Remembering to Forget about Me

Spirituality Column #225
March 1, 2011
Current in Carmel - Westfield - Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Remembering to Forget about Me
By Bob Walters

How often we sit in church during a worship service – I know I have – imploring God for a way out of, through or around life’s cataclysms.

God’s glad we’re there talking to Him, and we’re glad He’s there to talk to. God’s available anywhere, yet sitting in church is where most of us feel closest to God’s ear.

But worship isn’t supposed to be about us or our present situation, good or bad. Worship is about God the Father, Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit, not about “me.” We lose the best part of worship if we focus on our problems and desires rather than immersing ourselves in the true, powerful heart of worship, the heart of Jesus Christ.

The Christian life is about loving God and loving others. Jesus Christ is our example of what a Godly human life looks like. His love, peace, mercy, forgiveness, service, grace and more are outwardly directed manifestations of a life dedicated to God and humanity. For us those virtues can become vices if they are instead directed inwardly, selfishly … truly impeding our ability to worship God.

We don’t put a lamp “under a bowl,” says Matthew 5:15 (also Mark 4:21 and Luke 11:33). A “lamp on its stand” – Christ’s light in a Christian believer’s life – “gives light to everyone in the house.”

Christ’s life, death and resurrection are His light shining on us and bringing mankind back into communion with the Creator God. Our worship should reflect that light, remembering Christ’s unparalleled Kingdom gifts of defeating death, erasing sin, and restoring us to heavenly relationship. That’s bigger than anything I’d be praying for.

The bread and the cup of communion represent the closeness and reality of our covenant relationship with God through Christ, and with the community of believers with whom we share it. It’s a meal of love, a meal of remembrance, a meal in the here and now that attaches us to the eternity of God’s love, and to the eternal gift of Christ’s obedience, sacrifice and fellowship.

The fastest way to richer worship is spending more time outside of church praying. St. Paul tells us to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). Amen. We should praise, pray, ask, thank, confess and witness in all that we do, all the time.

And when it’s time to worship, forget yourself and free yourself.

It’s all about Thee, not me.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes that if one’s approach to worship is “What’s in it for me?”, by all means, go and find out.

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.

Life of the Party

Spirituality Column #111
December 23, 2008
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Life of the Party
By Bob Walters

And the Word became flesh … John 1:14

Above everything else, Christmas is a celebration of life.

Almost everyone in our culture, believing Christian or not, figures out a way to celebrate this “Winter Holiday” even if they can’t figure out what to do with Jesus: the Christ Child, co-equal in the Holy Trinity with God the Father and the Holy Spirit.

We endure the tortured public rhetoric of political correctness – sure, sing a song in the school “Holiday” show that proclaims plainly “Christ the Savior is born,” but whatever you do … don’t call it a Christmas show – yet we all share the innate sense that there is something divinely special about us being alive.

God very obviously feels exactly the same way.

God came to us, through Jesus Christ, to save us. Yes, we are sinners and we needed to be saved in a way that we could not save ourselves – we cannot cure our own sin. But until we realize that God came because He loves us (John 3:16), not to punish us – Jesus, after all, is love – we cannot truly understand how very, very, very special this gift of life is.

Christ came because God knew we needed Him even though, as it says in John 1:10, “His own received Him not.” You can argue that “His own” refers to the Jews, since Jesus was in fact a Jew. But with the arrival of Christ, we all – Jew and Gentile – became “His own.”

Satan loves it when Christmas is about anything other than Christ. Satan – Mr. “Winter Holiday” – is the purveyor of death and darkness. In our God-given freedom, we find all kinds of ways to sin, to run from Christ and convince ourselves that dying with Satan through sin is better than living with God in light through Christ.

Do you get it? Satan equals Death. Christ equals Life … and Christ is the author of each of our lives because He, God, in fact became flesh like us.

That is the true meaning of Christmas.

The big deal at Christmas isn’t just that Jesus Christ is born, and born for everybody (again, see John 3:16).

The truly big deal at Christmas is accepting, believing and knowing that Jesus Christ is Life, Light and Lord.

Go tell that on a mountain.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) wishes all a profoundly blessed and Merry Christmas. If you feel the magic, you feel Christ.

Life, Lights and Truth

Spirituality Column #110
December 16, 2008
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Life, Lights and Truth
By Bob Walters

And the Word became flesh … John 1:14

The flesh and blood arrival of Jesus Christ on earth as a human being – the Incarnation of Christ which we celebrate with Christmas – brought something brand new to the human experience: divine light and divine truth.

And something else: communion with God.

It’s a great example of the Bible’s consistency.

Think back for a moment to Genesis 1. Consider that God, with his Spirit hovering over the darkness of the deep, both created light and separated light from darkness on the first day. He didn’t get around to creating the sun and stars – the sources of physical light – until Day 4.

Now jump forward to John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The “Word” of course is Christ who became flesh, that part of the Holy Trinity which animates Creation, gives us life, breath, and freedom, and enables faith, hope and love.

What Genesis and John are saying is that Christ and the Holy Spirit are, from the beginning, with God. John 1:4-9 goes into some detail about light, and – read it again – is defining Christ as the Light of God we learn about in Genesis.

The light of goodness, the truth of knowing and our very lives are a great start to the infinite and eternal list of things God gives us in Christ.

Regarding our holiday season, I love Christmas lights. I think they are cheerful and poignant and sentimental and a wonderful expression of love. I could do without the fake deer and blow-up Santa’s, but the Christmas lights we put on our trees and houses are a bright reminder of the light and truth Christ brings into the world.

Sure, the date of Christmas is keyed to pagan festivals that celebrated the lengthening of the days after the winter solstice Dec. 21, not to the (likely) October or springtime birth of Christ.

But think … Who created the days? Who gave us life? And Who is the source of light and truth? The date doesn’t matter, because the gift is eternal.

Christ’s arrival showed us that God would come for us and show us a way to be in communion, despite our sins, with a God who is good, righteous and unchanging.

That is a truth that deserves to be put up in lights.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) rolls his eyes when he hears anyone suggest there is a more important symbolism of Light at Christmas than Jesus Christ.