Make the Story Our Own

Faith, Forgiveness, God, Redemption 0

Even before we get to Paul, we find the challenge of the cross reaching us in quite new ways. It is indeed revolutionary. Nothing is lost. We do not (of course!) have to give up the idea of Jesus “dying for our sins.” Indeed, that remains at the very center. But that idea is refocused, recontextualized, placed within a narrative not of divine petulance, but of unbreakable divine covenant love, embodied in the actual person, life, actions, and teaching of Jesus himself. This means that in order to appropriate this for ourselves, to benefit from this story, it is not simply a matter of believing a particular abstract doctrine, this or that theory of how “atonement” might be thought to “work.” No doubt that can help, though with the abstractions can come distortions, as we have seen.

No, the gospels invite us to make this story our own, to live within the narrative in all its twists and turns, to see ourselves among the crowds following Jesus and witnessing his kingdom-bringing work, to see ourselves also in the long-range continuation of that narrative that we call, in fear and trembling (because we know its deep ambiguities), the life of the church. In particular, as followers of Jesus from the very beginning have known, we are to make the story our own by the repeated meals in which the Last Supper is brought to life once more. If that was how Jesus wanted his followers not only to understand, but also to appropriate for themselves the meaning of the death he was to die, there is every reason to take it seriously as the sign and foretaste of the eventual kingdom, carrying within it the assurance that we too are those who share in the “forgiveness of sins.” And, with that, the gospels give to those who read them the energy and the sense of direction to be Beatitude people for the world, knowing that the victory was indeed won on the cross, that Jesus is indeed already installed as the world’s rightful ruler, and that his way of peace and reconciliation has been shown to be more powerful than all the powers of the world.

— N. T. Wright, The Day the Revolution Began, p. 224-225.

Increasing Accountability with Self-Forgiveness

Acceptance, Faith, Growth 0

Surprisingly, it’s forgiveness, not guilt, that increases accountability. Researchers have found that taking a self-compassionate point of view on a personal failure makes people more likely to take personal responsibility for the failure than when they take a self-critical point of view. They also are more willing to receive feedback and advice from others, and more likely to learn from the experience.

— Kelly McGonigal, The Willpower Instinct, p. 148.

God Doesn’t Do Control.

Faith, God, Love, Redemption 0

What does the power of the cross mean for us? Or for those who suffer? It means the same Christ crucified on Good Friday now fills the universe with his cruciform love. He does not passively and powerlessly witness the abuse of his children or the oppression of the poor and ‘do nothing.’ Rather, enters the suffering, experiences the anguish, lives the sorrow for all, with all, for all the time. The Christlike God drinks our cup of suffering. The Lamb slain bore it all, right down to the foundations of the cosmos. Secondary causes nailed him to the Tree of affliction. And what did Christ do? In love, he consented to co-suffer with us in solidarity.

In that sense, I say God is in charge, but he is not in control, because he doesn’t do control. Sometimes I wish he did, but as I scan history and humanity, I don’t see him controlling. Sometimes he seems and feels absent, distant and silent, weak or maybe even dead. Did God simply die and abandon us all to go to ‘hell in a hand basket’?

No! Rather than control and coerce, God-in-Christ cares and consents to suffer with and for us. We don’t concede to the false image of a ‘lame duck’ dad who sits by silently, watching his kids getting beaten by the bully. Instead, we look to the true image of the cruciform — Christ himself — the One who heard our groans and came down to suffer and die with us in order to overcome affliction, defeat death and raise us up to live and reign with him.

— Bradley Jersak, A More Christlike God, p. 133

Even Our Kids

Faith, God, Letting Go 0

By becoming a Christian, we say we are giving our lives to Christ. If that’s true — if we’ve given our lives to Christ — we’ve given it all. Everything.

And if that’s true, it includes — and boy, is this tough to say as a dad — it includes our very children. They’re his.

No one can take anything, or anyone, from His grip. They can take from ours, but not His.

So watch them sleep, and thank God for them, and know that they’re on loan. He loves them even more than you do. And whatever happens, He’s got the big picture; we don’t.

— Brant Hansen, Unoffendable, p. 121

Following Jesus

Faith, God 0

There is a part of Jesus we can’t know by reading books about him, can’t know by listening to sermons on him. There is a part of him we can’t know by going to Church, to Bible college, to seminary. There is a part of him we can only know by following him. The way Peter followed him. And James. And John. And the rest of the original Twelve.

— Tim Timmons, Simply Enough!, p. 226

The Eternally Consenting Bridegroom

Faith, Forgiveness, God, Universalism 0

Because God, by nature, is the eternally consenting Bridegroom, there are two things he cannot and will not do:

He will not ever make you marry his Son, because an irresistible grace would violate your consent. Your part will always and forever be by consent.

His consent will never end, because a violent ultimatum would violate your consent. Divine love will always and forever be by consent. Emphasis on forever. “His mercy endures forever” (Psalm 136). “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness” (Jer. 31:3).

I don’t believe the divine courtship involves wearing you down with his love until you give up. It’s simply that he’ll always love you, with a love that even outlasts and overcomes death (Song of Solomon 8). The Bible at least hints (Rev. 21-22) that the prodigal Father will wait for you, invite you and keep the doors open for you until you’re ready to come home. He’ll wait for you forever.”

— Bradley Jersak, A More Christlike God, p. 126-127.

Faithful Questioning

Faith, God 0

Questions, then, are not a sign of a lack of faith. Questions are what help us to preserve a sense of the bigness of God. In questioning our ideas about God, however traditionally grounded they may be, we are actually showing a great deal of reverence for God because in doing so we implicitly confess that God is bigger than our ideas about God. God cannot be contained in graven images, whether those are made of wood or ideas. There is a sacredness to asking questions, because the act of questioning is rooted in the deeper conviction that we are only human and all of our knowledge of God is always partial, provisional, and perspectival. This doesn’t mean that we can’t know anything about God. It just means that our knowledge is never full or complete, it is always open to revision, and it is always coming from a certain angle.

— Heath Bradley, Flames of Love, p. 7-8