Why I Have Passion. JESUS.

Bobby Grow Writes:

I was going to write two posts on aspects of Karl Barth’s theology, and one post on why I am Post-Tribulational instead of Pre-Tribulational (in response to a question my Aunt had on this); but instead I am 
just going to flow a little on what is driving me, what
impassions me, on the love of Christ. (I will still be writing on these other things in the next few days)

Karl Barth and Thomas Torrance (along with Martin Luther and John Calvin, Irenaeus, Athanasius, and Cyril of Alexandria et al in the background) have really helped to revolutionize my walk with Jesus Christ. I know some people think this is problematic, but I don’t really care. The reality is, is that Jesus Christ is alive, and he is alive in the life of the Father and the Holy Spirit, and I (we) have been invited to inhabit this life, the Godself life, through special invitation, in and through Christ. There is nothing mundane about that. There is nothing academic about that. This is rich. At some point it ought to emote some sort of response from, at the least, the faithful, and it ought to cause the un-faithful to become part of the bands of the faithful. I look around at the heart-ache, the crap of life (and there is a lot of it, right!), and to realize that all of this crookedness has been made straight for every single person on this earth is an overwhelming reality; of the kind that causes the heavens to erupt in great joy and cheer! I know we get focused (I mean I am right now, well I have been at moments today) on all of the real life minutia of our daily lives and thus responsibilities, but seriously, this focus usually is idolatry; it is idolatry because it stamps out and quenches God in our existential moments, and replaces them with or Him with our own fears and worries. And you know what? It is the wisdom of God, the wisdom of the cross, to penetrate into all of this and reverse it all to the glory of God.

As of late I have been really burdened by the lost. I am an evangelist at heart (if I showed you my resume you’d see). I don’t care if a person is a upwardly mobile materialist, a down and out downtrodden materialist, a homosexual, a heterosexual, a skater, a druggie, a pimp, a prostitute, someone who has nowhere to lay their head at night; Jesus is there, He is the God who is the Father’s yes in every part of this world. He underwrites all of reality with his gracious life, and makes sure that all is reconciled to Him. This is why, as of late, I am bursting with hope. Maybe you or someone dear to you has cancer, or some other terminal sickness; there is genuine hope. Maybe someone is going through absolute torment, and anguish, on the verge of suicide; there is hope. God in Christ has already reached down into that situation and met it. Even if the most tragic thing you could imagine happens (and it often does … even more than we could imagine); Christ crucified is there.