A Brief Theology of Salvation

In the NT, one of the most frequent and fundamental images used to depict our salvation is “redemption.” The root of this term lytron means a “ransom” or “price of release,” and the term itself (apolytrosis) was used as a kind of technical term for the purchase of a slave. If we apply this to believers, then our salvation consists in being freed from a form of slavery.

We are set free from slavery to sin and guilt (Rom 6:7) as well as from the law as a way of trying to acquire righteousness before God (Gal 2:16). But the most fundamental reality we are set free from is the devil. We were slaves to sin and condemnation primarily because we were slaves to Satan. In “redeeming us” out of this slavery, in rescuing us out of this kingdom (Col 1:13; Gal 1:4), Christ in principle bought us out of every other form of slavery as well. The price of this redemption, was “not … perishable things like silver or gold, but … the precious blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:18). For this reason, Jesus describes his life as a “ransom” (lytros, Mk 10:45; Matt 20:28).

Christ was willing to do whatever it took—to pay whatever “price” was necessary—in order to defeat the tyrant who had enslaved us and thereby to set us free. What it took was nothing less than the Son of God becoming a man and dying a hellish death on the cross.

In some mysterious way, this event “disarmed,” drove out,” “tied up,” “condemned” and “destroyed” the “god of this age” who had held us in slavery (Col 2:15; Jn 12:31; 16:11; 2 Cor 4:4; Heb 2:14). It thereby enthroned the Son of God as rightful king of his Father’s universe. And it therefore spelled freedom, liberation, redemption and complete salvation for all those previously enslaved subjects who were willing to receive it.

The cross and resurrection were not first and foremost about us. They were about overcoming evil. From a NT perspective, evil is something much greater, much more powerful and much more pervasive than what transpires in our relatively small lives, on our relatively small segment of the cosmos, by means of our relatively small will. This is not to suggest that we are ourselves are not evil, for the NT concludes that, apart from Christ, we are (Eph 2:1). We needed a high priest to enter into the sanctuary and offer up a perfect sacrifice to atone for our sins (Rom 8:34; Heb 7:25; 10:10-14). Christ made this offering, effecting our salvation.

But Christ did this only because he did something even more fundamental: he dealt a death blow to Satan and recaptured his rightful rule over the whole creation. Evil can be overcome in our life only because the “evil one” who previously ruled the cosmos has himself in principle been overcome. We are set free only because the entire cosmos has in principle been set free from the one who had previously enslaved it. And we are reconciled to God only because the entire cosmos, and the whole of the spiritual realm, has in principles been reconciled to God. —Adapted from God at War, pages 265-267 – Greg Boyd

Equality!

I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing. --John 15:5

Within the heart of man is the inherent desire for the recognition that there is equality between all men. It should be admitted that class struggle exists only in attitude. Refusal to accept others’ definitions of superior and subordinate classifications means that the distinctions dissolve as I view my fellow man. Class struggle is defined as one group’s having less material gain than the next, and many have been persuaded to work to get out of their economic situation and rise to that of the so-called upper class. If we were to redefine “upper class” as those who were the happiest, most moral, and largest contributors to society, it would be discovered that many who are materially categorized as upper class are actually lower-class people. Laying all worldly designations aside, there are actually only two noteworthy groups to represent, the carnal animalistic group and the spiritual, who have Christ within and expressed outwardly.

Abiding is the great equalizer between believers. Abide in Christ and all that He is and has is received, just as the branch receives the full life of the vine. Do not abide and immediately experience being in the flesh. It matters not if the flesh is educated, rich, respected, admired, or refined; it is still flesh, falling so short of the spirit. The world has so many criteria by which it appraises man, so many levels of divisions. Yet we Christians have but one: Is a person abiding in Christ or not? Is a person expressing life in the spirit or carnality? To make sub-classes out of the carnal or the spiritual is ignorance rooted in pride and self-glory. No one is better than an abiding believer, who at that moment is an earthen vessel with a perfect life, the life of Christ, flowing through him. Does it get any better than that?

With words so simple, and a spirit so eloquent, Michael gives us the beauty of our connection to Christ when we are “in Christ and abiding.”  Listen with your Christian heart to the foundational truths Michael lays out for all of us:

·         the spiritual, who have Christ within and expressed outwardly

·         abiding is the great equalizer between believers

·         abide in Christ and all that He is and has IS RECEIVED (my caps for emphasis)

·         no one is better than an abiding believer, who at that moment is an earthen vessel with a perfect life, the life of Christ, flowing through him.

I, for one, don’t believe it could possibly get any better than that!

It’s All About the Crucified Christ

The world was created by Christ and for Christ (Col 1:16). At the center of God’s purpose for creation is his plan to unite himself to us in Christ, reveal himself to us through Christ, and share his life with us by incorporating us into Christ.

We don’t know what this might have looked like for God to share his life with us if humanity was not fallen. But we do know how it is communicated and shared now that we are in a fallen world. In a word, it looks like the cross.

The cross is the fullness of God’s love. John defines the love that is God’s eternal nature (1 Jn 4:8) by pointing to the cross (1 Jn 3:16). Everything Jesus was about is thematically summed up on the cross, which is why we find the cross holding center stage whenever the meaning of Christ’s coming is touched on throughout the NT.

That the cross is the thematic center is demonstrated by the fact that the Gospel narratives place the cross as the focal point. The crucifixion stories are called the passion narratives. It’s almost like the Gospels are long introductions to the passion.

This centrality is also reflected in the fact that Jesus highlights the cross as the event that most glorifies the Father (Jn 12:27-28). Paul highlights it as the event that most decisively reveals God’s wisdom and power (1 Cor 1:17-18, 24).

For Paul, to preach the gospel was simply to preach “the message of the cross” (1 Cor 1:18:23), so all who opposed the gospel could be described as persecuting the cross (Phil 3:18).

To be a follower of Jesus is to participate in, and therefore imitate the self-sacrificial love manifested on the cross. This is illustrated by the initiation ceremony of baptism as a new believer goes down under the water and then is raised to new life.

When it comes to understanding what God is like and what he thinks of us, we ought to adopt the same attitude Paul expressed when he resolved “to know nothing … except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2). To begin to experience the full life God planned for us before he created the world, we must resolve to look nowhere else than to the cross.

Our deepest longings and hungers are meant to drive us to the one and only source of true life, whose self-sacrificial character was fully disclosed on the cross. Anything other than the love of God revealed on Calvary that we turn to for life is an idol that eventually ends up sucking life from us. But the cross is the place where we find true life.

May God open your eyes to this cross-like love of God during this Holy Week. —Adapted from Benefit of the Doubt, pages 60-62 -  Greg Boyd

To Solve Any Problem

Vision is never just about the direction that we are moving towards. It is also about the height at which we are expecting to travel.  Everything about being in Christ is concerned with elevation.

In Jesus, we are made vulnerable to an elevated perception so powerful that we are raised up to encounter and experience a Heavenly identity that governs any earthly circumstance.

To solve any problem, we must first get above it.

In example, we never deal with a negative directly. It comes at us from a lower level of existence than our placement in Christ. If we respond on the same level we become tethered to that thought and it’s oppositional perception. The impact of this on our mental and emotional state can work against our faith, trust and enjoyment of God.

The enemy wants us to deal with the negative thought. Jesus, on the contrary, wants us to capture the thought He is releasing to us in the experience and practice obedience to it in joy (2 Corinthians 10:3-7).

An elevated thought life will always lead to fullness.

It is vital we get above our situations so that we are not brought down to earth with a contrary viewpoint. If we try to deal directly with the negative, we become engaged in a fight we do not need to make. If our thinking has brought us to a place that we do not like, we must remember that there is a better thought that can elevate us.

That perspective will always bring us into a place of increase. Height in the Spirit connects our vision with Heavenly places. It attaches us to authority, power and dominion as a lifestyle of enjoying the majesty of Jesus.

Try this…

Write down each negative viewpoint that is troubling your life and relationship. What is the opposite thought that can capture you to a place of divine acceleration? Practice only dealing with the new thought and you will experience a fresh faith rising up that empowers you to realize the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth!!

- Grahame Cooke

The Hope of the Cross & Resurrection

In a real sense, God has already “raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms” (Eph 2:6). And while “we do not see everything subject to [us],” the truth of the matter is that, in Christ, we have already been restored to our rightful place as co-rulers with Christ.

In the same sense, we have already been made “holy” and “blameless” and have been “blessed … with every spiritual blessing” (Eph 1:3-4) because of the death and resurrection of Christ.

This is also true of the whole creation as God’s redemptive work in creation is waiting to line up with the redemptive work God has already completed. The whole “creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed” so that all things can be “brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God” (Rom 8:19, 21). But the children are children already. We simply are waiting for the day when all that was made true when Christ died and rose will be perfectly manifested.

John makes the same point. Because of the cross-resurrection event, we can affirm “what great love the Father has lavished on us” when he made us “children of God.” And however much we may yet think, feel, and behave in ways that are contrary to the true nature of a child of God, John reminds us that the Father calls us children because “that is what we are!” regardless of how we may now appear (1 John 3:1). He then goes on to say that “what we will be has not yet been made known” Our feeble and fallen imaginations cannot even conceive of what “we will be.” But John proclaims the glory of the assurance we receive from the cross-resurrection event when he continues, “But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him” and “we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

While our present sin-struggling condition may conceal more than it reveals of the truth of who we are in Christ, we must fix the “eyes of [our] heart” (Eph 1:18) on the truth that we will someday look like him, for we shall be like him. He is our life already, but our old self with its habituated fallen thoughts, feelings, and actions conceals the truth, to one degree or another. If we fix our eyes on him, however, we can trust that we will continue to grow in our capacity to manifest our Christ life, and trust that someday we will be exactly like him.

During this holy week, fix your eyes on Jesus and the truth of what the cross-resurrection event has already made true, even though it has not been fully realized.

—Adapted from Benefit of the Doubt, pages 248-249 -  Greg Boyd

Embrace a Movement and Let Go Of Jesus!

I am weary of bearing them. So when you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide My eyes from you; yes, even though you multiply prayers, I will not listen. --Isaiah 1:14, 15

We have been bombarded in America by methods for accomplishing so many things: evangelism, child rearing, Bible study, Scripture memory, church growth, building expansion, giving, and counseling. There are myriad specialized ministries addressing how to reach the businessman, the doctor, the neighbor, the moms, the dads, the internationals, and more. It is astounding and reminds me of the story of the Indian visiting the Christian bookstore in London. He had never before seen so many books in one place! The owner, upon observing his awe, took him from category to category, showing him all of the books written about the aforementioned methods. At that, the Indian said, “When I see so many books I am left with only one question: Do Christians not know how to do anything?” We must, in my opinion, walk the way Jesus walked with God. He did not have a manual but simply (though it does not initially seem simple for those of us living in this world) kept His focus on the Father. He maintained that relationship and never appeared to be at a loss for what to do in any given situation. If it were true for Him, could it not be true for those of us who have believed in Him, for those of us for whom He prayed, “that they may be one as We are One”? Try to prepare for an upcoming situation and watch as it takes an unexpected, unprepared for twist. Spend the day with an abiding awareness of Christ and have His wisdom no matter what happens. The day spent working on methods to fix a problem is not a day focused on Him. A believer can do one or the other. Embracing the method means that of necessity He has been let go! The cost of a how-to seminar is way beyond the registration fee paid, for it will cost a believer both peace and readiness.

Many like to say we must be like Jesus, do as Jesus did…of course, they are talking about the physical things He did.  Very seldom do these people speak of HOW or WHY Jesus did these things.  Very seldom is anything mentioned as to the way Jesus operated in His daily life.  And then, along comes Michael pointing out an astounding fact: “the way Jesus walked with God. He did not have a manual but simply kept His focus on the Father.”  Think deeply on this…no manual (Bible today for us), just a focus on the Father that enabled Him to never appear to be at a loss for what to do in any given situation.  Michael asks if this could be true for us.  What do you think?  Can we do this?

1. We have the Holy Spirit indwelling us…we have the Mind of Christ.

2. We are capable of keeping our focus on the Father.

3. We are capable of maintaining our fellowship with the Father so that He shares His wisdom willingly with us.

4. With His wisdom we are capable of never being at a loss for what to do in any given situation.

5. With His wisdom…why would we go in search of any method to take the place of Gods wisdom?

You are probably wondering what that “significant observation” is that I mentioned in the introduction… “The day spent working on methods to fix a problem is not a day focused on Him.  Embracing the method means that of necessity He has been let go!”  Why would we ever let go of Jesus to grab hold of a method?  How did we ever get so focused on method after method…instead of Christ and the wisdom of the Father?

Like a Child at Rest

To rest. What a pleasant thought.

"Surely I have composed and quieted my soul; Like a weaned child rests against his mother, My soul is like a weaned child within me." Psalm 131:2

"I am quiet now before the Lord, just as a child who is weaned from the breast. Yes, my begging has been stilled." Psalm 131:2 TLB

Where once, when close to his mother he kept searching and wanting, restless, feeling that in this position he should be receiving—having his needs met, being fulfilled, constantly pampered—now he is content to be held, content with her closeness. He makes no demands. He is quiet. He is still.

Lord, I long to be quiet, to rest in Your arms, to desire nothing, to be content just to be in Your presence. The things that I think I need, the obstacles that I think need to be moved, the changes that I believe need to take place in my life—are they really that urgent? You have not abdicated Your throne. You are still very much in control of my affairs and You love me and want what’s best for me.

To accept this truth and cease to beg, cease to whimper and cry as a pampered child denied at feeding time ... I want this in my life, O precious Lord.

Hold me, please.

Anabel Gillham

A Stillness in the Storm

The Cross Reveals God's Love

The central way Christ functions as the perfect image and exact representation of God is by dying on the cross. While Christ’s entire life manifests the true God, Christ came primarily to die. It was his death that defeated the devil and freed us from bondage.

The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work (1 John 3:8).

It was the death that atoned for our sin and reconciled us to God. 

God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith (Rom 3:25).  

It was his death that manifested the wisdom of God. 

His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord (Eph 3:10-11).

The cross is the absolute center of God’s revelation to humanity and his purpose for creation. It is the paradox around which the world revolves. The cross is the mystery that explains, accomplishes and redeems everything. The fullness of God is most perfectly revealed in his becoming the Godforsaken man dying on a cursed tree.

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole” (Gal 3:13). 

God’s holiness is most perfectly displayed in his becoming sin for our sake.

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor 5:21)

God’s righteousness is most perfectly revealed when he himself becomes a judged criminal.

But he was pierced for our transgressions,
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
    and by his wounds we are healed (Is 53:5).

God’s power is most perfectly displayed in his allowing himself to be crucified at the hands of sinners.

This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross (Acts 2:23).  

God’s glory is most perfectly revealed in the utter shame of the crucified Messiah. God’s beauty is most perfectly revealed in the horror of his executed Son.
The cross is the central way Christ images God. Christ was not an innocent third party who was punished against his will to appease the Father’s wrath. Christ is himself God, and he voluntarily took our sin and its just punishment upon himself. Hence his sacrifice does not appease God’s wrath; it reveals God’s love. Even in—especially in—his agonizing death on the cross, Jesus is the exact imprint and perfect revelation of God. In the crucified Christ the truth about God, about us and about the world is most perfectly revealed. For the cross is where reconciliation between God and the world is accomplished.

—Adapted from Is God to Blame? pages 34-35 - Greg Boyd
-

“No tear escapes His notice”

“O! Madam, we want nothing but faith in stronger exercise to make us cheerful and comfortable under all the actual and possible changes of this poor life. Have we not a Saviour, a Shepherd full of compassion and tenderness?

If we wish for love in a friend, He has shewn love unspeakable; —He left His glory, assumed our nature, and submitted to shame, poverty, and death, even the death of the cross, that He might save us from sin and misery, and open the kingdom of heaven to us, who were once His enemies.

For He saw and pitied us, when we knew not how to pity ourselves.

If we need a powerful friend, Jesus is almighty: our help is in Him who made heaven and earth, who raises the dead, and hushes the tempest and raging waves into a calm with a word.

If we need a present friend, a help at hand in the hour of trouble, Jesus is always near, about our path by day, and our bed by night; nearer than the light by which we see, or the air we breathe; nearer than we are to ourselves; so that not a thought, a sigh, or a tear, escapes His notice.

Since then His love and His wisdom are infinite, and He has already done so much for us, shall we not trust Him to the end?

His mercies are countless as the sands, and hereafter we shall see cause to count our trials among our chief mercies.

He sees there is a need-be for them, or we should not have them, and He has promised to make all work together for our final good.

For want of time I am writing by candle-light, which my eyes do not much like; but they submit to it, because I am writing to you; yet they hint that I must now desist.

May the Lord bless you all, with all desirable blessings, temporal and spiritual.

So prays now and often,

Your most affectionate and obliged,

John Newton

6th December, 1800”

–John Newton, “Letter LXXIII” in The Aged Pilgrim’s Thoughts Over Sin and the Grave, Illustrated in a Series of Letters to Walter Taylor, Never Before 

“Adoption in Christ”

“Jesus Christ is an inexhaustible fountain of blessing to us (Eph. 1:3; 1 Cor. 1:30). When He gives Himself to us that we might enjoy Him, He is not only our justification—the One through whom we experience the forgiveness of sins and the fellowship of His righteousness—He is also our sanctification— the One through whom we are made holy and are transformed into His image.

Yet He is the source of yet another blessing, one so amazing that it would be blasphemous to suggest if it were not true. In our union with Christ, the only begotten Son of God, we participate in what is most precious to Him: His relationship with His Father.

We are, in union with Christ, adopted into the family of God; we become the children, the sons and daughters, of the Most High God. The blessing of adoptive sonship answers another desperate need we have as sinners.

Whereas justification (a forensic benefit) addresses the guilt and condemnation that accompanies sin, and sanctification (a transformative benefit) addresses the depravity and pollution of our nature, adoptive sonship (a familial benefit) addresses our estrangement and alienation from God…

The neglect of adoption in the soteriological understanding of the church is sorely lamentable, for our participation in the sonship of Jesus Christ is indeed basic to the New Testament gospel.

From the biblical teaching on adoption, we learn that we are restored to a familial intimacy with God the Father, through which we are assured of His eternal fatherly care and provision, a love and indulgence that exceeds our imaginations.

We learn that our relationship to God is so radically changed that we go from being ‘children of wrath’ (Eph. 2:3) to His beloved sons and daughters, a relationship in which the Father vouchsafes to care for our every need.

Perhaps even more amazing, we learn that by sharing in the Son we share in His rights as the Firstborn and only begotten Son of God—we are ‘heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ’ (Rom. 8:17).

Our minds and hearts should surely stagger under the weight of this reality. It simply exceeds our comprehension.

All of this makes defining adoption concisely a rather difficult task. Nevertheless, here is my effort:

Adoption is that benefit of being united to the Son of God through which we share in His sonship with the Father, become the beloved children of God, and enjoy all the privileges and rights of being included in God’s family.”

–Marcus Peter Johnson, One With Christ: An Evangelical Theology of Salvation (Wheaton: Crossway, 2013), 145-146, 147.

“The Maker of man became Man”

“The Word of the Father, by Whom all time was created, was made flesh and was born in time for us.

He, without whose divine permission no day completes its course, wished to have one day set aside for His human birth.

In the bosom of His Father, He existed before all the cycles of ages; born of an earthly mother, He entered upon the course of the years on this day.

The Maker of man became Man that He, Ruler of the stars, might be nourished at His mother’s breast;

that He, the Bread, might hunger;

that He, the Fountain, might thirst;

that He, the Light, might sleep;

that He, the Way, might be wearied by the journey;

that He, the Truth, might be accused by false witnesses;

that He, the Judge of the living and the dead, might be brought to trial by a mortal judge;

that He, Justice, might be condemned by the unjust;

that He, Discipline, might be scourged with whips;

that He, the Foundation, might be suspended upon a cross;

that Courage might be weakened;

that Healer might be wounded;

that Life might die.

To endure these and similar indignities for us, to free us, unworthy creatures, He who existed as the Son of God before all ages, without a beginning, deigned to become the Son of Man in these recent years.

He did this although He who submitted to such great evils for our sake had done no evil and although we, who were the recipients of so much good at His hands, had done nothing to merit these benefits.

Begotten by the Father, He was not made by the Father.

He was made Man in the mother whom He Himself had made, so that He might exist here for a while, sprung from her who could never and nowhere have existed except through His power.”

–Augustine of Hippo, Sermons 184-229: Sermons on Liturgical Seasons(Edmund Hill O.P. Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1993), 191.1.

“The great love of Jesus”

“Jesus has loved His own people from of old. A most blessed fact! He has loved them eternally. There never a time when He did not love them.

His love is positively dateless: before the heavens and earth were made, and the stars were first touched with the torch of flame, Jesus had received His people from His Father, and written their names on His heart.

‘Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.’ Jesus, before all the world, set the crown of His peculiar love upon those whom He foreordained unto His glory.

This love of His is infinite. Jesus does not love His own with a little of His love, nor regard them with some small degree of affection, but He says, ‘As the Father hath loved me, even so have I loved you,’ and the Father’s love to the Son is inconceivably great, since they are one in essence, ineffably one.

The Father cannot but love the Son infinitely, neither doth the Son ever love His people less than with all His heart. It is an affection which no angelic mind could measure, inconceivable, unknown.

Jesus loved His people with a foresight of what they would be. Love is blind, they say, but not the Saviour’s love. He knew that ‘his own’ would fall in Adam; He knew that as they lived personally each one would become a sinner; He understood that they would be hard to reclaim and difficult to retain, even after they had been reclaimed; He saw every sin that they would commit in the glass of the future, for from His prescient eye nothing can be hidden.

And yet He loved His own over the head of all their sins, and their revoltings, and their shortcomings. Hence we see that He bears towards them an affection which cannot be changed, for nothing can occur which He has not foreseen, nothing therefore which has not already been taken into calculation in the matter of His choice.

No new circumstance can shed unexpected light upon the case. No startling and unforeseen event can become an argument for a change. Hence Jesus’ love is full of immutability. There are no ups and downs in the love of Christ towards His people.

On their highest Tabors He loves them, but equally as well in their Gethsemanes. When they wander like lost sheep His great love goes after them, and when they come back with broken hearts His great love restores them.

By day, by night, in sickness, in sorrow, in poverty, in famine, in prison, in the hour of death, that silver stream of love ripples at their side, never stayed, never diminished. Forever is the sea of divine grace at its flood; this sun never sets; this fountain never pauses.”

–Charles H. Spurgeon, “The Faithfulness of Jesus,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, Vol. 14 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1868), 270-271.

Identity

Birth Determines Identity

You can no more be a sinner saved by grace than you can be a married single person. The instant a single person marries, you might say that he “dies” as a single person and is “re-created” as a married person. Birth always determines identity. When you came into Christ, you instantly died as a sinner (Galatians 2:20). You were then reborn with a new identity; you are now a saint of God (Romans 1:7). As a saint, you are cleansed, and you now house the Holy Spirit of God in your new spirit (1 Corinthians 6:17; Romans 8:9). And let me caution you. God is not “playing like” you are now a saint when, in fact, you are a grubby wretch. A dramatic inner change transpired when you got saved. 

You are literally a saint, or God wouldn’t call you a saint 60 times after the cross. Paul addresses his epistles to “all the saints,” never to “all the sinners saved by grace.” We’re saints, gang!

Bill Gillham

What God Wishes Christians Knew about Christianity, Harvest House, 1998

Dependancy

Jesus Christ was the most dependent person who ever lived. Many fail to see it. They think of Him in His earthwalk as self-sufficient, when actually He was totally dependent on Another. “The Father abiding in Me does His works,” Jesus said (John 14:10). Thus, since our Father has dedicated Himself to the task of conforming us to the image of Christ (Romans 8:28-29), the circumstances of this planet are designed to bring the Christian to the end of his self-sufficiency. It is so liberating to view our troubles, humiliations, struggles, etc. as courses in the University of Earth that are designed for our best eternal good.

Stop fighting it, brother and sister. Give up all your “rights”, all talents, all abilities, all gifts, all the things you've depended on to get your need met for self-acceptance, self- reliance, etc. You'll love the results! You will find “abundant life” through allowing Him to express Himself through your talents, your abilities, your gifts, and your personality to do His will. That's the way Jesus walked. He let the Father do it through Him. (Acts 2:22)

Bill Gillham

Lifetime Guarantee, Harvest House, 1993, 140-145

The Temple

The Temple veil was torn in two at Christ’s death, exposing the Holy of Holies, and thus revealing that God would no longer dwell in a “temple made with hands.” He now dwells in another kind of temple that is “made without hands.” “We heard Him say, ‘I will destroy this temple made with hands, and in three days I will build another made without hands’ ” (Mark 14:58). Born-again people are the new Holy of Holies of whom Jesus spoke!

God no longer dwells in a stone temple. We’re now “living stones ... being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood” (1 Peter 2:5b). There could be no such living stones till Jesus was raised from the dead to become our spiritual progenitor. “‘The first man, Adam, became a living soul.’ The last Adam [Christ] became a life-giving spirit” (1 Corinthians 15:45).

Bill Gillham

What God Wishes Christians Knew about Christianity, Harvest House, 1998

Risen from the Dead

Many don't realize it, but Jesus did not raise Himself from the dead; the Father did this for Him! The word records more than forty verses which categorically teach that Jesus was raised by His Father as opposed to only three which speak metaphorically of Jesus' raising Himself (e.g., “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up”, John 2:19). Jesus was committed to staying in the grave until the Father did it for Him. Check it out in the word. Oh, this makes His voluntary death for you and me just that much more precious!

Bill Gillham

Lifetime Guarantee, Harvest House, 1993, 140-145

Am I Worthless

No! I am not worthless! I am of infinite worth!

Oh, thank You, Lord, that I am worth the fabulous price of Jesus—wonderful, wonderful Jesus. That’s who You “spent” to purchase me. Thank You, Lord, thank You for the picture of those scales in my mind—a graphic illustration of my personal value to You. And You make the rules. 

Your opinion is reality! Lord, although I may long for a new job, my personal worth does not depend on what I do, but on who I am, upon what You say about my value to You. My self-worth is fabulous.

Bill Gillham

What God Wishes Christians Knew about Christianity, Harvest House, 1998

A Brief Theology of Hearing God

It is sometimes assumed by modern readers that when believers in the Bible heard a message or saw a vision while praying, it was something people perceived with their physical eyes and heard with their physical ears. If anyone else had been present with these believers when they heard God speak or received their vision, we sometimes assume that they too would have heard what the recipient heard and seen what the recipient saw. Since few if any of us today hear God audibly or in any sense see God physically, we can easily conclude that the dynamic way in which God intersected with the lives of believers in Scripture is no longer available to us today.

While the Lord did sometimes interact with his people in a physically observable way—for instance, when the Lord led the Israelites in the wilderness—this was not the ordinary way God related to his people.

God’s ordinary mode of communication, both in biblical times and today, is to speak and appear to those who have the spiritual capacity to hear and see spiritual realities (Ez 12:2, Mat 11:15; 13:9-19; Acts 7:51). It is a spiritual hearing and seeing and as such it is a private experience, given only to the one intended by God to receive it. In other words, it is an experience that took place in what today we would call the imagination.

For example, young Samuel heard the voice of the Lord, but Eli could not hear it (1 Sam 3:2-10). When Daniel received his vision of a man by the Tigris River, he said that he “alone saw the vision; the people who were with me did not see the vision” (Dan 10:7). What is more Daniel referred to the other visions he received as revelations that “passed through my mind,” implying that they were subjective experiences (Dan 7:1, 15). He referred to the visions of Nebuchadnezzar in the same fashion (Dan 2:28, 30; 4:5).

The Hebrew words commonly used for “vision” indicate their subjectivity. The words hazon and hizzayon indicate a unique kind of seeing, something that is distinct from ordinary physical seeing. Also, the word for “prophet,” one noted for his receptivity to visions, is hozehl, or “seer”—one who sees what others cannot see. Prophets see what they see because they are “in the Spirit,” as John said (Rev 1:10). The assortment of symbolic images and words recorded in the book of Revelation were not things anyone other than John could see. They took place in his Spirit-inspired imagination.

The private and imaginative nature of this spiritual hearing from God is also indicated by the fact that there seems to be no clear distinction between a vision and a dream. The two are virtually equated, as when Isaiah spoke of certain nations to be destroyed. He said they would be “like a dream, a vision of the night” (Is 29:7). The only real distinction that can be made is that vision generally occurs while one is awake, while dreams come when one is asleep. Both are internal spiritual experiences. They both consist of images in the mind. They both take place in the imagination.

To many modern Western people, of course, saying the dreams or visions of the Bible took place in the imagination sounds like I’m denying their authenticity. Therein lies the problem: we often identify the imagination with make-believe, but ancient people in general, and people in biblical times in particular, did not. Rather, they generally understood that the imagination was a means through which God could communicate with his people. God spoke to his people by “what passes through the mind.”

The total foundational content of what God wants his people to know, of course, is revealed once and for all in his inspired Word, the Bible. When God speaks to his people today, he does so not to add to biblical revelation but to apply it.

While sleeping or awake, God communicated then and communicates now to those who are receptive to the things he wants people to hear and see.

He inspires the imagination. God wants to be known by his people in concrete, vivid, personal, and transforming ways. And this has never ceased. God is still sending signals, as it were, but we have too often discredited those signals by writing them off as make-believe. Do you have eyes to see and ears to hear? —Adapted from Seeing Is Believing, pages 84-86 -  Greg Boyd

Prayer and Co-Reigning with God

God’s primary objective is a world in which free agents love God and one another. For this to be possible, people need a stable environment and freely chosen, irrevocable, morally responsible say-so. Prayer is simply the spiritual side of our morally responsible say-so. We influence things by what we do through our bodies and in our communication with God.

More specifically, God’s most important goal in creation is for humans to enter into a personal relationship with him. Relationships and communication are two sides of the same coin. We relate to others only as we communicate with them and they communicate with us. Hence, it makes sense for God to design a world that strongly encourages our communication with him. He conditions what he will do and what happens in the world on the basis of whether or not his people align their hearts with his in prayer. He designed a world so that a great deal of it revolves around and hinges on our communication with him.

God designed the world not only so he will influence us but also that we might influence him. If we pray, things that should get done may get done. If we don’t, these things will not get done. Just as the outcome of events genuinely hangs in the balance of our morally responsible decisions and behavior on a physical level, so too on a spiritual level. Our prayer really does make a difference!

We may think of prayer as the central way our God-intended place of authority is restored. Because God is relational and his central goal for creation is love, almost everything he does is through mediators. God’s specific goal for humans from the start was to have us mediate his loving lordship over the earth. He created us to have dominion over the world (Gen 1:26-31). The NT declares that God wants a bride who will reign with him on earth (2 Tim 2:12). For this reason, God gives us say-so not just on a physical level but also on a spiritual level. He empowers us to pray.

We may think of prayer as an essential aspect of our co-reigning with God. He wants his will carried out on earth, but he wants it carried out in cooperation with us. Thus to a significant degree, God’s reign is applied on the earth only when we are co-reigning with him by agreeing with him in prayer.

God’s will is like a business check that must be cosigned in order to be validated. We the church are the cosigning party and prayer is our signature. (This illustration comes from Paul Billheimer, Destined for the Throne.). Hence the essence of prayer is, as Jesus taught, to align our will with the Father’s so that his rule is established on earth as it is in heaven (Mt 6:10). In prayer we begin our eternal job of mediating the Father’s will and reigning with Christ on earth.

—Adapted from Is God to Blame? pages 129-130 – Greg Boyd

Sin Will Not Send You To Hell

 For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. --Romans 5:6

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. --Romans 5:8

And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. --I John 2:2

 I cannot walk up to an unbeliever and proclaim that because he sins he will go to hell. No one is going to hell because of sin. The sin issue concerning the human race has already been dealt with at the cross. Jesus died for the ungodly! Man is not doomed because of sin; rather, man is doomed because of pride; it is pride that sends man to hell. It was pride that caused the initial fall in response to temptation. God prioritizes what is considered bad by listing pride first, unbelief second, and sin third. Somehow we have reversed the order. 

When the resurrected Christ appeared to the disciples, they did not recognize Him. To prove Who He was, He showed them the marks of crucifixion, the same marks that kept the disciples from recognizing Him. Before a crucifixion the Romans would take a whip made of twelve strands of leather (glass embedded on each side with a hook on the end) and strike the victim 39 times across the back and once across the face, completely disfiguring him. Jesus was marred beyond recognition, and for all of eternity He will bear those marks. At the right hand of the Father sits the marred Jesus. We will never fully understand the price that the Word of God paid to become a man; however, we know that it was great, for He is still a man in heaven. Is it any wonder that we will see Him in heaven as the Lamb that was slain and fall down in worship?

Because the sin issue has been dealt with, all that God requires is our belief in and receiving of the marred Jesus that sits at His right hand. Unbelievers will not perish because of sin but because of the pride they hold dear that denies the Son of God who made the supreme sacrifice. 

True Evangelism

 True Evangelism

 

            Trinitarian theologian Thomas F. Torrance delineated as of utmost importance the difference between true evangelical preaching and unevangelical preaching.

            There is, then, an evangelical way to preach the Gospel and an unevangelical way to preach it. The Gospel is preached in and unevangelical way, as happens so often in modern evangelism, when the preacher announces: this is what Jesus Christ has done for you, but you will not be saved unless you make your own personal decision for Christ as your Savior. Or: Jesus Christ loved you and gave His life for you on the Cross, but you will be saved only if you give your heart to Him. In that event what is actually coming across to people is not a Gospel of unconditional grace but some other gospel of conditional grace which belies the essential nature and content of the Gospel as it is in Jesus. … To preach the Gospel in that conditional or legalist way has the effect of telling poor sinners that in the last resort the responsibility for their salvation is taken off the shoulders of the Lamb of God and placed upon them – but in that case they feel that they will never be saved. They know perfectly well in their own hearts that if the chain that binds them to God in Jesus Christ has even one of its links their own feeble act of decision, then the whole chain is as weak as that, it’s weakest link.⁷⁷

            Forcing the “one good work” of faith back upon hearers for salvation is our favorite “Gentile legalism” today. Torrance compares it precisely with the error Paul struggled against in the Galatian church. It is a subtle yet crucial diversion from the true Gospel. Torrance explains:

            How, then, is the Gospel to be preached in a genuinely evangelical way? Surely in such a way that full and central place is given to the vicarious humanity of Jesus as the all-sufficient human response to the saving love of God which He has freely and unconditionally provided for us. We preach and teach the Gospel evangelically, then, in such a way as this: God loves you so utterly and completely that He has given Himself for you in Jesus Christ His beloved Son, and has thereby pledged His very Being as God for your salvation. In Jesus Christ God has actualized His unconditional love for you in your human nature in such a once for all way that He cannot go back upon it without undoing the Incarnation and the Cross and thereby denying Himself. Jesus Christ died for you precisely because you are sinful and utterly unworthy of Him, and has thereby already made you His own before and apart from you ever believing in Him. He has bound you to Himself by His love in a way that He will never let you go, for even if you refuse Him and damn yourself in hell His love will never cease. Therefore, repent and believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. From beginning to end what Jesus Christ has done for you He has done not only as God but as man. He has acted in your place in the whole range of your human life and activity, including your personal decisions, and your responses to God’s love, and even your acts of faith. He has believed for you, fulfills your human response to God, even made your personal decision for you, so that He acknowledges you before God as one who has already responded to God in Him, who has already believed in God through Him, and whose personal decision is already implicated in Christ’s self-offering to the Father, in all of which He has been fully and completely accepted by the Father, so that in Jesus Christ you are already accepted by Him. Therefore, renounce yourself … and follow Jesus as your Lord and Savior.⁷⁸

 What About ‘My Faith?’

 

            But this is too easy! His faith is enough to save me? Does this undercut our own personal faith response to the message? By no means! His faith is the very thing that empowers my faith. This reality of my inclusion in the life of God haunts me, chases me down and compels me to make a choice. Not a choice of whether I will die and be raised – for that has already happened in Christ! It compels me to decide whether I will thankfully, joyously embrace the divine life He has given me and recognize that I have been crucified with Christ.

            Whatever our faith response may be, it is merely an expression of and confidence in the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. His repentance on behalf of man is the only thing that empowers true repentance within man. Placing salvation fully in His court means that self is taken out of the equation – and that is the only place where true trust happens. His conclusion about you is the substance and source of salvation. My ecstatic “Yes!” response to hearing the truth of this divine union finds its validity only in the union itself. 

            To preach “human response” invalidates the Gospel. Our faith is personalized only insofar as we see His already completed work. “My faith” must never be the condition of salvation. My faith can only be full, true and effective so long as it is a response to the prior saving work of Christ and His faith. 

            What if some were unfaithful? Will their unfaithfulness nullify God’s faithfulness? (Rom. 3:3).

            Begin to see how insignificant is human failure in comparison to God’s grand success. In fact, the new birth is merely the revealing of an innocence, from God’s perspective, attributed to mankind from the foundation of the world.

            How many a soul has been fearful of Matthew 10:33, “But whoever denies Me before others, I will deny before My Father in Heaven.” The word “deny” is arnēsētai, which actually means to “contradict.”⁷⁹ Francois du Toit explains. If you contradict Him as being your true origin, identity and innocence - He will contradict you! Because He is fully convinced of your innocence.

The God of the Here and Now

 Several years ago an acquaintance told me she and her husband were going to travel to Lakeland, FL, where a “healing revival” had purportedly broken out. When I asked them if they were going because they needed healing, they replied that they just wanted to witness “God doing stuff.”

Even though I have nothing against revivals—provided they actually help people grow in their capacity to receive and manifest God’s love, I do get concerned about the assumption that God is “doing stuff” in one place more than another. I’ve known people who have spent a great deal of time and money traveling the world “chasing God” at various revivals, all the while missing what God was doing—and what God wanted to do—in and through their own lives.

The problem is that we have “over-the-rainbow” syndrome. In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy thought she could find the life she dreamed of “somewhere over the rainbow.” Her adventures in Oz taught her that, if she looked at things rightly, everything she really wanted she already had at home in Kansas. It’s the same lesson the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion had to learn. Some think God is more active over there than he is right here.

Others think God was more present in the past, or hope he’ll be more present in the future, than he is right now. Related to this, many think that the quality of their life and their relationship with God would have been much better if only certain things hadn’t happened in the past or weren’t happening in the present. Or they imagine the quality of their life and their relationship with God will be greatly improved if only things pan out in the future. If we can’t discern God’s presence in our day-to-day lives, it’s unlikely that we’ll find him at a revival or some other spiritual event. We may find a lot of excitement, great speakers, superb music, and maybe even some “signs and wonders.” But unless a person learns to find God as much in the ordinary as in the exciting, the exciting will do nothing more than serve as a momentary distraction.

Never suppose God is more “there” than “here,” or more “then” than “now.” For the Father is always working—in all places, at all times, in all people. The steadfast love of God fills the entire earth (Ps 33:15). Your evening at home with your family may not have the fanfare of a great revival, but God is as much at work there as in any revival. And there’s at least as much important kingdom work to engage in there as in any revival.

While there’s no denying that God moves differently in different places and times, the ultimate truth is that God is as present as he ever was or ever will be, right here and right now. And because of this, the fullness of life and intimacy with God you long for is available to you right here and right now, as much as any other place and any other time.

In this light, looking for God in any other place than here or any other time than now amounts to nothing more than a massive distraction. You’re dreaming about what’s over the rainbow, in some mythical land of Oz, and this is the very thing that’s keeping you from experiencing the love and joy that’s all around you in your very own “Kansas.”

—Adapted from Present Perfect, pages 134-147 - See more at: http://reknew.org/2016/03/the-god-of-the-here-and-now/#sthash.MQCcC8DF.dpuf

East and West

 East and West

 

            If we look at the tension of competing truths in the Church, where do we see the biggest division of all? Quite likely it is between the East and the West. Here we see one of the main examples of conflicting thought and worldview among Christians.

            The Eastern Orthodox Church has actually believed this sort of stuff for centuries regarding humanity’s inclusion in Christ. But then again, they have a much higher tolerance for mystery and non-linear thinking.

            American revival religion has a very low threshold for mystery. If you can’t answer everything in a two-sentence Facebook post, it must be heresy. Just when we think something is simply black and white, we miss that the Lord wants to open our eyes to Technicolor.

            Western thinking, although it prefers analytical, rational bullet points is not altogether bad. We need the linear as well! We need both math and mystery. The Bible came to us in Greek and Hebrew for a reason. Eastern and Western thought need one another, just as you need a right and left side to your brain.

            The point here is to give you a quick little history lesson. Most of my readers are undoubtedly Western, so I want to expose you to a different way of seeing.

 

 Augustine and Athanasius

 

            A lot of our Western theology (both Protestant and Roman Catholic are Western) traces its roots primarily back to one guy … Augustine.

            I have been to St. Peters Basilica in Rome several times. It is the largest and undoubtedly most beautiful church in the world. If you move toward the front of that church you will notice four absolutely massive pillars. Upon them are carved the four main doctors of the Church. Any historian who looks at the first centuries beyond the apostles will recognize these four men as the biggest movers and shakers of the early Church.

            Two men are from the West – Augustine and Ambrose. Augustine was the theologian of the two.

            But there are also two men carved from the East – Athanasius and John Chrysostom. Of these two men, Athanasius was the theologian.

            So you basically have two theologians who set the foundational course of Christian thought: Augustine in the West and Athanasius in the East. These were the two main theologians of the Church age beyond Paul.

            What does this have to do with you? Maybe you’ve never even heard of Augustine. Well it has a lot to do with you, because a lot of the mindsets you’ve picked up sitting in the pews every Sunday trace all the way back to Augustine. This doesn’t mean everything you learned was wrong. But you may have seen things from a one-sided perspective. Luther, Calvin and all the evangelical world was highly influenced by Augustine.

True Identity

            I joyfully embrace all the verses that point to my own unrighteousness and depravity apart from God. Why? Because it keeps me cheerfully free from trusting in myself and trying to bear the responsibility of mastering the helm of my own salvation.

            We acknowledge original sin, but we also acknowledge that on the cross, every speck of that sinfulness was swallowed up and completely destroyed. We don’t say that sin never existed. We say it was completely erased. Big difference.

            When I say I am not a sinner anymore, I am not crediting that to self-righteousness, but to the righteousness of God in Christ. If we claim to have never sinned we deceive ourselves (1 John 1:8-10). But if we think we are still sinners, we disown our True identity and we are just as deceived.

            We should never be sin-focused. God did not leave us with indwelling sin so that His grace would keep abounding. But He used our sinfulness and the law to point us to our need for Him. To say that God left indwelling sinfulness inside you to keep you humble or keep you dependent on Him is to miss the point and call the work of the cross “unfinished.” How could He leave the substance of pride in you to bring humility? That is ridiculous. Do not blame God for sin. He used it. He did not cause it; He dealt with it.

            In the existence of the old man Adam, you were crippled by sin. In the existence of the new man Christ, you are completely evil free. You are not schizo. The new has come, the old has gone. We are not saying the old never existed, or that some aren’t still living according to it today – but the old was a lie existence, a false existence.

Your Attitude About Yourself

Maybe your attitude about yourself is, “If I could just become a different person. Someone I could learn to like and respect. But [sigh] what's the use? It's all so hopeless! I've tried the self-improvement books and tapes. They just don't work for me. I'm just different. I'd be better off dead. Everyone would be better off if I were gone. I can't stand myself!” And maybe you've even considered the notion of ending it all.

This is your time! Our precious Lord wants to offer some beautiful, healing words to you today. The garbage listed above is one deep pile of (you guessed it) symptoms. Your problem is twofold: Number 1, you are trying to live the Christian life instead of understanding how to collaborate with Christ to live the Christian life for you and through you. Number 2, you are not comprehending how to appropriate your true identity as the new creation you already are in Christ. You are still attempting to face each day in your own strength.

I hear you say, “But I don't understand that.” I didn't, either, when I was in my mess. But, I'm free from my mess now. He took me through it, and I tell you it was a big one. God spells relief J-E-S-U-S. Wouldn't you know that appropriating some facet of Christ is somehow the solution for every problem that any person can experience? The key to experiencing victory in Christ lies in learning how to literally “walk in newness of life” as described in the Word.

Bill Gillham

Lifetime Guarantee, Harvest House, 1993

Two Adams

Why do religious people believe without reservation that two naked fallible human beings in a Garden ate of the forbidden fruit...that resulted in ALL of humanity being made sinners...Yet, Jesus, "The God Man"...comes to earth to save the people of the world, was crucified, died, and rose again...but the outcome of being reconciled to God does not apply to ALL people...and because I dare claim Jesus really was 100% successful in His mission to reconcile ALL people of the world to God through His finished work on the cross...some religionists call me an apostate and a heretic traveling the slippery slope that leads to the sinner torture chamber in the fires hell. 

There is a big discrepancy in the religionists way of thinking...Most, if not ALL religionists believe in a universal outcome that includes ALL people because of the sin of a mere man named Adam; but when it comes to "The God Man"...Jesus...regarding His sacrifice and His ability to affect ALL people, most religionists believe in a conditional outcome that does not apply to ALL people? Are they so deceived by religion they don't realize they give more reliability and ability to a fallible man than they do to the infallible God Man...Isn;t there something wrong with that kind of believing!

Believing Jesus died on the cross "for us" is good...but...believing Jesus died on the cross "AS US" as the scriptures do by declaring we were crucified with Him, rose with Him and are seated with Him in heavenly places...is whole different story! Jesus fully became man. But He was still God and everything He accomplished on the cross applied to ALL people! God forbid we believe Adam can truly cause ALL to become sinners...but...Jesus (God in the flesh) is incapable of causing ALL people to be reconciled to Himself and be counted as righteous! Paul said, Jesus is the second Adam: "So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to ALL men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to ALL men" as Romans 5:18 tells us.

HALLELUJAH WHAT A SAVIOR who would supply such AMAZING GRACE to ALL!

Be it far from people...religionists or otherwise...who claim to be believers and followers of Christ, to preach and teach that Adam's sin made ALL of the human race sinners...BUT...that God through the sacrifice Himself upon the cross did not reconcile ALL of the human race to Himself! 

People who are Hell-Bent on telling people they are Hell-Bound are:

more Fear-Conscious than Love-Conscious.

more Devil-Conscious than God-Conscious.

more Sin-Conscious than Jesus-Conscious.

more Human Teacher-Conscious than Spirit-Teacher-Conscious.

more Self-Righteous-Conscious...than Christ-Righteous-Conscious.

more Religion-Gospel-Conscious...than Christ-Gospel-Conscious.


Such BLASPHEMY should not come from the mouths of BELIEVERS...let alone their heart

Theology and Imagination

The human brain is by far the most amazing, complex, and mysterious aspect of the physical world. Our brains continually interpret our world, and the way we interpret it is mostly determined by the way aspects of our world trigger our imagination. Our imagination encodes messages and creates feelings, and thus motivates behavior. And most of this goes on in our brains without any conscious awareness of it.

When our imaginations see truth in a way that corresponds to the way things actually are, and when they evoke appropriate feelings to motivate us to behave in effective ways, the imagination is a great ally. In other words, when our imagination corresponds with truth, we are able to experience the things of God as real and are transformed by this experience. However, what God intends for good, the enemy indents for evil. In a fallen world, we go through experiences that shape our imaginations and cause us to interpret the world in ways that don’t align with the truth.

One of the most pervasive problems in contemporary Western Christianity is that we mistakenly assume that theological information automatically translates into transformation. We tend to have a naïve conviction that if only we read another book or join a Bible study or take a class that we will be changed.

Western Christians have forgotten how to use the imagination with regard to spiritual matters. Most of us only know God with our intellect, not our imagination. For many, faith is little more than intellectual assent to certain propositions and a commitment to live in a certain way. We tend to equate the imagination with fantasy and make believe, and therefore we have come to mistrust it, especially in spiritual matters. So our imaginations, the way we see and interpret ourselves and the world, continues to reflect more the pattern of this world rather than conformity to Jesus Christ.

If our faith is going to be powerful and transformative, it is going to have to be imaginative and experiential. St. Ignatius, founder of the Jesuits, wrote, “It is not knowing a lot but grasping things intimately and savoring them that fills and satisfies the soul.” Memories shape us profoundly because we grasp them and savor them not as information but “intimately.” This is the manner in which we need to embrace our faith, and our theology, if it is to satisfy our souls and transform our lives. It’s a wonderful thing to confess theologically the claim that God is love (1 John 4:16), but this information will not significantly impact us until we can intimately grasp and savor the truth that God loves us individually.

So too it’s a wonderful thing to confess the theology that Jesus died for the world (2 Cor 5:14-15), but this information will not significantly impact the way we experience ourselves and the world until it becomes vivid, experiential, and personalized. I need to be able to savor in a concrete way the truth that Jesus died for me, that he loves me to this unfathomable degree, and that I am completely forgiven. This moves theological truths from mere information to my imagination.

—Adapted from Seeing Is Believing, pages 71-80 Greg Boyd

If I Were God, I Would Kill Me!

For thus says the LORD, sing aloud with gladness for Jacob, and shout among the chiefs of the nations; proclaim, give praise, and say, O LORD, save Thy people, the remnant of Israel. --Jeremiah 31:7

“If I were God, I would kill me!” Have you ever felt that way about yourself? Have you ever wondered why God even puts up with you? The life of grace is so much higher than the life of legalism! The legalist could never even comprehend the difference; he is accustomed to moving smoothly between good flesh and bad. However, the least attitude that is anti-Christ in grace people will not go unchecked! Not only are there the daily struggles of either recognizing that we are abiding or not, there is the issue of our growth. As we grow in Him, we look back at last year, the year before that, and even the beginnings of our Christian life with a sigh and a moan. “How could I have been like that?” All of this leads to an inner whisper, “If I were God, I would not have put up with me.”

Why has He put up with us? It is because of the remnant! What remnant? There were many people in Israel who disobeyed the Lord, but there was always one man who obeyed and who became the remnant. It was because of the remnant that all the people were not destroyed; the remnant permitted God to put up with all the rest of the rebellious people. The remnant—the one man for the many--delighted Him. Noah and Moses come to mind; they dwelled in and among the people but were not like the people. The people did not change them; they worked to change the people’s hearts. Because of the remnant God continued to work with the people. Every believer is multi-faceted in that his soul comprises mind, will, and emotions and his body harbors desire, habits, protection, and reproduction. Over the years, even as believers, our minds were filled with chaos, our wills pointed toward self, our emotions bred hatred and jealousy, and the bodies expressed every kind of desire. Our soul and body participated in the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and boastful pride of life. Why did God not just wipe us out? Because of the remnant! There was something in us so great that it allowed God to overlook all of the failures and continue with us. The remnant in us is Jesus! He dwells in our spirit, He is pleasing to God in everything, and because of Him God will not withdraw from us. Our flesh will never affect Jesus, but Jesus will continue to have an influence on our flesh. We will grow and the outside influences that had control over us will lessen as He increases and we have the revelation of our new life in Him. The Remnant is in us!  

The indwelling of Jesus Christ in every Believer is always going to be one of the most unknown, misunderstood, and least appreciated truths of Christianity.  The totality of His Spirit being our spirit, His Soul being a part of us, us being complete in Him… this all is a lot to take in.  But when we grasp this, we will never take another breath the same as before that moment of revelation.

I remember “that moment” for me way back in 1980…Romans 8:11, “But if the spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodiesby His Spirit that dwelleth in you.”  I just about exploded!  It was no longer the “old I,” apart from Christ.  It was no longer just me in my flesh.  It is me with His Spirit a part of me that “quickens my mortal body” as I allow Him to.  Wow!  This is Pauline living!!!

But, stop and think about the beauty of it that Michael points out as to Jesus being the “remnant” in us that allows God to overlook so much, pleases God so much, and prohibits God from withdrawing from us.  All that we fret so much about is not even a bother to God.  He is the One who made us a “new creation,” complete in Christ, with some of the “fretful stuff” still hanging around.  Did He make a mistake?  No!  Absolutely not!  And another beautiful thing is how Michael puts it: “Our flesh will never affect Jesus, but Jesus will continue to have an influence on our flesh.”  Beautiful!  Amen! 

Growing in grace (His doing through us) as we abide, The Remnant in us.  This is one of the major privileges of being a Christian in this life.  Now wrap your pea-picking heart around this: at salvation, Christ did kill the “old man,” the “old me.”  The same happened to you if you are a Born Again Believer!  The “new man,” the “new me,” is Him.  That is why God doesn’t call His kids “sinners,” but He calls us “saints.”  Hallelujah!

God's Grace is Sufficient

Oh, dear friend, God's grace is sufficient for your situation. He wants to carry the burden of living for you. Won't you give up and let Him live through you? You don't need to wait for one single thing to be added to who you already possess if you know Christ as Savior. Just “take up your cross” and celebrate a good funeral for the “old man” He has already executed for you and then celebrate the birth of the new, victorious you who was born again in Christ (Ephesians 2:10) by beginning to live like who you are, a person who is totally dependent upon Jesus.

Testing times will come, but the one who is in charge of the “obstacle course” has designed it to motivate you to claim Christ as your strength. He will not allow it to destroy you. The “course” is specifically designed to conform you to the image of your lovely older Brother, Jesus. Relax in it. Rest in it. Keep your mind on Him. Our moment- by-moment battle is to fix in our minds that we are resting in heaven in Christ while simultaneously setting our minds to move through our daily tasks, believing that Christ is meeting them through us. We work at resting while we rest at working.

Bill Gillham

Lifetime Guarantee, Harvest House, 1993

Divine Wisdom

Why Doesn't God End Everything

Sustenance - Psalm 55:22

When a person comes into your life bringing their bag of problems with them, when a person carries grief and stress and pain into your world, when a person causes chaos over which you have no control, what do you do?

How do you deal with the pressure of painful encounters and fragmented relationships? With angry, rebellious people? With divorce, sickness, bitterness, and death? With loneliness? With the circumstance that you never dreamed would be a part of your life? With the weight of the burden that has worn out your emotions and left you physically exhausted? How do you handle it?

The Bible, our love letter, tells us in Psalm 55:22, “Cast your burden upon the Lord, and He will sustain you.” Let’s paraphrase that: “Get rid of that burden; throw it on the Lord; fling it at His feet. Don’t sneak up to give it to Him. To cast means to throw forcefully. He promises that He will take care of you, sustain you; He promises to be your sustenance.”

What sort of sustenance is the psalmist talking about here? I need emotional sustenance. Emotional relief. I need stability, strength, and wisdom. I need peace, the therapy of rest. I need the calmness that comes when I know that everything is under the control of an authority figure, someone I can trust, someone who knows what to do. That’s exactly the sort of sustenance Psalm 55:22 is talking about.

Anabel Gillham

The Confident Woman, Harvest House, 1993

Impossibility Versus Accomplishment

“Are you so foolish?”   Paul, after being a pastor for several years expresses that frustration.  However, even though the New Testament is a plain and clear testimony that Christianity is all about Christ, and not about us...we go and make it about us way too much.

Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? . . . Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for, “The righteous man shall live by faith.” –Galatians 3:3, 11

Many aspects of the believer's life have been made out to be nearly impossible to accomplish. We are given reams of material on how to be a good parent, partner, and child of God. There seems to be so much information that we must know. How can we take it all in? How can we always do the right thing? And those who present to us the much needed information seem so much more spiritual than we are; they have done the right things all along, and they even have degrees in how to be successful. 

However, Scripture does not indicate that being a brother or sister in Christ, a parent, or a mate is all that difficult.   In fact, there is very little in Scripture concerning what to do, but much about basic attitudes to have.“  And so, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against any one; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you” (Colossians 3:12, 13). The Christian life is as simple as loving our wives, respecting our husbands, forgiving our enemies, not provoking our children, obeying parents, and working as unto the Lord. This is our long-term plan. In keeping it day by day we will see ups and downs, reversals, and the inevitable Christian hiccups, but we should never, never allow those daily things to sidetrack us from our long-term plan, which will reap its own reward in the fullness of time.

Often in our quest for immediate relief we see in others (and they see in us) things to change to bring instant comfort. Therefore, we set out to covertly or overtly change those around us through more control and more role-playing of God. Let me point out that if God believed a change in another person's behavior were as important as we believe it to be, He would already have changed it! A change in the behavior of Job’s friends would not have lessened his plight one bit. It was Job’s trust in God and the long-term result of faith that kept him. The whole test was calculated to clean up Job, not to change others. Others actually played very little into the scenario. God's role was primary, Job's secondary, and others' somewhere far behind.

Is that an incredible truth, or what…”there is very little in Scripture about what to do, but much about basic attitudes to have.”

Chosen of God, holy (God says so), accepted in the beloved, living in the Spirit…life is all taken care of by our Lord.  Do we believe that”  “God’s role was primary, Job’s (ours) secondary, and others’ somewhere far behind.”  Well, amen!

I can let Him accomplish what only He can accomplish, and I can just relax and live by His faith.