WWJD? - No Ifs, Ands or Buts

Spirituality Column #262
November 15, 2011
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

WWJD? – No Ifs, Ands or Buts
By Bob Walters

Christians ask “What Would Jesus Do?”

A better question is “What DOES Jesus Do?” An even better question is “What does Jesus do that is a model for my life?” And an even better question than that is “What IS Jesus doing in my life right now?”

Asking what Jesus “would” do splits a couple of linguistically problematic hairs.

A common critique of “WWJD” is that it comes dangerously close to putting “me” in the place of Jesus. Becoming “like” Christ (Philippians 3:10), and actually being Christ, are two vastly, massively and dramatically different things. Jesus commands us to love God, not to be God (thanks to Satan, Adam and Eve learned that one the hard way). Jesus said, “Remember me,” not “Be me.” Be careful.

Also, the word “would” signifies what grammar class calls a subjunctive mood or “conditional” phrase; it implies “if” and introduces doubt. Jesus is not an “if,” He is eternally God and human. Sectarians debate the “nature” and personhood of Jesus after the resurrection but the Bible says He is eternally fully God and fully man.

That’s the final answer, mystery and all. “Jesus is,” not “Jesus if.”

Certainly our earthly, human lives are full of subjunctives, contradictions, ifs, ands, buts and maybes. I project my worldly pride and fight for my “rights” yet often realize later, I’m not in the right. Other people see my failings, which robs my integrity, and I hate when that happens.

Jesus had perfect integrity and never wavered in his responsibility. Not one thing about Jesus was “proud” but everything about Jesus had integrity. Jesus came as a servant (in Greek, dulos, “slave”) without pride or rights, only responsibility to God. He was steadfast in that integrity, and the prideful Pharisees and many others hated Him for it.

If we are shooting for “like Christ,” the starting line is to emulate the integrity of Christ’s commitment to God.

On the up-side, “WWJD” very importantly puts Jesus in our lives today, as in … “What Would Jesus Do … right now?” We don’t “carry that old rugged Cross” because of what happened, like the hymn says, “On a hill far away.” We carry our cross today because Christ is alive today, and because what Jesus did “once for all” with grace and passion on the Cross perpetually restores our eternal human relationship with God the Father … a relationship that perpetually renews with our ongoing faith in Christ.

Jesus is never past tense, and is never woulda’, shoulda’, coulda’.

Jesus is “I am.” Right now, and forever.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) observes that pride and rights are almost always about “me,” and that integrity and responsibility are almost always about God.

© 2011 North Faith Publishing

Fate is a Fickle Fashion

Spirituality Column #258
October 18, 2011
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Fate is a Fickle Fashion
By Bob Walters

Fate, which rationally explains nothing, is often the secular world’s crutch for explaining everything.

It’s a great way to blame God without, you know, actually believing in God.

The ancient Greek, Roman and other cultural mythologies typically cast the Fates as three goddesses of 1) things that were, 2) things that are, and 3) things that are to be. Intricate stories and great epics were written around past, present and future favors, curses and justice visited on various characters by the Fates.

Mankind has always wanted explanations and answers, and the less culpability any one person has for his or her specific actions, the more comfortable the theology. Fate today is the land of “stuff happens,” “it is what it is” and “it’s not my fault.” That’s not exactly a theology but it certainly is a highway to blissful unaccountability, tort-happy lawsuits, and maybe even spiteful, generational victimhood.

“Don’t blame me” is fate’s bumper sticker; “I’m going to blame something else” is its implicit message. “Don’t talk to me about God” is fate’s no-fly safety zone.

Faith – specifically Christian faith – puts God in our midst with the incarnate humanity of Jesus Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The Bible, the church, and the immutable faith in my heart are exhibits A, B and C for the enormity of the Godhead against the smallness of fate.

A living God really complicates and messes up the blissful ignorance of fate-focused living, for faith in God requires much that fate does not. Faith in the Trinity takes commitment, study, action, creativity, wisdom, willful intent, patience, perseverance, humility and total personal involvement.

Fate requires none of that. It asks only resignation, diminishing life by destroying hope and limiting dreams. Whether life seems good or bad at any particular moment or over any stretch of time, ugh, it’s stifling to think, with fate, “this is all there is.”

For all of its demands, faith’s greatest gift is joy – the long-term condition of hope, peace and trust in the goodness of the Creator God no matter how crazy life gets.

It’s puzzling to me how the non-believing world can so comfortably and fashionably believe in fate which can only hurt them, yet refuses to believe in the grace of Jesus Christ, which can only help them. “Fate” is accepting the work of the lord of this world, and that lord, my friends, is Satan.

Satan wants us to worry about explaining everything; knowing our Lord Jesus Christ gives us the peace not to.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) sees belief in God as both rational and reasonable, albeit indefinable. Some conundrum, huh?

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.

Childlike Faith, Grown Up Love

Spirituality Column #216
December 28, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Childlike Faith, Grown Up Love
By Bob Walters

It’s easy to think the Bible has it backwards telling us to become like a child (Matthew 18:3-4) when we are working so hard at being grownups.

But maybe we get the “grownup” thing wrong. If I have one prayer going into the New Year it’s that I never “mature in my faith.” The wonder of Christ is so much fun, so exciting, so big, so interesting, so deep, so comforting, so assuring, so challenging and so complete that the last thing I want to do is have my faith get old.

Consider that “being a grownup” in the societal context is generally about earthly works – responsibilities, problem solving, more responsibilities. Ever notice that? Satan sure does. He’d much rather have a responsible adult worried sick about earthly travail than have a responsible adult with a childlike faith in God. The latter doesn’t give Satan much to work with.

Having the ability to lay anything at the feet of Christ is the kind of grownup I want to be. I’m fine with responsibilities; it’s a joy when we can trust each other. Most of us have been on both sides of that one, though. We’ve sometimes trusted the wrong people, and maybe on occasion we have been entrusted with the wrong things.

The point here is that childlike faith knows God can be trusted all the time, every time. It knows God is the good, the right, the eternal; that God can do anything but actually does everything according to His own plan. God gives us the freedom – love’s foundation – to make up our own minds about our faith.

Childlike faith? I think that means, “no doubts.” It definitely doesn’t mean “unquestioning.” Have you ever known a child that didn’t have a million questions? God loves that! “Ask and ye shall receive” (John 16:24) isn’t about Christmas presents. It’s about God’s grace and mercy. Ask for that, and believe.

I know plenty of people who define the completeness of their adulthood by “knowing what they want and getting it.” Satan’s plan is to get us to focus on the things we want so that we either second-guess or completely ignore the things God wants.

Certainly that sounds childlike (childish?), but have you ever known a parent who wasn’t second-guessed or ignored despite their child’s neediness?

Christ on the Cross proves our Father loves us anyway … even the grownups.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) hopes you’ll enjoy childlike faith in the New Year. When you can feel God smile, you’ve succeeded.

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.

Finding Christ in Christmas, Part 2

Spirituality Column #213
December 7, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Finding Christ in Christmas, Part 2
By Bob Walters

You’ve seen the word “Dolby” on audio equipment or at the movies, right?

Named for inventor Ray Dolby in the 1960s, “Dolby Noise Reduction” electronically masked the omnipresent “hiss” (background noise) of audio tape recordings and movie film. “DNR” enabled the massive stereo cassette tape industry of the 1970s and 1980s. “Dolby Surround Sound,” introduced in 1975, redefined cinema sound tracks and theater audio systems.

My brother-in-law Bill, an electrical engineer (Master’s degree from Purdue), explained Dolby Noise Reduction to me once. He fashioned a graph that mimicked musical staff paper.

Recording-tape friction and recording-machine vibrations, he explained, created unavoidable hiss and rumbles – noise – at predictable frequencies when tape is recorded and when it is played back. Dolby electronically compressed nuisance noise frequencies and expanded the desirable music frequencies.

Anyone old enough to have hit the “Dolby” button on a tape player likely remembers the magic – just music, no noise! Modern Dolby digital cinema surround sound quality is even more astonishing in its life, clarity and depth.

Do you ever wish, like I wish, that we could hit a Dolby button to remove the secular junk noise from the Christmas season?

How wonderful to be surrounded by only the magic, wonder, depth and astonishment of Christmas; to know simply and clearly that God arrived on Earth as Jesus Christ the Son of Man to remove our sins, to intercede unceasingly with God on our behalf, to offer us the gift of adoption into the Kingdom of God, to give us eternal life, love and peace with Him at the right hand of God in Heaven.

Yet Satan hisses at us like a snake, and the earth rumbles with mistrust of man’s misguided faithlessness. Happy Winter Holiday! Alas …

How soothing to remove the hiss, rumble and noise of a greedy world busily promoting holiday commerce while it sneeringly conspires to stifle the spirit, silence the truth and disrupt the simple harmony of saying “Merry Christmas.”

Blessedly, God provides us with many Christmas “Dolby buttons.” We can pray, read the Bible, go to church, talk to a priest or pastor or a trusted Christian friend.

We can do for others and give of ourselves.

Yes, we can find Christ in Christmas. We can pray. We can beseech the Holy Spirit to silence the noise in our hearts, and surround us with the love, life, clarity and depth of Christ.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) appreciates the clarity of digital, but likes the realism of analogue. God, however, is not a recording.

Finding Christ in Christmas, Part 1

Spirituality Column #212
November 30, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Finding Christ in Christmas, Part 1
By Bob Walters

There’s an old theology joke about God playing hide and seek with man.

Everywhere God hid – mountains, oceans, stars, streams, books, paintings, culture, music and magistrates – man found Him. God succeeded only when an angel suggested, “Hide in the human heart; man will never look for You there.”

Then there is Dorothy, who needed only to search her heart and click together the heels of the shoes she was already wearing to find her way home.

And there is the wandering drunk who stumbled upon a riverside revival. He was grabbed and dunked. The third time the unwitting sot was pulled up out of the baptismal waters, the thundering preacher once again demanded, “Have you found Jesus?” The soaked and stammering man gasped, coughed and sputtered, “I-I-I didn’t know I was supposed to be looking for him!”

So, three quick lessons. 1. God is always right here. 2. Home is where our heart is. And 3, the most underrated belief is to simply believe we’re supposed to look for Jesus.

Christmas is a great time to look for Jesus – the person of Christ, the Son of God, the unique and holy Word of God, the salvation of mankind ... the voice crying in the wilderness.

Jesus is especially easy to see this time of year. What does one think all the lights are for?

Notice loving people doing loving things for other people – buying gifts, preparing meals, decorating their homes, being hospitable. That’s the servant heart of the Lord Christ in action.

Yet we also notice the immense efforts of those trying to hide God, cloak Christ and make Christmas about worldly desires. That’s the wicked heart of Satan, the lord of the earth who exalts man over a God who Satan prefers people don’t seek.

At His earthly arrival, Christ wasn’t the powerful conquering warrior for whom the Jewish Nation awaited and prayed. Jesus was a helpless, humble baby born away in a manger to the frightened teenager Mary whose immaculate heart led her to obey God regardless of legitimate earthly peril.

And so Jesus came gently, I like to think, into that still, silent, good night.

Satan vigorously seeks to remove all that gentility, love, servant, humility, salvation stuff from the Christmas story, but commerce and greed are no match for the glory of God in Christ.

So be strong. Seek Jesus, search your heart, and find Christmas.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) notes that a great place to start one’s search for Christ is by reading Isaiah 40. More next week.

Defining Life in the Spiritual Lane

Spirituality Column #184
May 18, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Defining Life in the Spiritual Lane
By Bob Walters

Our Wednesday night Bible study weathered a lively exchange recently regarding whether human beings were mortal or immortal before “The Fall” of Adam and Eve.

Most of us in the Western church assume that if not for the sin of Adam and Eve, we would physically live for ever. Death, Genesis 3 seems to say, only entered the world after Adam and Eve’s sin of trying to be like God without God: eating from the tree of “God’s knowledge” at Satan’s tempting against God’s strict orders not to.

It turns out there is more than one school of thought on original immortality, even though most of us have heard only the one above. At issue are a couple of fairly major topics:

- God’s intention of Natural life vs. Spiritual life

- God’s intention of death in Creation.

Our teacher – a former Cambridge lecturer, Bible translator, and expert on Eastern Orthodoxy – cited Patristic (Church Fathers) sources suggesting that God created humans as He did all other life, to live a natural life and die a natural death. What makes humans the “image of God” is our spiritual immortality, not our physical immortality. It’s our Spirit life that sin puts to death, and our Spiritual death that Jesus Christ hung on the Cross to defeat.

This our instructor said to a room full of thoughtful Evangelicals, schooled in “Sin Brought Death,” not “Natural Death Happens Anyway.” It was a split, animated discussion. It was Western St. Augustine vs. Eastern St. Athanasius.

Evangelicals like straight, dependable answers, with straight, dependable definitions for faith’s day-to-day questions: What is sin? What is forgiveness? What is grace? What is life? What is death? What is salvation?

Thing is, anyone can learn “about” God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, church history, other religions, meditation, faith systems, theology. For these pursuits, definitions are helpful and can make religion seem easy, if superficial. Defining a relationship – actually knowing someone, like God, for example – defies labels.

God’s goal is not our mastery of definitions or doctrine. God is hungry for our loving, freely-found relationship with Him through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit; and our love for each other.

God gave us a brain to discover Him, and learn. Let’s not sell God, or ourselves, short with narrow definitions. There is a big history of Christianity that precedes modern religious “definitions.” Learn, and love, all you can.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is going to read “Scandal of the Evangelical Mind” by Mark Noll, and will report back.

Of Disasters and Salvation

Spirituality Column #181
April 27, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Of Disasters and Salvation
By Bob Walters

“What we know about Jesus Christ tells us everything we need to know about God.”

That was a pretty good comment in a recent sermon by our co-preacher Daron. He was making excellent points about how we try to assign common social roles to God (sheriff, judge, Santa Claus, dad), separating God from Christ.

I got to thinking, “Man … how true is that?” We figure God will give us stuff and spare us pain if He likes us, which only happens if we do good things. “Watch out for God!” we think. “It’s Jesus who loves us unconditionally, while God is that horrible, wrathful guy from the Old Testament.”

No. Don’t ever separate God and Jesus. Here’s why.

Consider a few “must know” things about the person of Jesus. One is that He was fully man and fully God. Another is that He was blameless.

See? Fully God, and blameless. Was, is, and always will be.

That means just as Jesus loves us, God loves us. And just as Jesus is blameless, so God is blameless. Hebrews 1:3 says “the son (Jesus) is the … exact representation of his (God’s) being.”

But don’t we just love to blame God when bad things happen? 1 Peter 4:11 is crystal clear, “… that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ.” We’re supposed to praise God, not blame him.

So who do we blame?

Looking closely, it is the fallen world that is to blame. Examine Adam and Eve and the Fall (Genesis 3). The perfect, good, ordered world God created has been groaning ever since. Disasters are evidence of that.

Remember that the Lord of this “world” – Lord of the Bad Stuff – is Satan. When we peg our miseries on God, we are missing the peace and joy that a right relationship with God brings.

And we are cutting Satan slack he doesn’t deserve.

Disasters, cruelty, disease, assorted miseries … nobody ever blames those worldly things on Jesus, yet we are quick to blame them on God. Even our insurance policies call them “acts of God.”

They aren’t. They are acts of a Fallen World. God is “the Good.”

Don’t worry about whether God loves you; Jesus proves that He does. Worry about whether you love Him back. That’s our Salvation, and our only shelter from the disasters we encounter in this world.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) thanks Daron Earlewine at E91 Church for the wise words. (Update: Daron now preaches at various churches around Carmel and continues his "Pub Theology" ministry.)

Too True, Too Wonderful, Too Hard

Spirituality Column #177
March 30, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Too True, Too Wonderful, Too Hard
By Bob Walters

When “The Passion of the Christ” was released in 2004, I joined hundreds of local folks at a pre-screening of the film.

When it first appeared in stores, I bought the DVD.

Now years after that first theater viewing, the DVD is still in the wrapper and I’ve never seen the movie again.

It was that kind of movie. Our sin is that kind of awful.

Too many people debate the wrong elements of that film. They complain it is anti-Jewish, it is too violent, it includes story elements that aren’t in the Bible, the androgynous Satan / serpent character is too creepy, the theology is “old school,” producer Mel Gibson got a DUI and drunkenly made racist comments, Gibson’s father is a nut-case Holocaust denier, conspiracy theorist, and Vatican II crank.

Satan just loves it when he can pull us off point.

You see, the point is that the Cross of Christ’s crucifixion shows us the reality of our sin, and the depth of God’s love. The truth is that the Cross of Christ is not a picture of God’s wrath; nor does the Bible anywhere call it punishment or payment. Christ on the Cross is a picture of God’s grace with Jesus bearing the infinite burden of our sins, erasing them with his death, and defeating death itself with His resurrection.

It was the world’s evil and the wickedness of man – Satan – that beat and bloodied Christ. Those are a fallen world’s sins and our individual brokenness for which sinless Jesus suffered pain and humiliation, which are so realistically, shockingly, disturbingly, horrendously and mercilessly depicted in The Passion of the Christ.

If we blame God – or Mel Gibson or his dad or the Church or the Jews – for what happened on the Cross, we are blame-shifting something for which we must take full responsibility, and for which we must be willing to claim in faith as the ultimate truth:

- That I am a sinner and Christ died so I wouldn’t have to.

- That the victory of the Cross is our freedom from death; our salvation.

Do I believe that? Oh yeah.

What the innocent Jesus – fully man and fully God – endured to provide my salvation could not have been God’s hate and retribution; it could only have been God’s love.

But oh, I loath being reminded how the victory was won.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) knows other people who saw the movie, and then bought the video but never watched it.

Christ-likeness ... WWJD, Really?

Spirituality Column #156
November 3, 2009
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Christ-likeness … WWJD, Really?
By Bob Walters

What Would Jesus Do?

For starters, Jesus would glorify and obey God. Jesus would love others as an expression of his humanity, resist Satan as an expression of his divinity, and resist temptation as an expression of his humility.

Of course, Jesus Christ did not act in the subjunctive realm of woulda’, shoulda’, coulda’ or maybe. Christ’s example was one of assured actions and definite faith. His words were wise, kind, insightful, harsh, shrewd, mystical … but always God-honoring, always memorable, always true.

Christ performed miracles most of us, really, don’t expect to perform. In fact, if we ever think we have performed a miracle … I mean seriously think we, me, I personally have performed a miracle … think again. It’s Christ, not us.

We are fallen souls in a fallen world, yet it is miracle enough for me that in Christ, our souls can soar even in circumstances of despair. Experiencing real love, real beauty and real grace are eternal gifts we can’t earn. Jesus gives them freely.

Trying to earn forgiveness? Christ on the Cross already erased our sins.

You’re not a believer but you see love, beauty and grace? Of course you do.

Just because a person doesn’t believe in Christ, that has no bearing on Christ’s love for that person. Christ came for everybody, with truth for everybody. Christ didn’t exclude anybody. That’s what Jesus does.

We can only exclude ourselves.

Perhaps most importantly, impossibly, dangerously and miraculously, God pursues a personal relationship with each of us. We are divinely given freedom to choose and an intellect to discern whether we accept that relationship through Christ. Many people do; many people don’t. Again, God doesn’t separate us; we separate ourselves.

So, can we be like Christ? Is Christ-likeness something we should seriously shoot for? Is “WWJD” the same as “WWID”, What Would I Do?

Yes … and no. Of course we should love and serve others, rebuke Satan, resist temptation, praise God, be humble, thankful, and give God the glory for our successes. Christians, like Christ, will endure the world’s scorn. We must strive to preach, teach, and share God’s word as best we can, study and reflect Christ’s teaching, and be an example of grace for others. But there is a limit.

In the Gospels, there are 20 times when Jesus says, “Follow me.”

For heaven’s sake, don’t follow me, or anyone else. Follow Jesus.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) quotes the Notre Dame football movie Rudy, “There is a God, and I am not Him.”

The Straight and Narrow

Spirituality Column #154
October 20, 2009
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

The Straight and Narrow
By Bob Walters

None of us should congratulate ourselves with righteous satisfaction simply for believing Jesus Christ is Who He says He is.

Satan knows more about the person of Jesus Christ – and exactly Who He is – than any of us possibly can. So, knowing Christ puts us about even with Satan, who thoroughly understands and willingly acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God.

What makes us different from Satan is that he can not, will not, and does not love Jesus, nor can Satan live eternally in Heaven with the loving God Almighty.

We can … if we want to.

As a practicing, believing and flawed Christian – I think that covers most of us who consider ourselves inside the global Christian communion – I am heartsick when I meet people seeking a “higher consciousness” or a “secret of life” in popular culture who dash past Christ trying to access precisely the things Christ promises.

We fear death. In Christ, we needn’t fear death.

We seek a purpose. In Christ, we have one: to love and glorify God by loving and glorifying each other.

We feel guilty for our sin. In Christ, we are forgiven our sin.

We search for truth. Jesus Christ is the way, and the truth, and the life.

Our intelligence, our creativity, our industriousness, our freedom, our love, our very being – are the creation of Christ. If you think there is any other possibility, get out your Bible and re-read Genesis 1-3 and John 1. The capital-W “Word of God” is Christ.

To Satan’s satisfaction, countless people and institutions around us labor mightily to put curves in a path we know in our hearts is only straight, and to widen a gate that we know in our hearts is only narrow. Philosophy and open-mindedness are virtuous until they rob us of the greatest of all spiritual gifts, the divine Holy Spirit without Whom we cannot fathom God’s love, Christ’s truth, or the Word of God in scripture.

At a funeral recently I heard a message delivered powerfully. “If you choose to lead this life with Christ, then you will spend eternity with Christ. If you choose not to live this life with Christ, then you will spend eternity without Christ. The hard part is, once we die, you don't get to choose.”

Satan is the robber baron of our eternal well being. Choose now, while you can.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) suggests reading 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12. Love the truth and be saved.

Binding Arbitration

Spirituality Column #152
October 6, 2009
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis North Suburban newspapers)

Binding Arbitration
By Bob Walters

Sorry if this upsets any well-meaning prayer warriors out there, but what in the Devil – if you’ll excuse the phrase – are we talking about when we pray to “bind Satan”?

It sounds sincere, comforting and authoritative to pray to “bind Satan,” “bind the enemy” or “bind demons,” but it is an arrogant, gross misreading of scripture – and a violation of scripture – to think we as Christians have that kind of power.

Jesus Christ, and only Jesus Christ with the authority of the Cross – i.e., God – has the power to bind Satan. And Satan is as “bound” as he is going to get until Christ binds him completely forever and ever in the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10). Until then, Christ has bound Satan only to the extent that the Gospel can not be extinguished.

On Earth few of us will personally deal with Satan; he has bigger fish to fry. Still, we have no power to further bind Satan or even the lesser demons who most definitely “mess” with us any time we give them an opening.

What we can do is bind ourselves to Christ, talk to Christ, praise God and stay as far away as we possibly can from addressing Satan or demons or evil spirits. Even the Archangel Michael, who handles Satan (Jude 9, Revelation 12:7), is careful to only rebuke Satan, not accuse him. Accusing Satan is exclusively God’s job.

Yet Christians bend Bible verses to errantly claim Godly authority over Satan.

For example, the commonly cited “bind” and “loose” language in Matthew 18:18 is specifically about early church discipline, not empowering humans to enforce prohibitions on Satan. That Heaven will “bind” or “loose” the unrepentant or repentant describes the authority of the early church to discipline its members.

In context, Matthew 18:15-22 has nothing to do with Satan, or for that matter, with binding/loosing sickness, wealth, angels or poverty.

Christ uses the same words in Matthew 16:19, describing the establishment of His church. Heaven will respect the founding of the church, not give Christians individual dominion over Satan.

Other misinterpreted “binding” verses include Revelation 12:11, James 4:7, 1 Peter 5:8-9. The Biblical message isn’t “bind Satan;” it is “resist Satan.”

It’s smarter, then, to pray fervently in Christ’s name for wisdom and discernment in detecting Satan’s lies; but we should never, ever think our prayers bind Satan.

Look around; are anyone’s binding prayers working?

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com) suggests Googling “binding Satan,” or searching the topic at BrentRiggs.com. Cling to Christ; rebuke Satan. Amen.

And In This Corner...

Spirituality Column #145
August 18, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

And In This Corner …
By Bob Walters

Let’s say life is a boxing ring.

If you think God is in the other corner, I’m here to tell you that is never the case.

Satan is the opponent we battle; God is always in our corner.

When the worst of the worst things happen in our lives – loss of a loved one, death of a child, encountering incalculable injustice, tyranny, suffering, or disaster – why do we blame God instead of Satan?

“How could God let this happen?” we ask, we demand, we plea.

But the enemy is never God. The enemy is always Satan.

Perhaps we blame God because deep in the soul of every human heart we know God, know He authors faith, hope and love, and want to trust His merciful perfection. We also know Satan, know he stands for merciless evil, temptation and death, and yet somehow overlook Satan’s authorship of imperfection.

In an oxymoronic but consistent human switch, we blame our miseries on God instead of Satan.

What our hearts tell us about God is true – He is merciful, perfect, and He knows us. Yet much about God baffles humanity; His thoughts and ways are higher than ours (Isaiah 55:8). We want to understand Him, but too often can’t.

The deeper I go in my Christian faith, the more I understand that God – the Father, Son and Holy Spirit – is always my advocate for righteousness.

The Bible tells me so (1 Samuel 26:23, Romans 4:24).

I think it’s a mistake to look at the Bible primarily as a history book, a rule book, or a science book. When we do that, we get lost in literalism and lose scripture’s central point, which is that the Bible is a relationship book … the comprehensive story of and operating manual for mankind’s relationship with God and God’s Creation.

That relationship, in Christ, is centered on God’s righteousness and His will for our salvation, period. God created a perfect world (Genesis 1 and 2), and we’ll end with a perfect world (Revelation 21-22). For now, though, we reside in a fallen world.

God is our strength and refuge in time of trouble or distress (Psalm 46:1, 59:16, Jeremiah 16:19), while Satan delights in destroying God’s perfection.

We ask God to take away our pain, because we know Satan won’t.

Good heavens, if you are going to blame somebody, blame Satan.

He’s in the other corner.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) knows that a good corner-man in boxing will always tell you the truth, no matter how much it hurts.

Choose Your Weapon

Spirituality Column #144
August 11, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Choose Your Weapon
By Bob Walters

Those of us who choose to follow Christ know we are in a spiritual battle.

But we aren’t the only combatants on the field.

Christianity teaches that every human soul is in a battle against Satan, and that the only possible victory in that battle is with faith in the eternal redemption promised by Christ.

No faith in Christ; no eternal salvation. John 14:6. Game over.

It sure makes things easier for Satan – who through temptation coaxes us to rebuke God, Christ and the Holy Spirit – when we ignore what the Bible says about salvation and figure God can’t be mean enough to have a place called Hell.

But that’s the battle line. Satan is out there working tirelessly to undermine our faith, blind us to the reality of Hell, understate the reality of Jesus Christ, and overstate our ability to save ourselves. Hell is Satan’s eternal turf, and thanks to The Fall (Adam and Eve, Sin, etc.), we’re all candidates for residency.

Wonderfully, blessedly, we can opt out of Satan’s scheme. When we profess faith in Christ, we have declared war on Satan, taken a step toward heaven, and a step away from Hell.

But don’t ever make the mistake of thinking Satan won’t fight back.

Satan’s favorite weapons are lies and temptations. He’ll try to come get us. Satan understands the miracle of what God has fearfully and wonderfully made in humanity; what God has knit together in our mother’s wombs. Anyone of us is a handsome prize in Satan’s eternal trophy room.

What we politely call “our walk with Christ” should maybe more rightly be called “our battle against Satan.” If we keep our faith in Christ, we win; that’s the “Victory” we like to pray, praise and shout about.

So what weapons do we marshal in our battle against Satan?

For starters, the love, grace and mercy of Jesus Christ. When those are central in our lives, we resist Satan’s weapons. We also have the Bible, our church, our families, our priests, pastors, spiritual leaders, elders and others who love us and teach us to walk in the Light of Christ.

But developing a personal and unshakeable faith in God’s love, grace and mercy – demonstrated by Christ on the Cross and by our witness of love for God and others – creates a righteous and Godly shield that dulls Satan’s sword when he attacks.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) sees selling Christianity with guilt, fear, condemnation, prosperity or healing as missing the point – badly – of God’s love, and instead playing into Satan’s temptations. But that’s just his opinion.

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.

The Rationalism of Sin

Spirituality Column #131
May 12, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

The Rationalism of Sin
By Bob Walters

The first two chapters of Genesis and the last two chapters of Revelation – the front and back of the Bible – tell us that the world was created without sin and will end without sin.

The bad stuff starts in Genesis 3 when Satan appears and tempts Adam and Eve. Satan’s run ends in the lake of fire in Revelation 20. Bracketing the intervening Biblical chaos are Genesis 1-2 and Revelation 21-22, which describe sinless worlds far different than the one in which we currently live.

I love the Creation story, and deeply cherish the promise and hope of Heaven. In the beginning God created an earthly world He repeatedly declared “good.” In the end He describes an eternal heavenly home – The New Jerusalem – that offers perpetual communion and perfection in the company of Jesus Christ. No sin, no death.

But the reasoned reality of right now in the life all around us is the fact of sin and the fear of death.

Concentric to that reality is the world’s postmodernist, sliding-scale morality that assigns disbelieving relativity to good and evil, and mushy equivocation to truth and falsehood.

A Christian should be able confidently to describe good and truth as the light of Jesus Christ, and recognize evil and falsehood as the darkness of Satan. Alas, today’s prevailing intellectual winds paint assuredness in the divine unseen as irrational, and ascribe cultural tolerance and philosophical certainty only to self-truth and situational morality.

A hundred years ago, author G.K. Chesterton recognized the first glimmers of rationalist postmodernism and argued a somewhat brief yet brilliantly entertaining case against it in his classic 1908 book Orthodoxy. In 100 years, the book has never gone out of print.

Chesterton, now proven prophetic, wasn’t so much arguing against postmodernism as he was arguing for the reasonableness of Christian belief.

He paints reason in tones of openness of mind, describes doubt as a sure sign of sanity, and lists imagination and wonder as indispensable tests of mental function.

Some months ago I was enthralled by a centennial review of Orthodoxy written by Baylor professor Ralph C. Wood that appeared in the November 2008 First Things magazine (the article can be accessed for free at FirstThings.com, search Orthodoxy Chesterton).

Reason and rational thought, Chesterton assures us, are never the preemptive domain of those who claim sin and evil are irrational. It’s the believers who are sane.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes: the first and last chapters of the Bible have no sin, and Christ frequently describes himself as “the first and last.” Interesting, huh?

Nothing Left to Ask For

Spirituality Column #118
February 10, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Nothing Left to Ask For
By Bob Walters

Fifth in a series on The Lord’s Prayer

After the salutation, “Our Father, who art in heaven,” – essentially, “Hello, Creator God Almighty” – there are seven petitions in the Lord’s Prayer. Three are “thy” requests about God; four are “us” requests about people.

Hallowed be thy name: God please let me care for Your holy name enough to lift myself and others up toward You, to recognize Your love for this world, and not drag You down into our earthly filth.

Thy Kingdom come: Your kingdom is truth and good. If You are absent, O God, nothing can be good, our hope is gone, and the world will be in ruins. Give us a listening heart; it is Your kingdom, not ours.

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven: With the freedom you alone give to us, help us learn to love You and our neighbors, not just ourselves. Help us to make Your will our first priority. In heaven, Your will is absolute; may earth become heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread: You acknowledge our earthly needs; how can the presence of Jesus, the bread of His body, teach us a greater truth than this? Help us to turn our cares over to You, and to renew our trust and faith in You each day.

And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us: Forgiveness is what You give us through Christ and, to honor You, what we must learn to continually give to others. Whether we say trespasses, debts, or sins, only Your loving forgiveness solves the destructive guilt of our human and earthly transgressions.

And lead us not into temptation: Jesus, Job and countless saints have suffered, but the Great Tempter is Satan … and Satan alone, for the Evil One hates God’s righteousness. In our human suffering, O God, You purify our lives or glorify Your name with trials, but let our faith in You reside steadfastly. You are the source of all strength.

But deliver us from evil: O Lord, do not give the Evil One more room to maneuver than we can bear; we can only lose ourselves when we have lost You. Our faith enables us to see You; do not let evil take faith from us.

As St. Cyprian famously said, “When we pray, ‘deliver us from evil,’ there is nothing left to ask for.”

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) recommends a thoughtful read of Chapter 5 (on The Lord’s Prayer) in Pope Benedict XVI’s 2007 book, Jesus of Nazareth, which inspired this five-part series and heavily informed this final installment.

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.

Smile When You Say That

Spirituality Column #103
October 28, 2008
Current in Carmel (IN), Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Smile When You Say That
By Bob Walters

It’s hard not to notice the anger hanging thick in the air this political season.

Between the two – anger and the political season – I think the more important and dangerous issue for Christians is anger.

Anger is a spirit and Biblical issue for all seasons.

Broadly, there are two kinds of anger … righteous anger and selfish anger. Both are based on fear, but on two distinctly different kinds of fear.

One fear is the reverent, righteous fear of losing something we love … like our communion with Christ. Our “Fear of God” should be understood in this way, as an expression of our commitment to love Him.

We also must understand that God’s Old Testament anger is about His love for us; His wanting to protect us from the dumb, destructive things we do with the freedom that He gives us.

And by the way, are we all agreed as Christians that we are supposed to use that freedom to find Him, love Him, and worship Him? Not to find, love and worship ourselves?

The other fear is the self-centered, “or else” kind of fear that makes us afraid something bad will happen. It causes the foolish anger Proverbs warns against – the fear of punishment and condemnation; the fear that destroys love.

Selfish anger is an outgrowth of Satan’s evil grip on our world and, too often, on our individual lives.

Believe me when I say I’m not preaching here from some elevated pulpit. Controlling my worldly fear and anger is perhaps the most difficult part of my Christian walk, because I know I have a fearful, angry, worldly beast within me. Satan knows it too.

The upside of being able to simply say, “Jesus Christ is Lord,” and mean it in a way that only the Holy Spirit can teach us how to mean it, keeps that miserable beast of worldly fear and anger in chains.

Then the real upside of a Christian’s experience … peace, joy, hope, faith. love (see Galations 5:22-23) – even in a political season – is truly ours.

So … smile when you’re in church. Smile when you pray. Smile because the sincerity and depth of your love for God is a gift of grace you could not earn.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), still thinking of this political season, reminds all to smile when we can obey Proverbs 15:1 and let our “gentle answer turneth away wrath.”