A Universalist Vision of the Church

God, Inspiration 0

In the church one finds people from every tribe and tongue joined in one body.  One day it will not simply be people called out from every tribe and nation who love the Lord but the totality of every tribe and nation.  Our calling is to act as a prophetic sign to the nations representing the destiny of all humanity.  When people look at the church, God wants them to see a vision of what redeemed humanity can be — what it will be. . . .  The church is called to be a reconciled humanity that in Christ has transcended all the barriers that fracture human communities.  Paul brings out the socio-ethical implications very clearly in his concern that divisions between Jew and Gentile must be transcended in Christ.  They are united in Christ.  It is a very high calling and both a major challenge and inspiration to our practices.  It is a calling rooted in the realized eschatology of the New Testament — the churches experience this reconciliation now as a sign of the fullness in the age to come, when all humanity will be summed up in Christ and reconciled to God and each other.  Sadly, we model this reconciliation in very imperfect ways in our churches, and this is both a major failure on our part and an evidence that the fullness is yet to come, even for the church….

The vision also connects with the theology and practice of worship.  The dream that inspires the universalist is one in which the whole of creation — all creatures great and small — join together in a symphony of worship to their creator.  The day when every knee will bow and every tongue will worship is what we long for.  To the universalist, the worship of the church in the present age is an eschatological act — a foretaste of the age to come.  When we meet together to worship God we are anticipating the day when all creation will love him.  So Christian worship is an act of hope and a prophetic sign on the part of those who live by the power of the coming age even in the midst of this present darkness….

Christian universalists share with non-universalists many of their motivations for gospel proclamation:  to obey Christ’s command, to save people from the coming wrath, to bring them into living fellowship with the triune God and his church.  However, Christian universalists are perhaps more likely to be additionally inspired by a more unusual reason — the vision that in proclaiming the gospel one is playing a part in God’s glorious purpose of reconciling the whole of creation (Col 1:20) and summing all things up in Christ (Eph 1:10).  Working with the Spirit in bringing about this glorious destiny is a strong motive for evangelism and mission in its broader sense also.

— Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist, p. 167-168

Accountability

Forgiveness, Letting Go, Life, Relationships 0

Stop making excuses for other people.

Stop making excuses for ourselves.

While it is our goal to develop compassion and achieve forgiveness, acceptance, and love, it is also our goal to accept reality and hold people accountable for their behavior.  We can also hold ourselves accountable for our own behavior, and, at the same time, have compassion and understanding for ourselves.

— Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go, p. 260

Revisioning Work

Joy, Life 0

One problem with the word work is that it has come to be equated with drudgery, and is considered degrading.  Now some work is drudgery, though it is not always degrading.  Vacuuming the house or scrubbing out the refrigerator is drudgery for me, though I find it in no way degrading.  And that it is drudgery is lack in me.  I enjoy the results and so I should enjoy producing the results.  I suspect that it is not the work itself which is the problem, but that it is taking me from other work, such as whatever manuscript I am currently working on.  Drudgery is not what work is meant to be.  Our work should be our play.  If we watch a child at play for a few minutes, “seriously” at play, we see that all his energies are concentrated on it.  He is working very hard at it.  And that is how the artist works, although the artist may be conscious of discipline while the child simply experiences it.

— Madeleine L’Engle, Sold Into Egypt, quoted by Carole F. Chase in Glimpses of Grace, p. 235-236

Rejoice

Joy, Life 0

Rejoice in the abundance of being able to awaken each morning and experience a new day.  Be glad to be alive, to be healthy, to have friends, to be creative, to be a living example of the joy of living.  Live your highest awareness.  Enjoy your transformational process.

— Louise L. Hay, You Can Heal Your Life, p. 121

Joyful Acceptance

God, Joy, Trials 0

Let’s make the decision to joyfully accept all situations — the lines, the traffic jams, the downed computers, and the rest — as opportunities to include God in our lives, in that moment, and then wait for the change in perception that will assuredly come.

— Karen Casey, Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow, p. 14-15

Desire as Tyrant

God, Healing, Letting Go 0

When the deepest desire we feel within our hearts is for something other than God, a spirit of entitlement develops.  We see ourselves as needing something we don’t have and we believe we should have.  Justice is on our side.  So we think.  Prayer becomes demand when desire becomes our tyrant.

Soon we’re caught in the addictive cycle.  Whatever brings satisfaction relieves pain for the moment, then creates deeper emptiness that, in turn, more rudely clamors for relief.  We lose our power to choose.  The will becomes a slave to whatever god makes us feel better.  We die as persons while Satan chuckles.

— Larry Crabb, Shattered Dreams, p. 86

Give Yourself a Break

Forgiveness, Healing, Love, Marriage, Relationships 0

It is important to be gentle with and accepting of yourself throughout your relationship.  You are just as flawed, misguided, and hurtful as your lover, and you both need a good dose of TLC.  While the idea of self-forgiveness might be a “duh” to many of you, the point still needs to be made.  Self-forgiveness enables you to move on with kindness after grieving your flaws and the ways you have hurt your lover.  When you forgive yourself, you look for your good qualities, appreciate the love you offer, and accept with humility the harm you cause.  You also change your story to reflect your positive intention and your effort to do the best you can with what you have to work with.

Self-forgiveness is not that different from forgiving your partner. . . .

Nobody is perfect, and everybody will make many mistakes.  Some of us make mistakes that cause harm, and others make mistakes that only cause a mess.  Because you and your partner are human beings, you will make mistakes, fail occasionally, and sometimes even harm other people.  Your need to be perfect is an unenforceable rule, one that can never be met.  Needing to never hurt your lover is an unenforceable rule.  Demanding that you always be successful in all aspects of your relationship is an unenforceable rule.  When you accept that you are human, you are able to offer forgiveness to yourself and remember that you have the resources at your disposal to improve yourself and help others.

— Dr. Fred Luskin, Forgive for Love, p. 209-210, 215

Forgiving and Excusing

Forgiveness, God 0

I find that when I think I am asking God to forgive me I am often in reality (unless I watch myself very carefully) asking Him to do something quite different.  I am asking Him not to forgive me but to excuse me.  But there is all the difference in the world between forgiving and excusing.  Forgiveness says, “Yes, you have done this thing, but I accept your apology; I will never hold it against you and everything between us two will be exactly as it was before.”  But excusing says “I see that you couldn’t help it or didn’t mean it; you weren’t really to blame.”  If one was not really to blame then there is nothing to forgive.  In that sense forgiveness and excusing are almost opposites….

A great deal of our anxiety to make excuses comes from not really believing in it [forgiveness], from thinking that God will not take us to Himself again unless He is satisfied that some sort of case can be made out in our favour.  But that would not be forgiveness at all.  Real forgiveness means looking steadily at the sin, the sin that is left over without any excuse, after all allowances have been made, and seeing it in all its horror, dirt, meanness, and malice, and nevertheless being wholly reconciled to the man who has done it.  That, and only that, is forgiveness, and that we can always have from God if we ask for it.

— C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, quoted in A Year with C. S. Lewis, edited by Patricia S. Klein, p. 263-264

Care and Protection

Compassion, Forgiveness, God, Healing 0

But a person with a shattered life . . . doesn’t first need Christ to forgive her or to forgive through her.  Before anything else, she needs Christ to cradle her, to nurse her with the milk of divine love, to hold her in his arms like an inestimable gem, to sing her songs of gentle care and firm protection, and to restore her to herself as a beloved and treasured being.

And that’s what Christ does.

— Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge, p. 206