grace
Breathing God’s Love In and Out
by Linda Rex
My care of my mother during her end of life is teaching me to value simple things like taking another breath, being able to take care of my own personal needs, and being able to have coherent thoughts and express them. And I see how God is in the midst of even these mundane, yet essential, parts of life.
It’s amazing how the simple things in life have such powerful lessons for us as human beings. Take, for example, a breath of fresh air. We breathe for the most part without even knowing we are doing it.
If we were to take a moment and consciously breathe in and out, we would notice not only the sound we make while doing it, but also the movement in our body. This is an essential event that happens every moment of our lives and our body, unless it is ill, just seems to know when and how to breathe so we can continue to live. It knows when it is not getting air and reacts in a way that tries to ensure than another breath is taken before it’s too late.
When God breathed life into Adam, he set a whole stream of things into motion that scientists today are still trying to figure out. The human body, with its ability to metabolize oxygen from the air around it, is an amazing piece of architecture. And it’s so much more than that. Each human being is a soul.
As a soul, there is a life that goes beyond the life we see and experience as we take a breath in and out. This life transcends the physical. There’s a spiritual element, something that involves the heart and mind, the reason and the emotions. Something within us connects us to one another, and to a life that is other than our humanity. We find ourselves considering such things as life beyond death.
God created us for relationship—it’s built into us. We connect with others and they connect with us. We connect with God, because he made us, and he took on our humanity in Christ and intimately connected us with him. Connections between human beings and between humans and God are a natural part of our existence.
Yet, some of us find ourselves resisting relationships, or being unable to have healthy ones. We may shut people out, or close ourselves off from building relationships with other people for many reasons. When we do this, we are actually cutting ourselves off from God’s divine Breath—preventing our spiritual lungs from breathing full breaths of air.
It is in relationships that God moves to heal, transform and grow us as individuals. Our encounters with other people provide the means by which the Holy Spirit tends to our hearts. Our souls or inner beings grow thirsty, twisted and hard when we do not have healthy, nurturing relationships in our lives. So much mental and emotional ill health comes from having grown up in families or circumstances where relationships were unhealthy and did not reflect the divine life and love.
Spiritual community among believers should be a place where God’s love and life are seen and experienced in an ongoing way. The gathering of God’s people should be a place where the breath of God renews, refreshes and cleanses people. It should not be a place that is abusive, cold, rigid, hard and condemning. Rather, it should be clear that the Holy Spirit is breathing life into all who are gathered there for fellowship and worship.
Those who have relationships with believers ought to experience this same invigorating, life-renewing love. A real breathing in of God’s life and love ought to occur when someone encounters a follower of Christ. They should walk away encouraged, blessed, renewed and comforted.
This breathing in and breathing out of God’s love and life ought to be for each of us as natural as our breathing in and out of the air around us. In God, we live and move and have our being, Paul wrote. So not only is our breathing of air an essential part of our humanity, so is our breathing in and out of God’s love and life by the Spirit.
We are connected at such a deep level with God and each person around us, that sharing God’s love and life with others should be as natural as the next breath we take—we shouldn’t have to struggle with being able to do it—it’s a part of who we are in Christ.
So as we ask God’s Spirit to awaken Christ within us and to make us more aware of the life and love we are already participating in through him, maybe we can begin to see that following Christ and loving others is just simply being ourselves. Caring for one another’s needs, comforting one another in the midst of our hurts, and having compassion for the hurting are just a natural part of our being—it’s who we really are. Really, it’s just as simple as breathing in and breathing out.
Dear God, thank you for each breath I take today. May I live with you and others in such a way that your Spirit breathes life and love moment by moment into all my relationships. Through Jesus our Lord, amen.
“And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” John 20:22 NASB
When God Judges—Grace Happens
By Linda Rex
This morning as I was getting ready for the day, I paused to watch a news story with my mom. It was showing the many refugees from Iraq and Syria who were crossing into Europe in a desperate effort to find peace and safety. Later I came across a news story on the Web about how the German government in one area had to ask the people to stop being so generous to the refugees—they were being overwhelmed with provisions.
It seems on the one hand we have a horrible situation occurring in which people are being murdered, assaulted, and driven out of their homeland, while on the other we have gracious and compassionate people offering help in an impossible situation. Good and evil juxtaposed in the midst of tragedy and despair.
But isn’t this the human condition? Haven’t we come to this same place over and over?
I was talking with a person a while back who believed that Jesus is coming back on the day after the Jewish holy day of Atonement. He had his reasons for this belief all figured out and in his mind they made sense. It made me think back to all the times when I was growing up and heard different preachers telling me similar predictions which never came true.
When we look around at the horrors and tragedies going on in the world today, our hearts as Christians cry out, “Even so come, Lord Jesus!” We want to be free from our human messiness and finally have justice done to those who are evil, and receive our reward for our faithful obedience to Christ.
It is easy to see God’s judgment as the final revelation of God’s wrath against evil human beings and governments. The events described in the Revelation of St. John are understood by some as a forecast of what’s going to happen when Jesus finally returns and makes everything right.
In the midst of our broken humanity, which we face day by day, we can’t help but admit that we are unable to fix our problems. We cannot get people to stop shooting one another, no matter how many gun laws we enact or guns we take away. We cannot get people to stop divorcing each other, no matter how many counseling sessions we offer or warnings we give about how it’s going to hurt the children.
Little toddlers still go to bed hungry and teens are still sold as slaves. Large companies still misuse resources and foul the earth. People still use people and crimes are still committed. Wherever I turn, I’m hearing Christians declare we’re at the very end now because our American social system is allowing gay marriage. Our human brokenness meets us at every corner—we cannot escape it.
When I think about all this, I can come to the conclusion that the only thing we deserve as humans is to have God come in judgment and destroy us. And quite honestly, I’m not so sure that Christians are that much different than the general population, especially considering how far short we fall from the ideal. So even though we think we’ve got a good thing coming, we’re not necessarily deserving of any different treatment from anyone else if we are to get what we deserve.
It seems to me that we, humanity as a whole, are all in the same boat. The only difference is that some of us believe that Jesus Christ is God in human flesh, and that he came to save sinners. If Jesus came to save sinners, then all of humanity is in the category of people who are saved by Jesus Christ, his life, death, resurrection and ascension.
For believers, our faith in Christ is a gift from God and it is undeserved. It does not make us superior to or more perfect than anyone else—if anything, it is a participation in the judgment Jesus took upon himself—he became sin for every human being and offered himself in our place when we deserved total destruction. In many ways, our participation in Christ is also our willingness to be offered on behalf of others so they might be saved as well.
So all this nastiness going on in the world, this evil which preys upon the good God created all things to be, is not something God intended for us. We allow and participate in evil because we are human and it is our proclivity to do so. But God works in the midst of it to bring light into the darkness. He brings his love into the hate we much too often give ourselves over to. He brings mercy in the midst of judgment.
Indeed we need Jesus to come again and set everything right. But Jesus has come and put everything on the right basis already—founded upon his very being as God in human flesh. He has established perfected humanity and invited each of us to live it out in relationship with him in the Spirit. He has offered each of us the power to live beyond our human brokenness in a new way of living and being that is predicated upon his power and love. He has sent his Spirit to indwell human hearts—so that we can have a new being and a new creation.
And yet he says to us, “Believe.” What we believe about him, about our world and about ourselves is a good indicator of how well we will live out the truth of our being. This world with all of its tragedies, devastations and evils is a good description of what happens when we refuse to believe that Jesus Christ stands in our place and is for us our perfected humanity. The ravaged, abused earth is a good reflection of what happens when we refused to acknowledge any Lord other than ourselves. We are, sadly, reaping what we have sown.
But isn’t that what judgment is? And God’s purpose in judgment is not to cause us pain but to bring us to the place where we choose light over darkness, where we choose to believe he is the only one who can save us. God’s judgment brings us to the realization that our way isn’t the way things really are. Our true reality as human beings exists in the person of Jesus Christ, God’s Son. It is when we start living in agreement with this truth that we find true freedom and real eternal life.
What so many of us want today is the cosmic destruction of all that is evil and the triumph of all that is good. But if we were to be honest with ourselves, none of us are ready yet to fully give up our autonomy. We still want to be able to call our own shots about things, even if we are Christians. Too often our beliefs are external to us rather than internal and a part of what drives us in every area of our lives. We are way too good at keeping God and Jesus at the fringes of our existence.
If Jesus told us today to stop doing something he believes is not what is best for us, would we do it? Even if it meant breaking off a relationship, becoming the laughingstock of social media, or ending up in jail? Or being singled out for genocide? Is God’s judgment on evil and his gracious love at work in you and me today to transform and cleanse us in such a way that we become all that we are meant to be in Jesus right now? Do we truly believe and trust in Jesus Christ? Is he our loving Lord? It’s worth considering.
Thank you, Father God, that your heart toward us is loving and good. Thank you for giving us yourself in your Son and in your Spirit so that we might be healed and transformed. Thank you for not leaving us as we are in our brokenness and darkness, but working endlessly to transform and heal us, and to bring us into your eternal light, through Jesus and by your Spirit. Amen.
“For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.” John 3:17–19 NASB
Consequently…
by Linda Rex
What would it be like to live life without any consequences?
Sometimes I think that this is what we all secretly want—to be able to do whatever we want without anything bad happening to us or others. It’s too often that I see or read about someone who closed their eyes to the consequences of something they were doing, even though they were hurting themselves or someone else. It is like when my babies played hide and seek by putting their hands over their eyes, thinking they couldn’t be seen, but standing in full view of everyone.
Do we truly believe, down to the core of our being, that we live life unobserved, all alone in the universe—just us and no one else?
Humanly speaking, I think it’s really hard to believe that any more, considering how many satellites circle this planet and how many cameras observe us as we go through our lives. Now we even have to worry about some hacker watching us through our technology. There’s just not much privacy any more.
But there is something in each of us that wants to live life as though there are no consequences. Life without any repercussions—no one caring what we do or don’t do: why is it that we want to live this way?
There is a time and place where each of us will be called to wrestle with the reality of life beyond our human life. There is an existence that goes beyond our next breath. We may not know what it is, but it is more real than the hand at the end of our arm.
Recently I followed the series “Proof” as they explored the possibility of scientifically determining if there was life after death. It is interesting when human beings try to quantify and scientifically evaluate spiritual realities. If it is not something that can be experienced, tested and evaluated according to the scientific method, then it is considered unreal. And yet there is something down deep inside that drives us to seek out the truth about life beyond this life.
We are more connected than we realize with the One who created all of us. Like the philosophers of old, if we do believe in God, we want to put him up in a heaven somewhere so we don’t have to deal with him until our life comes to an end. Then hopefully, he’ll be nice enough to let us live with him in that place, wherever it is.
But God isn’t the God who is separate from us—outside our cosmos somewhere. Rather, all that God created is held in him—he is God with us. As the psalmist wrote—wherever we may be—God is there. There is no escaping God’s presence. (Psalm 139)
Even more than that, God was not satisfied just to uphold the universe and all creatures in his loving hands. He took on our humanity and became one of us. He lived in our humanity, died and rose again as Jesus Christ. In doing that, he is connected to each of us in a union that is so intimate and close that we cannot escape it. And God sent the Spirit to awaken us to the reality of Christ in us. God has ensured that nothing can separate us from him ever again.
Oh dear. This means that whatever we do, think, or say is done, thought or said in God’s presence. And everything we think, do or say has consequences. We don’t live in a vacuum—even if we are standing on a mountaintop with no one around. God is present. God is real. And God knows, sees, and is a part of whatever we are thinking, saying or doing and we are a part of what he is thinking, saying and doing.
This puts a new spin on everything. Whether or not there are consequences really isn’t the point any more. Because now it’s all about relationship. We are intimately connected with the true spiritual reality and Source of our being. We live and move and have our being in him. We exist moment by moment in the reality that God lives in us—we share our being with the Lord of the universe.
And now Jesus Christ defines our true humanity. Consequently, we do not exist here on our own terms but on his. And that’s the rub—we do not want anyone dictating to us how to live our lives. We want to live without consequences.
So at some point we each have to come to terms with the true reality in which we now live—Christ in us, the hope of glory. We can continue to cover our eyes and try to deny this spiritual reality, living as though there are no consequences. Or we can open our eyes to the truth of the deep love that surrounds and fills us, and begin living in harmony with the true reality we are held in. We are free to choose.
And we live even now with the consequences of that choice—experiencing a sense of separation, loss, loneliness and hunger we were never meant to experience—or walking in intimate fellowship with the One who made all things, experiencing his joy, peace, love and grace day by day. We can begin now to participate in the heavenly realities we hope to share in for all eternity. May God grant us the grace to choose wisely.
Dearest God, thank you for sharing your very life and breath with us, and for coming so near as to share our very life and breath as human beings. Awaken us, Holy Spirit, to the reality of Christ living in us. We need to know you are real and present every moment. Grant us the grace to live in this true reality moment by moment, day by day. Through Jesus and by your Spirit we pray. Amen.
“Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.” Galatians 6:7–9 NASB
Covenant Relationships and Our God of Grace
by Linda Rex
One of the most difficult aspects of living in covenant relationship with another human being is coming to grips with the need for unconditional love and grace. Since most of our lives we work and live within the idea of making and keeping contracts, much of our culture is based upon this type of economic and social structure. So when we come to our relationship with God, as well as the covenant of marriage, it is easy to fall back upon this type of thinking and being.
This morning I was listening to Dr. James Torrance ask the question, “Is our God the Triune God of grace or is he a contract God?” His purpose for asking that question was to help his listeners consider the difference between a covenant and a contract. Most of us clearly understand what a contract is—an agreement between two people which can be broken if one or the other does not perform completely the requirements of the contract.
When we mistakenly assume that the covenant God made with Israel and humanity is actually a contract, then what happens is that we put the terms of the agreement in the wrong order: law, consequences, grace. But if we understand that God’s covenant is one of love and grace, and is unconditional, then we understand that the proper order is: grace, law, consequences.
In other words, a covenant looks entirely different from a contract. Torrance uses the example of a marriage covenant to describe the difference. If we think a marriage agreement is a contract (if you do this, then I will do that), then whenever one or the other members of the relationship fail to meet the other’s expectations, then the relationship is broken, and each person can walk away from the relationship at any time. There isn’t really anything to bind two people together if marriage is treated like a contract. You and I both know that at some point in any relationship, someone is going to fail to meet the other person’s expectations. It’s a given, because we’re human.
But in a covenant, unconditional love and grace come first. The commitment to the other supersedes all other considerations in the relationship. Two people agree to love one another no matter what may happen in life, no matter what they each might do. Then there is an understanding that whatever they may do or say to one another will have consequences for the relationship. But the binding of the two people together by unconditional love and grace keeps the relationship intact even when there is a failure at some point to meet the other person’s expectations.
This is what God did with Israel and what he did, in fact, with all humanity. God determined that he was going to draw human beings into relationship with himself. We as human beings have so often broken our part of that covenant just as Israel broke their part of their covenant with God over and over. But God has always been faithful to what he promised. He loved us prior to us loving him. He forgave us prior to us even knowing we needed forgiven. His love and grace are unconditional. This is true covenant.
This is where relationships get tough. Are we willing to forgive the unforgiveable? Are we willing to go the extra mile? Are we willing to keep loving someone who is all prickles and thorns?
You see, God loved Israel unconditionally. Over and over, he forgave his people all of their unfaithfulness to him. Were there consequences to Israel’s breaking of the covenant relationship? Yes—they experienced slavery, oppression and devastation. Even though God allowed them to experience the full consequences of their unfaithfulness to him, he, in time, laid down his life for his people, as well as for all humanity.
God’s love and grace were and are prior to any law. Law describes what a healthy happy relationship looks like and what the consequences are when people don’t live in ways that coincide with a healthy happy relationship. God’s love and grace were present and available even when Israel failed to keep their side of the covenant and experienced the consequences of it. God’s love and grace are also present and available to each of us, in spite of our failures to live faithfully and lovingly in relationship with our God.
Yes, God often allows human beings to experience the pain and devastation that comes with living in ways that break that relationship. And that is where we need to rethink how we handle our covenant relationships. It is easy to believe that in a marriage, if one person loves the other no matter what, then they have to accept whatever behavior the other person does even if it is harmful or involves infidelity or substance abuse. But we need to rethink that.
We are called to love one another unconditionally within the marriage covenant. If a person within the relationship is an addict and is causing destruction to the relationship and to themselves, is it truly loving to allow them to continue in that destructive behavior? No. So they need to experience the consequences of their behavior, but in such a way that the covenant relationship remains intact if at all possible. Love calls the broken person to healing and wholeness and provides a safe place for them to begin to get help. Love does not leave them in their brokenness and enable them to continue their self-destruction. This is when love has to be tough.
When a person is unfaithful in a relationship, there is so much pain involved. The gut level response is to bail out of the relationship. But if indeed unconditional love and grace come first in the covenant—then there must be room, if both parties are willing, to forgive and to rebuild the relationship on a new foundation of grace. When Israel was unfaithful to God, we see the language of divorce in Hosea—yet God did not divorce Israel. Instead, he came in the person of Jesus, laid down his life, and died in her place. Wow! Most of us never get to that place of self-sacrifice and forgiveness in our relationships!
To truly love and forgive is to lay down one’s life for the other so that they can be and become all they were created to be as image-bearers of God. The Triune God of grace teaches us what covenant love looks like—and calls us to live in that relationship with him and with one another. Consequences have their place in covenant relationships. Pain and sin will happen. But unconditional love and grace trumps it all.
God of grace and love, thank you for your faithfulness and compassion. Grow in us the capacity to love and forgive as you do. Teach us what it means to live in covenant love as you do with us. Through Jesus and by your Spirit. Amen.
“I will establish My covenant between Me and you [Abraham] and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you.” Genesis 17:7 NASB
A Matter of Life and Death
by Linda Rex
One of the great themes of Jesus’ preaching and life was death and resurrection. Normally we think of these things in terms of having our life come to an end and then being raised to live eternally with Christ. The apostle Paul wrote about this in his epistles (1 Thess 4:13-18; 1 Cor. 15:20-58).
But Paul also emphasized the reality that we participate even today in Christ’s death and resurrection. He said “I die daily.” (1 Cor 15:31) We have a connection with Christ’s death and resurrection that impacts much more than just our future in eternity with God. It also impacts how we live each moment of each day.
There was a young man who was very wealthy. He ran up to Jesus and asked him what he needed to do to inherit eternal life. He had done all the requirements the Jews understood to be in the law, and yet he was thinking there was still something else he needed to do. Jesus went to the core of the issue by addressing the one thing this young man was drawing his life and self-worth from—his wealth.
Jesus told him to sell all he owned, to give the proceeds to the poor and to begin following him. He touched him at the very core of his self-reliance, self-absorption and told him to die to what mattered most to him—himself—and to trust fully in Jesus Christ for all the essentials of his life. And the young man turned and walked away. (Mark 10:17-22)
Death and resurrection. God never stops calling each of us away from drawing our life and value and meaning from our physical existence, material substance and self-effort. He keeps drawing us away from all this into a personal relationship with himself in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit.
At no time did Jesus call this young man to follow a certain list of do’s and don’t’s, although he did acknowledge his efforts to live according to the law. What he did call him into was a relationship in which the man would follow and obey Jesus, sharing life with Jesus day by day, drawing his sustenance, worth and value from outside of himself in God and pouring it out in service to others as Jesus ministered to the poor, sick and needy.
What he called the young man into was a sharing in the perichoretic life of self-giving. God created us in his image to share in the circle of self-giving between the Father, Son, and Spirit. But from the beginning, humans have been and have become self-absorbed and self-centered. The feeding and protecting of the black hole of self is the way of death not the way of eternal life.
Jesus died our death, rose again and ascended, sending the Spirit of the Father to us so that we could and would be free from our broken sinful selves. He gives us his life, the perichoretic other-centered life of God, pouring it out into us so we have a new Source and Center for our existence. We no longer depend upon our efforts, our strength, our faith, our goodness, but depend solely upon Jesus Christ. He is and becomes our life.
God gives us a new life, a new body, and a new way of thinking and being. Through the Spirit he gives us a sharing in his life. We can continue our frantic efforts to live on our own under our own power. We can continue the path that leads to death—death of relationships, death of our dreams and hopes, death of people and possibilities. Or we can turn away from all these things, put our trust in Jesus, and begin to live a new life in him, living and walking in the Spirit.
Through Jesus Christ God sets us free to be this new person. He gives us a new life. We can participate in this new life that is ours, living in fellowship or communion with God in Christ, or we can continue in our old ways of being. But our old way of being is not who we really are—it is a lie. That life, that being died when Christ died and rose when Christ rose. God calls us to give up the old and live in the new because that is who we are.
We are people who are held in the midst of God’s love and life. We are—as Jesus is—loving, giving, caring, serving people. We are—as Jesus is—humble, honest, gentle people. We are—as Jesus is—faithful, sincere, kind people. Jesus Christ lived the life we are to live, and he lives in us through the Holy Spirit. We can resist the Spirit’s work of transformation, or we can participate in Christ’s death and resurrection by responding to what the Spirit is doing to make us into the people God has declared us to be. We quit our efforts at being ethical people under our own power and allow God by his Spirit to make us into Christlike people. We participate in Christ.
This is all God asks of us—to live in relationship with him, participating in Jesus’ perfect response to the Father of filial obedience and love. We awaken by the Spirit to the reality that God is at work in us and all around us, bringing this dead world and our dead selves into a new way of living and being—bringing in his kingdom in its fullness each and every moment. And we get to be a part of that process. What more could we ask for? For this is eternal life.
Our loving God, thank you for this precious gift of life in the midst of our death and dying. Grant each of us the grace to receive and live out this perfect gift of your Son in the Spirit, so we may reflect and participate in your perfect self-giving nature and love as you desire us to. We trust and praise you that you will not quit until this is so for all of us. Through Jesus and by your Spirit. Amen.
“Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him and said to him, ‘One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.’” Mark 10:21 NASB
Over My Dead Body
By Linda Rex
I was reflecting the other day on some of my experiences out on the farm. When you live with and interact daily with animals of any kind, you experience the realities of life and death. Death of humans and animals is inevitable and can happen at the most inopportune times, creating the unpleasant task of finding a place for burial.
And death normally isn’t a very pleasant experience. After a day or two, the dead body will begin to bloat and stink, and the scavengers will begin to make a meal off of it. The stench of a rotting corpse, to me, is quite nauseating and disgusting, even though it is the normal process of decomposition. I prefer to get as far as I can from any dead body.
It’s interesting that the apostle Paul uses this stench of death as a way of describing how those who reject Christ see the lives of those who are living in communion with God. In one way we are seen as a fragrance—a lovely scent—of Christ rising to God. In the other, we are seen as a “dreadful smell of death and doom”. How can we be both at the same time?
Really it comes down to perception. What is real about each of us is not readily apparent to everyone all at once. Our new life in Christ—which is true for each and every person—is hidden with God in Christ. This means that it is a spiritual reality, an objective truth that may or may not be subjectively evident in each of our lives. In Jesus Christ each and every person lived, died and rose and again. God sent the Spirit to all. But what God has done for us in Jesus Christ and by sending the Spirit is not necessarily immediately obvious because not everyone believes or receives the gift of God in Christ and lives it out.
When a person meets and comes to know well someone who is actively participating in a new life in Christ, they are faced with the truth of the resurrection. The resurrection of Jesus, in which we are all included, means that Jesus, and all of us in him, died. There was a time when Jesus’ body was a corpse—he died—and so we each died. And we all rose from the grave in him.
The thing is—if we died in Christ—what we used to be is now, dead. That scripture that says “the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” (Jer 17:9) no longer applies. Sure, it can certainly look as though this old way of living and being is still alive. We can live and act and talk in a way that implies this is still the case. But God has declared in Jesus Christ a definite “No” to this being our nature any longer. He has given us the new heart he promised his people.
But what if we don’t want a new heart? What if we think the heart we have is just fine? What if we don’t see any problem with the way we are living now? What if we don’t believe that God has done any of this for us?
If this is the case, we will perceive this way of being—of living a new life in Christ—as something it is not. We will see it as being a lie, or as being something offensive that we want no part of, and so we will resist and reject the Spirit and his work of renewal. To us it will be a stinking, rotting mess. Because the evidence of this new life in Jesus tells us that without Jesus, a smelly, rotten corpse is just what we are.
We don’t like to be told the truth about ourselves. If we concede that in Jesus Christ we are made new, that means we have to die to our old ways of being and doing. If we agree that Jesus Christ defines our new humanity, that means we have to give up being lord of our lives and submit to his ways of being and doing. And that just stinks!
Jesus pounded out the importance of death and resurrection over and over in his ministry. We die with Christ and we rise with Christ—he is our life. Apart from him we have no hope. We are just old rotting corpses that God never meant for us to be.
God created beautiful things when he created human beings and he didn’t create humans to be the mess we are today. This is not who we are. In God’s purpose we are made to reflect and bear his image. When others look at us, God intends for them to see a reflection of his perichoretic nature of unity, diversity and equality. God’s purpose is for us to be creatures in whom and with whom he will dwell, who will participate with him in a relationship full of love and grace.
But because evil and sin and death has entered our cosmos, God sent his Son to take it all on himself and in the process create a new humanity with God’s nature hidden within. Then he sent his Spirit to awaken each of us to faith in Christ, so that we can participate in this new humanity. God has replaced all the dead corpses with vibrantly alive beloved children—but not everyone is willing to make the exchange. Some still want to hang on to their old dead bodies.
Personally, I’m more than happy to participate with God in the process of replacing the old with the new. The old me, which is dead, was not a very pleasant person to be around. She was pretty stinky and disgusting. As far as I’m concerned, this new life he has given me is what I want to be a part of and share with others, even if to them I am a reminder of the death of their old selves in Christ.
To a culture enamored with old ways of living and being I may be offensive and disturbing, like an old rotting corpse that stinks. But in the end, this old rotting corpse will dissolve into the ground from which it was made, and I will shine, like so many others who share Christ’s new life, as the stars in the heaven. To me, that seems to be the better, more satisfying choice.
Thank you, Father, for the gift you have given us of new life in your Son and by your Spirit. Awaken each of us to the new life that is ours. Grant us the grace to participate with you in your divine life and love as your beloved children, and to leave all that died with Christ buried with him in the tomb. Through Jesus, our Lord, and by your Spirit. Amen.
“But thank God! He has made us his captives and continues to lead us along in Christ’s triumphal procession. Now he uses us to spread the knowledge of Christ everywhere, like a sweet perfume. Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God. But this fragrance is perceived differently by those who are being saved and by those who are perishing. To those who are perishing, we are a dreadful smell of death and doom. But to those who are being saved, we are a life-giving perfume. And who is adequate for such a task as this?” 2 Co 2:14–16 NLT
Our Response to God and his Grace
by Linda Rex
At our last group meeting in Hermitage we talked about the concept of inclusion. We in our denomination have been accused of being universalists due to our belief that God has brought all humanity into union with himself through Jesus Christ and has made his transforming Spirit available to all. The key element to this discussion is humanity’s individual response to the gift of salvation he is offering us in Jesus Christ. (For an excellent discussion of inclusion and our acceptance in Christ, see this article on the Grace Communion International website: https://www.gci.org/jesus/acceptance.)
So, how does a person respond to this gift of grace? As I was asked earlier this week: “How is the response to Jesus different from someone saying the sinner’s prayer? I thought that the sinner’s prayer was you making the decision to accept Christ and you bridging the gap between yourself and God. How is the response to Jesus’s acceptance different?”
This is a very important question and it speaks to the whole understanding of separation vs union with Christ. Saying the sinner’s prayer is indeed seen as bridging the gap between you and God, with the idea of repentance and faith bringing about a change in our position–from separation into union. It requires the process of repentance, faith, baptism, new behavior in order to be valid. Dr. Wauchope in his series on “God, the Who and Why” (there is a link for it on my blog site), explains how this method of bridging the gap between the spiritual world and our human world actually has its roots in Aristotle and the philosophers. It is as though we change the heavenly realities by our human efforts–which we know is a falsehood. Only God can change God.
So what does it mean that we respond to Jesus? Do we need to say the sinner’s prayer? I don’t believe that a particular prayer is necessary–the Ethiopian merely asked whether and where he could be baptized, and Philip baptized him. I think that is significant.
Baptism isn’t done in order to change our status with God. It is done as a sharing in Christ’s baptism, a sharing in his life and death. Peter called people to repent and be baptized for the remission of sins–what Jesus did when he was baptized for us in our place. He was calling them to receive the gift already given to them in the life, death, resurrection of Jesus–to participate in what Christ had already done for them.
In other words, at some point God is going to bring each of us to the point where we see that apart from Jesus, we have no hope–that without Jesus we are lost. Jesus said in his preaching–repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand (ie. I’m the Messiah and I’m here bringing in God’s kingdom), and he told his disciples to preach the Word, teach the Word and to baptize and disciple. That means there is a point of turning away from ourselves and our world and our way of living and being and a turning to Christ (ie. repent and believe, and receive the gift of life in him), at which point, symbolically through baptism, we identify with Christ, acknowledging that our life is in him.
This is why when someone comes to me and says, I believe in Jesus Christ and I want to be a Christian, I ask them, “Have you talked with God about this?” And then I will pray with them and encourage them to pray about their commitment to Christ and his will. And I will then talk with them about baptism as a sign of their commitment, as an acknowledgement of their participation in Christ’s finished work.
But Barth and the Torrance’s are real clear that there is a definite turning away from oneself and a turning to Christ at some point. It’s a point in time and a process where a person acknowledges their need for and reliance upon Christ and a turning away from themselves and their ways, and a turning to Christ, and a submission to him as Lord of their life. This can take some time with people and may occur well after their initial understanding at baptism.
This is why discipleship of new believers is so important. They need to come to know and rely on Jesus and to begin to live their life in him. It is his life they are participating in–the new life they live is defined by Christ’s life, not by them. A person’s response to Jesus is, therefore, not just an event in time, but a whole turning of their life and being away from themselves and to Christ throughout the rest of their life–as Jesus said, a dying to self and a living in him.
As you can see, the latter approach does not at any point bring up some form of separation, but rather says that Jesus is our life. In God, through Christ and in the Spirit, we live and move and have our being. Christ did for us in our place all that is needed–so believe it and receive it, and then live it out. It’s all in terms of participating in the life Christ made for us in our humanity as a sharing in his divinity. I think this is a much more hopeful and joyful word of life.
The following is a response to a related question, “Does the Holy Spirit work on each person individually at some level continually or is God not working with everyone yet?”:
Sometimes our inclusive language can be a little too free. Yes, we need to keep the concept of inclusion in our language. All are included in God’s life and love. That is a given. All are united with God in Christ.
But our calling and full participation in that is something the Spirit does in a unique time and way for each of us. The communion of the Spirit is a different story from our union with God in Christ. The communion of the Spirit is experienced by the body of Christ through whom God is bearing witness to the world about Jesus in the Spirit today.
It does not mean that all do not have the Spirit but rather that there is an awakening of some to the calling to bear witness to Jesus Christ as a community of faith. We want to let all people know they are included in God’s love and life. But the thing is–if a person is living and being in a way that does not coincide with how God is and how Christ is for them, then how can they fully participate in God’s love and life? There is a call to repentance–to a change of mind and heart in how we look at God and who we think he is and a turning away from ourselves to Jesus, trusting in him for life and godliness rather than in anything else. The Holy Spirit does a work in a person’s heart, mind and life that is transformational–it is real.
My friend Bob likes to say, “all are included, they just don’t know it yet.” That’s not really a bad thing to say–but there is still the call to repent and believe. Barth and Torrance say the best way to present the gospel is to say, “God loves you so much he sent his Son to live, die, rise again in your place. He’s done all that is needed for you to be reconciled to God and redeemed. Jesus Christ stands in your place, interceding for you with the Father, and he gives you his Spirit so you can share in God’s life and love. You are loved and forgiven. [ie you are included] Therefore, repent and believe.”
The gospel continues to require a call to repent and believe, even when all are included. The thing is, this repentance and this faith is taken up in Jesus Christ just like everything else–it comes as a gift from God through Christ in the Spirit. It’s not on us as humans to find something within ourselves to be able to repent and believe. Christ gives us his own repentance and faith as a gift of God through the Spirit. So it’s not all up to us–it’s all of grace. Really the only response left for us gratitude or grateful obedience, and even that we participate in with Christ. It’s all of grace.
When we think of the work of the Holy Spirit in terms of inclusion, we see that because the Spirit is poured out on all, he is available to all. He is working even now in and with each person. But as far as the transformational work the Spirit does in bringing someone to faith in Christ and into the body of Christ and into the obedience that comes with faith, that is something that is unique–it is a setting apart of certain persons for the purpose of bearing witness to Jesus Christ and to share the gospel. All are included in the kingdom of God, but not all are willing and obedient participants.
Father, I thank you for including all in your life and love through your Son Jesus and by your Spirit. Grant us the grace to receive and fully participate in your precious gift. Through Jesus our Lord, amen.
“After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!” Mk 1:14–15 NIV
When Forgiving is Hard
By Linda Rex
This morning I was listening to the You’re Included interview with David Torrance “The Grace of the Finished Work of Christ” (https://www.gci.org/yi/dtorrance104) and “Already Forgiven” (https://www.gci.org/yi108). I was struck once again by the significance of all that Jesus did for in his life, death and resurrection, specifically in regards to our ability to forgive the unforgiveable. And he calls for us to do just that, because being forgiving people properly reflects who we are as image-bearers of God.
I’m beginning to see that much of the mental anguish we go through in life has its basis in our inability or unwillingness to forgive wrongs done to us. Many of us go through life with deep emotional, mental, even spiritual wounds caused by significant people in our lives. We carry the hurts from our childhood into adulthood or from relationship to relationship, and they twist our thinking and feeling, holding us hostage in ways we don’t even realize or may even be willing to acknowledge.
It is inevitable that at some time in our lives we are going to be faced with the challenge of forgiving someone a wrong that we just can’t let go of. When that event comes back over and over in our mind and colors the way we think and feel about what’s going on in our life today, that is the time when we need to take seriously Jesus’ command to forgive.
But facing the challenge to forgive does not begin with us. We, of ourselves, are inadequate for the task. Even if we knew we needed to forgive and wanted to forgive, we may find ourselves unable to. The hurt or wrong may just keep rehearsing itself in our minds and hearts and we are unable to let it go.
This is especially true when there is a significant injustice involved. Forgiving may feel like we are letting someone off the hook for a very real wrong they have done.
But this isn’t the case at all. What a person may have done or said that violated us in some way is not ignored or passed over. Rather, it is put in its proper place—in the hands of a loving, just God, who is both our Judge and the one who was judged in our stead. Instead of us seeing that justice is done, we place this issue into the hands of the One best qualified to handle it—he is impartial and he is gracious, and he will deal with the issue in his own time and way.
Yes, there are times when we have to take action to protect ourselves and others from future harm. But, even so, we need to do so in a spirit of grace. Forgiveness does not require us to turn our backs on justice, but asks that justice be executed with mercy and compassion.
Placing our hurts and wrongs into the hands of a loving, just God, not only frees us from the need to make someone pay, but it also enables us to approach our need to forgive within the context of community. God does not ask us to forgive all on our own, under our own power.
God is the one, who since the beginning of time, forgives. If God had executed justice without mercy every single time one of us humans had done something wrong or hurtful, the human race would have long ago become extinct. Thankfully, forgiveness is God’s nature.
Because God knows we can’t forgive the way we should and need to, God gave us his forgiveness in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus, in his life and death, experienced some tremendous violations of his personhood and was horribly abused. There is nothing that we as humans experience that he cannot and does not sympathize with. Yet, his final words on the cross included these: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34)
This same divine capacity to forgive is ours. God has given us in Christ and by his Spirit all that we need for life and godliness. (2 Pet. 1:3) Therefore we are able to forgive—in Christ. It is Jesus’ forgiveness that we draw upon and live out.
Jesus taught his disciples that forgiving others is something we need to do so that we are able to participate in God’s forgiveness of us. (Luke 17:3-4) It’s a relational thing, something we do in community with God and each other. We forgive and we are forgiven. We are forgiven and so we forgive. This is what it looks like to live joyfully and lovingly within the Triune relationship of Father, Son and Spirit and with each other. It is our nature as God’s children to forgive, so we forgive.
So in the midst of whatever we are struggling with, we acknowledge the reality that forgiveness is not going to be something that is humanly possible on our own, but is instead, a divine reality that we participate in. We agree with God that forgiveness is not something we are able to do on our own, but is something we need from him—we need Christ’s forgiving heart and mind. We need the forgiving Spirit of God to change us from the inside out and enable us to forgive.
And God will do that. We make the choice to forgive and we seek from God the power and ability to forgive. God will begin, as we participate with him in the process, to change our hearts and minds and enable us to forgive. And we thank God for the gift of forgiveness that he gives us from his Son Jesus Christ through his Holy Spirit.
This gift of forgiveness is life-transforming and healing, and we participate in it gratefully throughout our lives, in every situation we may find ourselves needing to be forgiving or forgiven. It is God’s grace to us in Jesus Christ and by his Spirit. May you experience and share with others the grace of God’s forgiveness in your life today.
Forgiving God, thank you for the gift of forgiveness. May we be as forgiving of others as you are of us. Thank you that in Jesus and by your Spirit we participate in your divine life and love, sharing in your forgiveness just as we share in every other part of your divine nature, through Jesus, our Lord. Amen.
“Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives…. Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.” Hebrews 2:14-15, 17 NASB
A Different Road Home
by Linda Rex
Yesterday a friend and I drove to another city to pick up my car which had been getting worked on. It was a long drive and we talked about which road would have the least amount of traffic and would be the easiest to drive. It was pouring down rain at times, so we really didn’t want to be driving on the interstate.
I told her the way I usually drove the route, and so we took that path to get to our destination. It worked out well and we got there in good time. But on the way home, she suggested that I try a different route since it would help me to avoid a potential roadblock. I took her advice and found my way home, quickly and without incident.
It occurred to me that we go through life often making plans for ourselves. We do our best to try to find the quickest, easiest or most comfortable path for ourselves. We do our best to avoid roadblocks and hassles, and we work hard to find the shortest, quickest route to the successes and blessings we seek.
Many of us don’t realize it but we go through life seeking to find our way home each and every day. There is a place we are looking for where we are loved, accepted and forgiven—where we can just truly be ourselves and know that it is enough. We long for and are driven by an inner need to find rest in this place—this place which is our true home.
The thing is that too often we define for ourselves what the route to our true home is. We set particular standards in place and believe that the only way to get home is to follow that one precise set of directions. We have to really work at following these directions perfectly or we won’t end up in the right place. We believe that the only way we will get to our true home is to meet these standards exactly. If we fail we will miss out and end up in oblivion. It seems that the onus is upon us to make sure we are heading the right direction and that we arrive safe and sound.
Thankfully Jesus Christ is the path to our true home. He is the only way, and thankfully he is the forerunner of our faith. Wherever he is, there is our true home. So guess what? There is no path he has not already been down. He knows the best route to take in every situation. We can just climb in the car and he will take us where we need to go. And wherever we are going, he’s already there in the Spirit, anyway. So we might as well just enjoy the journey!
This is why Jesus calls us to rest in him. All this anxiety about finding the best route home to God is totally unnecessary. We can relax because Jesus has already made sure we’ll get there—we just need to trust in him—he will bring us safely home to be with the Father.
It is inevitable that there will be roadblocks in the way of us getting where we need to go. Life isn’t simple and the path to our true home with God in Christ isn’t always a direct one.
Sometimes we are taken down a difficult path—one that may be filled with boulders or floodwaters. We may find ourselves at an impasse or caught up in slow traffic. We find that Christ often takes a different road home than we expect. It may involve sitting through some rush hour traffic or avoiding some children playing in the street. But it will be the best path for each of us, because he loves us and knows what’s best for us. And he is with us in the midst of whatever we come across on our way home.
The really cool thing about Jesus taking us home to be with his Father is that he wants us to invite others to go with us on the journey. He’s got room for everybody in the car.
Not everybody is willing to drive along with him. Some are too busy planning out their own route or running down the street to catch a bus. Others want to sit in the back seat and give him directions—they want to tell him where to go and how to get there.
But he’s very gracious and tells us to keep asking people to join us. And he says to us each day, “Let’s go—Dad’s waiting!” And by his Spirit he carries us farther on our way to our true home.
Thank you, Jesus, for being the only and most direct path to our true home with the Father in the Spirit. Grant us the grace to let you tell us which way to go and to follow it. And give us the heart and willingness to share this journey with others by inviting them to join it. We praise you for your freely given grace and love. In your name, amen.
“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Matthew 11:28–30 NASB
Talking it Out
by Linda Rex
One of the lessons I’m still learning in life is how to handle interpersonal issues in a healthy way. For example, someone in my life says or does something hurtful or causes a serious problem for me or someone else. How do I respond? How do I deal with this?
As a pastor I think that sometimes people use me as the go-to person in these situations. It is common for someone to come to me with “he said this to me and that was wrong” or “she was so hateful to me—you need to talk to her.” It’s as though I’m supposed to be carrying around a big stick so I can “whomp” anyone who gets out of line. Even though there are times when I may feel like a good whomping is in order, I do not believe that’s what God would have me do.
Another thing people do in these situations is to talk to everyone else in their circle of family or friends, making sure that everyone knows what’s going on. But they never go to that person who was at fault and try to talk with them about it. Sadly, in some families and social groups, this is the most common way of dealing with issues. I’ve learned by personal experience this is one of the most destructive ways of handling a problem—and sadly, in a lot of cases, the person who was at fault never even realized they had hurt someone and if they had they would have made every effort to make it right.
In any case, when someone says or does something hurtful, two things for sure come into play. First, we are called by God to love unconditionally and to offer them grace. It is imperative that we create an atmosphere in our relationship with that person, however strained that relationship may be, in which they may feel free to be real, and in which they know and are reassured they are loved and accepted.
Secondly, it is important that we promptly, but at an appropriate time, go to that person and do our best to speak the truth in love to them. This needs to be done with “I feel” language not accusatory language. We can talk to them about how specific words and deeds affected us, and describe the harm we feel that they did. This gives the person an opportunity to see and feel the pain they caused and to consider a change of heart, mind and behavior.
If we never tell someone the truth about their hurtful words and behavior, we deprive them of the opportunity to grow in Christlikeness. This is not loving. If we tell everyone else about what they’ve said and done, we’ve destroyed the spiritual fellowship God has called us to live in, creating suspicion, distrust, and a host of other unnecessary evils. This is definitely not loving, nor is it gracious.
Christ says that if this person won’t hear us, then we are to find a trusted confident or two who would be willing to go with us to that person to talk. The foundation of this whole meeting needs to be grace while speaking the truth in love. Reconciliation and restoration, the redemption of the relationship, is the goal. If they will not hear us, that is when we call on the elders of the church to assist. But the purpose or goal does not change throughout this whole process.
There is a time and place for others to join in the reconciliation/restoration process. One of the reasons for this is that there are relationships that are for the most part one-sided. In some relationships, one of the people involved doesn’t feel that they have a voice or that it is safe to speak the truth. This may be because they have given that right or freedom away by passivity. Or it may be due to abuse. Either way, there is an appropriate time for advocacy in this process of reconciliation/restoration.
Healing and restoring human relationships takes time and effort. There must be a commitment on both sides to working things out, and a willingness to concede wrongdoing. This requires a deep humility and an inner integrity that will not fudge the truth or try to self-justify. Not everyone is up to this task. But it is a necessary and essential part of life in a spiritual community.
As members of a spiritual community, when we see two people at odds with one another, we should feel the brokenness in that relationship ourselves. This should motivate us to encourage reconciliation and restoration within that relationship. Because what happens to our brothers and sisters impacts us as well. We are all sharers in Christ and participate with one another through the Spirit. To allow the evil one to cause division and harm within the community, is to participate in darkness not in the Light. And we don’t want to do that.
Thankfully, this is not a task that we take on all by ourselves. In fact, we read in scripture that Jesus is the Mediator between us and God, and between us and each other. He took on our humanity so that whatever divisions may exist between us become moot—we all are joined together now in an unbreakable bond. The Spirit also works as our intercessor—he binds us together and works incessantly to create unity and peace within our relationships.
I have found that the best solution to relationship problems begins in a relationship with God through prayer. When I take a relational problem to God and ask him to intervene, I am often surprised by the joy of finding the problem resolved in a way I never expected. When I see Jesus’ description of how relational problems are resolved within a spiritual community and begin to practice them, I find a new wisdom and power for reconciliation and restoration.
Will there be some relational problems that are never resolved? Yes—but only because God has given us the freedom to resist his Spirit and to reject his way of being. We have that choice—and we will live with the consequences of the choice we make, and sometimes, sadly, with the consequences of the choice someone else will make to refuse to live in loving relationship. And that is when we turn to Christ and to the spiritual community for the love, grace and support to heal and move on.
Father, how you must grieve when your children don’t play nice and don’t get along! Forgive us for all the ways we ruin our relationships and destroy the spiritual communion and love you call us to live in. Grant us the grace to do relationships your way and not our way. Give us the heart, mind and will to truly love and forgive one another in the way you love and forgive us. Through Jesus, our Lord, and by your Spirit. Amen.
“If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, …” Mt 18:15-16a NASB
Our Life in the Trinity 