God and Man: Who's Seeking Whom?

Spirituality Column #220
January 25, 2011
Current in Carmel, Westfield, Noblesville, Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

God and Man: Who’s Seeking Whom?
By Bob Walters

Do we seek God, or is God seeking us?

Often lost in “seeker-sensitive” worship is the truth of what Jesus Christ’s earthly mission actually was. He was sent by God to seek us and bring us back to His flock like the shepherd who looks for the lost sheep in the New Testament parable.

Too often it’s marketed in churches that Jesus is entirely about “paying for” our sin and that our guilt should make us love Jesus. I can’t think of a worse way to describe God’s love, the work of Jesus Christ, or the reason for the Holy Spirit.

Folks, we’re sinners and we have to understand that. But fear and guilt will never help us find God; they only create focus on ourselves. Read the Bible and know that God already dealt with our sin by loving us and courageously giving His son.

When we immerse our “faith” in guilt and shame, we reject God’s love and free gift of salvation. We make God’s divine love a transaction or a payment plan instead of letting him just give it to us on His terms … on faith.

What does John 3:16 say? "For God was so mad at the world that He killed His only begotten Son so believers would be guilt-ridden forever?" No. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Then comes the clincher in John 3:17: Jesus was sent into the world “not to condemn the world” but so “the world through Him might be saved.”

It’s easy to become so focused on “seeking” or “finding” God that we forget that the greatest revelation of God’s grace and love was the fact that He already sent His Son humbly – without sin, into a fallen world, to seek us – to restore us to the perfect communion with the Godhead in the Kingdom of God, “not to condemn us.”

So don’t obsess over seeking God; He’s already seeking us. The biggest part of trusting God is trusting that He is looking for – and looking out for – each of his sheep.

Take some terrific Old Testament advice from Psalm 46:10, “Be still, and know that I am God.” Over and over Jesus says that with faith in Him, we’ll be saved.

He’s telling us the truth.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com), noting that Jesus Christ came to find the sinners not the righteous, is thankful to have been found.

Trillion Dollar Question

Spirituality Column #148
September 8, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) Carmel
Current in Westfield (IN) Carmel

Trillion Dollar Question
By Bob Walters

A traveling preacher in our Sunday pulpit recently had what appeared to be a stack of 100-dollar bills peaking out of the top of his shirt pocket.

An animated, engaging, energetic orator, the guy removed his sport coat early in the sermon revealing the visible, rectangular ends of several dark, greenish “bills.”

I was embarrassed for him at first. I thought maybe he’d been paid for the preaching gig in cash, and the money was indiscreetly exposed.

Sometimes I over-think a gag.

‘Turns out the “bills” were faux currency; the presently popular “Obama Trillion Dollar Bills” that have a Christian tract on the back. The idea, he enthusiastically preached, is to approach a stranger, or group of strangers, distribute the gimmick “Obama Trillion” (or “Michael Jackson Million” – both are available online), and as the unwary souls giggle and examine the fake cash they’ll turn it over, see the Christian tract, and … um, be saved.

Wonderful … a sucker punch for Christ.

Have I got this right? Let’s save the lost by blending our natural human avarice – “hey … is that real money?” – with a cult-inducing celebrity?

And as long as we’re trolling for the unsaved – the lost and unknowing; the spiritually weakest among us – let’s put the most draconian, condemning “Gospel message” imaginable on the back, and scare people into the perfect, loving arms of, and eternal communion with, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Are you kidding me?

The tract – which includes the phrase “God sees you as a lying, thieving, blasphemous adulterer at heart” followed by John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son …” – is not only contradictory and confusing but … terrifying.

Which is it? Does God hate me or love me? And before you answer, consider that John 3:16 is a direct quote from Jesus – God Incarnate – while He was alive as a human on earth. “God so loved the world,” it says, and that means before, during and after Christ’s sacrifice.

God loves us sinners today just as much as then – His love is eternal – and He wants us to find our divine freedom from death through our love and faith in Christ.

But trying to trick the lost into salvation with a scary, ill-defined and theologically suspect message on a fake paper idol?

Not exactly grace that sticks, nor an appealing picture of Christian love.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com) notes that it was love, not trickery, that defined early Christians. See Acts 2:42.