berkley, he talked about musical tonalities and meter; about tension and resolution. There is a “beat” in music, Begbie noted, the same way there is a “beat” in our lives, and a meter in mankind’s relationship with God.

Exhibit A is the Bible. God’s interaction, silence, and surprises are easily compared to the movements of a classical symphony where properly placed pause or a tension-filled passage leaves us gasping for resolution.

Spiritual “silence” is not uncommon in our lives. There are, quoting Begbie, “in-between times … when it seems God is on vacation … when grace doesn’t seem very amazing anymore.” That’s when it’s time to listen “between the notes.”

Recount the Old Testament’s trials and truths; then consider God’s silence before the appearance of Christ, signaling the salvation of mankind.

Jesus Christ, Begbie teases, “is the Big Downbeat” providing humanity with the expectation, hope, and discipline for the symphony yet to come. God’s silence should be for us a time of prayer and trust in God’s resolution, not despair.

Once I only paid attention to the simple melodies and dissonant noise of life, with no clue how to appreciate the divine music between the notes.
Now I know that God is talking then, too, and it is joyful to listen.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) has great appreciation for great music, but no musical talent.

Sin, Knowledge, and Faith

Spirituality Column #203
September 28, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Sin, Knowledge, and Faith
By Bob Walters

Why does one believe in Jesus Christ?

Is it to:
a) Escape one’s sin,
b) Increase one’s knowledge, or
c) Because our faith tells us to?

Defining and justifying one’s belief in Christ can be a lonely, confusing enterprise.

Our increasingly schizophrenic, postmodern society systemically tries to both acknowledge truth and deny the existence of God, self-righteously insists on goodness but scoffs at morality, and smugly claims heaven as its own while rolling its clouded eyes cynically at the person of Jesus Christ.

But clear-eyed to Christ some of us are drawn. All are invited in grace, but the world tugs hard against the heart that hears the heavenly hearkening of Jesus.

Sin generates pleasure and fear, and fear pulls some toward the Cross. The pursuit of pleasure, of course, pulls the other direction.

If Jesus is presented merely as a “get out of jail” pass, some will misinterpret that as a divine call rather than the selfish, empty escape that it often is; for guilt always focuses on us, not the Lord.

Knowledge is the exclusive province of Christ. He is the Word of God from the beginning of the world (John 1:1), and knowing Christ – which is the New Covenant brought by Jesus – is the only way to know any part of God.

But alas … who pursues Christ in order to obtain knowledge? Secular science has replaced the throne of God as the public seat of knowledge. Where in science does one find grace, or mercy? Facts, please. Let us discover the facts.

“The postmoderns,” to quote Joe Bottum, “say there is neither Good, nor right and wrong.” Justice becomes an opinion or an open-variable equation. Do the math; there is no God.

Faith is an agonizingly simple enterprise. The intuitive examine their heart. The aware learn from experience. The intellectual study the evidence. God is near. Be still, and know it (Ps. 46:10).

Proving faith is agonizingly difficult. I can prove faith only as I can prove love … by my actions, by my joy, by the depth and fullness of my life. Yet the proof is in my heart and, like all eternal things, unseen (2 Corinthians 4:18).

Believers may arrive at Christ’s hem quaking in guilty fear, or possibly seeking ultimate wisdom. How real and wonderful it is when the indefinable quality of faith animates the undeniable fact of God in our soul.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) weeps for those whose walk with the Lord is a guilt trip. The best answer is C.

Whose Crown is it, Anyway?

Spirituality Column #192
July 13, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Whose Crown Is It, Anyway?
By Bob Walters

“And on his head are many crowns … ” Revelation 19:12

Just before Satan “gets it” in chapter 20 of Revelation, the Bible’s final book, the resurrected and heavenly Jesus Christ is dramatically described in Revelation 19 as an avenging conqueror called “Faithful and True” that nobody in their right mind would “mess with” (obviously my words, not the Bible's).  Of Christ is written …

The “roar of a great multitude” shouted “Hallelujah!” to Christ.  Twice.

“With justice he judges and makes war.”

“His eyes are like blazing fire.”

His robe is “dipped in blood.”

“Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations.”

He will rule with “an iron scepter.”

“He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.”

His name is “the Word of God.”

His name is also “King of Kings and Lord of Lords.”

And in the middle of all this we learn that “on his head are many crowns.”

This … is our loving, gentle and humble savior? The Lamb of God?

You bet.   He is also the righteous warrior who defeats sin, releases the world from death, and seals our eternal salvation by throwing the “beast,” the “false prophet,” and Satan into the lake of burning sulfur to be “tormented day and night” for all eternity.

I want to be on the Conqueror’s side. I want to glorify Him. I want His righteousness and power to battle Satan when I sin, and I desperately want His forgiveness to intercede with God the Father on my behalf when final, eternal, “lake of burning sulfur” judgment is handed down on my soul.

Not that there’s, uh, anything to worry about.

Serious business, this salvation. Yes it is. And that “sword” coming out of the Conquering Christ’s mouth? We can be sure that sword is “Truth.”

In this life we are pretty much on a death march if Christ is absent from the picture. That’s not to impugn any other religion; it’s just that eternal salvation by faith is an utterly unique aspect of the truth of Christ. No other theology teaches that.

The many crowns of Christ aren’t the vanquished; they are the believers who humbly and faithfully follow Him, and accept His gift of salvation.

And if you are working hard to get your own Christian crown … you’re missing the point; the crowns go on the head of the Conqueror.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) loves the hymn, “Crown Him with Many Crowns.” It’s great advice ... crown "Him," not "me."

Gimme that Old Time Religion, Part 2

Spirituality Column #190
June 29, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Gimme that Old Time Religion, Part 2
By Bob Walters

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
– Preamble, U.S. Constitution

“… Blessings of Liberty …”

Did you catch that?

“Blessings” – capitalized in the original – is a God and faith word, not a secular, non-faith word. It’s a word that assumes a Creator and more importantly assumes a relationship with that Creator.

Yes, one could argue that a blessing can be as secularly simple as doing something nice for someone else, but that’s a good deed. One can also argue that all the nouns except “defence” are capitalized in the Preamble, but that’s grammar.

I would argue that Blessings are God-inspired things, and that words like “Blessings” and “ordained” clue us into the intent of the Constitution’s framers – that for this grand venture of American democracy to succeed, God needed to be not only on our side, but in the very hearts of the republic’s newly empowered and free citizens.

Given that Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Benjamin Franklin were all more deist than conservative Christian, and that secular humanism was the philosophical fashion of the age (and especially of the Founders), let’s not worry for now whether 18th century America was founded as a “Christian Country.”

Let’s instead focus on the immense, frontier-penetrating Christian revival, the Second Great Awakening, that almost immediately followed our nation’s birth.

Revival is when the Holy Spirit works to reveal the Gospel truth of Jesus Christ. And regardless of the “Christian Country” debate, America with its unbridled freedom was surely a nation of unlimited personal opportunity, an unimaginably vast expanse of land, and with no establishment church, previously unknown religious openness.

Americans proved thirsty for the Gospel message. In many ways we were a people without tradition. New directions and snap judgments fueled the ferocious growth of the nation. The population physically grew away from the Protestant religious establishments of the East. The independent pioneers went west, and independent Bible preachers followed.

The Holy Spirit knew the opportunity was ripe to shine the light on Jesus Christ from sea to shining sea. The old rules were left behind, and Bible revival was on.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) can’t think of a worse hindrance to freedom – and brotherly love – than state religion. More next week.

Wholly Imitating Holiness

Spirituality Column #187
June 8, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Wholly Imitating Holiness
By Bob Walters

We can never go wrong shining a light on Jesus Christ.

And the most assured way to do that is to imitate God by being holy.

How are we holy? Surprisingly, not by being sinless (we aren’t), not by being divinely loving (we fall short), not by being perfect (only God is perfect), and not by going to church, reading the Bible, shouting “Amen!” or haranguing non-believers.

Holy is a special assignment.

“Holy” can mean many different things, few of which any of us would typically apply to humans. But God (Leviticus 11:44-45, 19:2, 20:7, 1 Peter 1:15-16) tells us to “be holy as I am holy.” And as we are told frequently in the Bible to “imitate” or “be imitators” of God, what can we do to carry out that assignment?

I’ve often wondered about that, and heard a pretty good answer on the radio a couple weeks ago (Today in the Word, WGNR 97.9, May 25, 2010).

We can be holy in the same way God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are holy in the Trinity by shining the light on Jesus Christ.

In theology the Trinity is called the “economy,” which refers to the working relationships within the Godhead. Jesus willingly submits to God, and the Holy Spirit willingly places all focus on Jesus Christ (John 14:26, 16:13-15).

We imitate God and obey His command “to be holy” when we imitate the Holy Spirit and put Jesus Christ center-stage. We are holy when we focus on Jesus Christ.

Naturally, believers and non-believers alike balk at putting Christ first, which means putting Christ first in everything – in our work, in our love, in our lives, in our nation, in our community, in our world, in our knowledge. In everything.

Most people have a problem putting Christ first on Sunday; heck, some have a problem putting Christ first in their church. They’d rather not mention His name. They’d rather put Jesus Christ in a convenient box of human restrictions, making it easier to focus on their (our) human desires.

It’s wrong to think, “Hey, I’m a good person. God will take care of me. Jesus isn’t a big deal.”

When God says, “Imitate Me” and “Be holy,” God is saying “Jesus Christ is a very big deal.” We’re holy to do it, and wise to believe it.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) knows he is more unholy than holy, but appreciates the opportunity to shine a light on Jesus.

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 Meaning of Life

Spirituality Column #174
March 9, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

The Meaning of Life (it can’t be that easy … )
By Bob Walters
Author of the book: Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

What is the meaning of life?

Many philosophers, spiritualists, deep thinkers, academics, theorists, Darwinists, humanists, humorists, dreamers, artists, odds-makers, rascals – and more than a few theologians – make the answer to that question more difficult than it needs to be.

The answer, the capital-T Truth, is built into Christian doctrine: life means seeking God, praising God, loving God … and loving other humans as we love ourselves. Our faith in Jesus Christ on the Cross – that He erased our sins so we may have eternal life and fellowship with God in heaven (John 3:16) – is the Truth’s straight path and narrow gate (Matthew 7:13-14).

Looking around us, it is hard to imagine this life should be dedicated to God and other humans because so much of it seems to be dedicated to ourselves. Our innate fear of death, our natural appetites (some sinful, some not), a culture that exalts self, even our God-given freedom, all conspire against our trust in Christ’s new covenant and new creation, which divinely calls us not to selfish power, but to selfless, sacrificial love.

God promises this new covenant in the Old Testament (Jeremiah 31:31), and Christ delivers it in the New Testament (Luke 22:20). St. Paul explains that when we allow Christ to live in our hearts, we are a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). With this comes new meaning for our lives.

Is life’s meaning founded in loving our family, neighbor and nation? Only if we understand it is God Who authored and gives meaning to love.

Is life’s meaning money, wealth, power … or fear? Each can wreak spiritual destruction – as can poverty or ill-health – if loving God is not one’s first priority. Love is an exercise of our God-given freedom; but love isn’t something we create. We think we do, but … we don’t. We can’t.

“God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16). Period. Believe it.

A personal relationship with Christ that truly gives one’s life peace, joy and meaning “beyond all understanding” (Philippians 4:7) is not what the above earthly thinkers readily or willingly accept as life’s meaning.

They put too much “me” in meaning, and too much “I” in idea.

Life’s true meaning is only in us if Christ is in us, and if our faith is in Christ, because life’s meaning is Christ.

Know what I mean?

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) quotes the Westminster Catechism of 1647: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him for ever.” Amen.

Saved From, or Saved For ... What?

Spirituality Column #170
February 9, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Saved From, or Saved For … What?
By Bob Walters

In accepting Jesus Christ as our Savior, are we being saved from something, or for something?

Much Christian evangelism describes and sells the fearsome, high-stakes, eternal spiritual consequences of not being saved from one’s sins, from guilt, from death, from everlasting damnation, from Hell, from perpetual pain and from being forever vanquished from the presence of God. Be saved or burn!

Yikes. Sign me up.

But, wait a minute. How do I process that “saved from” message if I’m a reasonably intelligent, rational, functional, productive, loving, decent, free and generally informed good-citizen non-believer?

I probably recognize – but rationalize – my own sins, let guilt abate over time, don’t really “get” death because I haven’t been there, think of “damnation” more as a cussword than a curse, don’t see how Hell could be much worse than some parts of this world, have survived some pretty awful pain in life, and cannot conceive "forever."

Presence of God? “Show me.”

Terrifying fear, guilt, sin, death, pain equals what? Joy in the Lord Jesus Christ? Faith, hope and love? Excuse me? “No thanks. I have enough problems of my own.”

Christ’s great gift is so often misrepresented. I know a dear Christian brother who will occasionally say to an Orthodox icon of Jesus, “My friend, I feel sorry for you.”

“Saved from” evangelism should mean we are saved from our guilt, fear, and sorrows, not bludgeoned by Salvation. Christ died a horrible, real human death to erase our sins – yours, mine, everybody’s – and in his resurrection remade fallen humanity into a new spotless Creation before God; cleansed with and covered by Christ’s blood.

With faith in Christ we can approach physical life trusting God’s grace and love, and physical death with the certainty of salvation: everlasting, sinless, loving communion in Heaven with God Almighty.

The magnitude of that cleansing gift is as big as God.

I am a flawed, limited, human servant badly in need of His eternal, divine washing. Christ wants us to accept that gift, find strength in that gift, believe in that gift … but I can’t imagine that he wants us to feel miserable because of that gift.

When did you ever give someone a gift in order to hurt them?

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we are saved for love and for communion, from everlasting to everlasting. Have faith. Repent. Rejoice and be glad.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) understands pain is a powerful sales tool, but salvation is a gift, not a product.