Prescribing works for salvation can be dangerous

*See Galatians*

I think it also runs counter to the nature of our creation, which is an expression of diversity. If together we are a body of Christ it should follow that different people fill different functions. It should perhaps also follow that as the body learns and evolves that different organs learn to provide different utility.

It would be like humans only ever using rocks to hammer and never learning other motions to shape or even join objects. But what if doctrine had interfered with the development of tools and construction and dictated that only hammering was holy and that exclusivity was required for salvation? How might knowledge have been set back as a result?

The same goes for works of faith. At least I think this is what Paul is getting at here. It is not for us to ultimately judge or prohibit works with a view to measuring a person’s worthiness of salvation. I think there is always room to examine works in regards to their effectiveness in spreading love and being a testament to Jesus’ values of balancing loving God and loving your fellow human. But we need to stay away from casting aspersion on the faith that those works spring forth from, or having a restrictive idea as to what works bring glory to God.

The thing is, I think for a lot of humble people out there they don’t even see their best works as works as all. The left gives so secretly and humbly that the right has no concept of giving… in which case, how are others looking in from the outside ever to discern such works.

Doesn’t mean Jesus isn’t smiling down all the same just because we don’t see evidence.

The physical is only ever a symbol for the spiritual

Recently Christ’s physical ordeal leading up to and including his death came up in discussion. In a conversation of varying views one expressed the idea that Christ’s suffering is often exaggerated by believers. If Christ is God then Christ was able to save himself at any time from his ordeal. Indeed, Christ as God could have taken such a punishment and turned off the brain’s recognition of pain to ease his suffering.

As is often the temptation and case when discussing spiritual matters, the spiritual took a backseat to the physical. Jesus’ ordeal however shows us once again how the physical is just a facade, and holds little meaning without a spiritual underpinning.

Christ’s physical pain during torture and crucifixion weren’t the real punishment, it was the spiritual hate emanating from the very people he was there to save and provide a new way of life to. Never mind that his sacrifice was a fulfilment of prophesy, each *individual* member of the crowd who punished him or abandoned him represented a soul taking a choice where another was possible and could still see the prophesy fulfilled.

Imagine looking into the eyes of those you offered healing and salvation to and seeing hate in return for that offering. Anyone who has felt the sting of betrayal at the hands of loved ones can only imagine how such a feeling is magnified in effect for a being *of* love. This is why the bible exhorts us to be careful with even the most idle of our words, lest they betray a spiritual underpinning that lashes the heart of another in a way that cannot be easily healed. Physical words mean nothing on their own but in a spiritual context can make or break souls.

We must be careful how we weigh the physical matters of our lives. It can pain or uplift us deeply to see the scales physically tip in or out of our favour, but if we cannot measure the balance of what the physical means spiritually, we are trading in a false economy.

The physical always gives way. It is temporary. Jesus’ gave way physically so that we might see the spiritual matter of forgiveness and salvation. We do well to learn to make the physical give way in our own lives in order to give us better sight of the spiritual lessons that lie beneath.

Don’t Take a Human Measure of Mercy

The human measure of divine characteristics has always been interesting. Earthly expressions of damnation and wrath know no bounds. You’ll not struggle to find believers who will judge a person worthy of hell without equivocation if a particular sin goes without repentance or is committed too many times. No matter what the extenuation in circumstance, the conception of God’s punitive measures does not struggle to exceed imagination.

Unfortunately this abundance of imagination doesn’t tend to extend to God’s mercy in the same degree. Time and again religious wisdom reaches beyond even the cruelest levels of human sadism to warn others what God is capable of for punishment. These punishments can come in return for something as taking God’s name in vain inadvertently in the moment, or ascribing to the wrong religion despite an honest desire and attempt to be close to God.

Imagine what these religious leaders would deem as the Godly punishment for putting Jesus to death? Continuous physical and spiritual torture notwithstanding, the punishment for simply not believing is harsh enough let alone cruelly going after God in human form. If the punishment for blasphemy is eternal damnation what is the cost of killing God?

Fortunately for them Jesus’ divine standard of mercy deemed them worthy of forgiveness. As Jesus lingered close to death his final words regarding his tormentors was a plea for exactly that.

Dare to believe God’s love and mercy are more than you can express. Moreover, dare to share such s message with others. You may find your faith in your own salvation strengthened.

Your inch of mortar between the bricks of the kingdom

There’s push in some Christian circles, and you can see it on TV sometimes, to do what’s called ushering in the kingdom. This can be expressed in various ways. Sometimes it is termed as taking dominion or some variation on Christian establishing governance of some sort.

Such a mindset can be tempting from a desire to see peace in the world, but unfortunately the usual outcome is an over-pouring of ego. Rather than being content to humbly do a small, unsung  part in building the kingdom of God, people end up wanting a position of glory and accolades during their life time. They want to be there when every knee bows and every tongue confesses, not realising the enormity of such a task and how small any contribution they can make is in the scheme of things. The irony is rich if these people are the same who decry the state of the world as it is right now.

Every Christian that has toiled in lifetimes past without ego regarding the kingdom has added their small inch of the mortar. As the structure has grown the ability to differentiate one person’s efforts from another has grown ever more difficult. There’s no staking territory with a flag, there’s no plaque on any bricks for anyone to lay a claim to. We have come this far, and there is still far to go. Many are those who cry for aid but shy away from the kingdom because we have not yet built the kind of trust that gives people the faith and freedom to ask.

Rather than looking to rush the matter on our timetable so we can enjoy the moment as we wish, perhaps we should just redouble our efforts, even in relative anonymity, knowing that in the fullness of time God brings such things to fruition in conjunction with our humble, faithful service according to God’s will. As small as our inch of mortar may be, that inch has still taken a lifetime, so while being humble and anonymous it is still no small thing.

Rather than being concerned with the spoils of governance or dominion, perhaps we should shy away from such desires in favour of focusing on the real needs that people in our communities have now. There is still so much undone that needs attending with a focus on love rather than a focus on what we get out of it, which we shouldn’t desire beyond improving ourselves to improve the lives of others anyway.

We are building towards a greater goal, but lets not over-blow our place in history and look to force the issue now. If the time has come, let it be evidenced through God’s action, rather than forced through human manufacture, which is futile for such a task anyway.

Your Birthday > Jesus’ Birthday

At least Jesus would likely see it this way.

With the passing of Christmas and New Years we’re often filled with a desire as Christians to reinforce the spiritual hierarchy endorsed by many churches through these celebrations. Often the message comes out as something like Jesus > Church > Minister > You.

However, think of how Jesus actually came into the world. The events were about as humble as you could get in terms of a celebration for God and it certainly wasn’t the pinacle of what he was here to do on this earth.

If you take a look at his life and his message and his death they point more to Jesus wanting to teach people how to put themselves first. Spiritual guidance from Jesus was designed to teach people how to live with love towards others and through that learn to live with love towards God. This is for OUR benefit. We find more happiness and fulfilment if we can see the completion of ourselves as human beings through our empathy towards others.  That in turn strengthens our ties to others and helps us learn how to accept love in return, growing our faith in the decency of the human spirit when giving them optimum, compassionate conditions. Growing faith in imperfect human beings in turn strengthens our faith in a perfect God.

This point is often lost in translation in our desire to have people follow the bible or simply follow God. What we miss is Jesus’ message that love of ones self does come through a love of being selfish. We should take a cue from Jesus’ practical life lessons. Teaching abstinence from earthly pleasures through condemnation is less effective than showing how earthly pleasures can consume a person at the expense of themselves and those around them. Learning to love others as we love ourselves means not just learning to love others but truly meaning what it is to love ourselves. The two are intertwined and you can’t begin to understand what it is to love and be loved by God without them. You can’t truly love yourself if that love comes at the expense of others, and you can’t learn how to love others unless you truly love yourself.

Never forget that our life was always more important to Jesus than his own. He did want his death to be greater than ours by defeating death to give everlasting life, but this again reinforces the original point being made.

Perhaps take a moment to remember this before you seek to use the season to place another at a lower rung on the spiritual ladder, or even take a moment to re-examine how well you are loving yourself.

The holier the Christian the lower their rank

 Matthew 11:11

 11Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

The statement may seem counter-intuitive, but really underpins just how important humility is to a walk of faith.

Matthew 11:11 can be interpreted in a couple of ways, but here is another.

John the Baptist was set up to play a specific role around the time of Jesus, one in particular being the Baptism of Jesus. Here was a man humbling himself before God’s will and allowing God to work through him as much as possible. As such, there was no other among those born of women who was a greater prophet.

Think about our walk with God and where the glory is supposed to go when good is worked according to God’s will. Of course, the glory goes to God. The idea is that falling in line with God’s will is not something of ourselves as much as it is of God, so that’s where the credit goes. As we allow God’s love to grow more in our hearts and actions, the more our will and imperfection is pushed out of the equation, and it is replaced by something greater.

However, the more that one gives the glory solely to God for the good, the greater the emphasis is on our responsibility for the bad. The higher one goes, and the more that God fills their spirit, the less excuse one has for ’sin’. That one ’sins’ at all given such a holy relationship magnifies the ’sin.’ Even the smallest of ’sins’ is weighty in relative degree if one flaunts an intimacy with God. If these sins are passed off as small in comparison to others at all this would show a lack of care towards the sin one has in their life.

Couple these ideas with the parables of the prodigal son, the lost sheep, and the vineyard workers. Note the value placed upon those who turn to virtue later than others. Those who are more closely tied to the flock have their reward for the security therein. The relative rank spiritually is ‘lower’ in terms of the effort put forth on their behalf. Being closer to the flock or already in the father’s service shouldn’t require so much effort anyone if one is living by God’s will anyway. 

To see yourself in this way and still enthusiastically turn yourself towards God’s will is a great act of humility. Taking security close to the flock and letting God’s will replace your own should be reward in and of itself. While it dampens any claim to rank and amplifies the sin we still do not work beyond, you still have the joy of witnessing.

Look at John the Baptist, it surely took nothing away from the joy in his spirit to be considered the least in heaven. Perhaps it behooves more Christians to work harder in order to be considered one of the least in heaven too.

If we are looking to serve God’s will, give the glory to God, and remove ourselves from pride, surely this is the goal?

Jesus relates better to us than vice versa

Sometimes it is tempting to rest on a rationale of Godly perspective when we insist people listen to us despite an apparent failure of logic in our spiritual conjecture. This approach tends to come in the form of a get on my level, or get on God’s level, if you hope to understand what I’m saying perspective. In some worse cases it is used to look down on people who fashion more ‘worldy’ rationales for how they practice their faith.

Consider Jesus’ example though. One of his greatest legacies as a teacher was parable. He didn’t insist that people get on his level of understanding. In many cases, he got down to their level and gave them the understanding of Godly principles through examples they lived and understood in their daily lives. Living in a world of false prophets and knowing there were more to come, Jesus sought to show how the principles of faith were easy to grasp and easily accessible no matter how humble ones education or grasp of concepts might be.

The question of sabbath observance was reduced to an issue of saving livestock. The kingdom of heaven with the question of worthiness was reduced to an issue of wages for labourers. Many were the times that Jesus looked into peoples’ lives and hearts for the answers to their questions, rather than draw from his vast Godly perspective.

Jesus understood that making the simple values of love with its compassion, humility, and forgiveness as accessible as possible was true wisdom. Rather than insisting that people trust his Godly wisdom without understanding for themselves, he reverse engineered his wisdom so that people could firmly grasp the wisdom in the context of their daily lives. All the better to protect the people from false prophets who can fool with complexity.

We live in a world already filled with those whose lack of education towards independent thought leads to violent fundamentalism. These people follow their leaders because they trust implicitly the words of their leaders regardless of whether those words make sense. Sometimes the problem is these people haven’t been encouraged to try to make sense of wisdom themselves in the first place.

Perhaps look at it this way, from Jesus again. Sometimes walking with wisdom in this world has to come from this world if we are to better understand God. “The second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” For how else are we to understand how to love God and accept God’s love of us if we do not learn to love and accept love from others?

We need new parables to articulate these positions for new generations who relate to the world from a different perspective. Rather than insist they see it our way, shouldn’t we perhaps call on the Holy Spirit to provide them with the perspective to see the wisdom their way?

Surely it behooves us as Jesus exhorted to at least knock on that door.

Rebuke is for nought if it forgets peace

See: Romans 14

We Christians are part of a larger body of Christ. As with all complex organisms with different working parts and extremities that are very different in purpose we cannot expect each of us to function in the same roles in the same ways.

Our observance of Christian practice is surely part of this principle. In ancient times when a person took more of a risk with their health in eating certain foods, it profaned God to subject the body to something so impure that it could cause death. Time progressed with cooking methods and nutritional understanding, to the point where someone like Paul could free himself from the restrictions that bound others in this regard.

However, he was still able to acknowledge that not all could walk in this way. Some people have a personal standard where indulging in certain acts or consuming certain substances constitutes an offense to God.

Paul articulated a balance that was necessary between two conflicting schools of thought. Those with the freedom weren’t to flout it in the eyes who were bound with a view to drawing a person towards a personal standard of iniquity. In other words, one is not to hold alcohol before the lips of one who abstains and say “Just one sip.” When we place ourselves in their frame of faith and look to profane that, we profane their relationship with God.

In addition, it is not wise for those who are bound to go after those with freedom. Stepping between a person’s God received freedom disrupts the joy they have in their walk, which similarly profanes their relationship with god.

We can still share our perspectives with each other, but for the sake of mutual edification, and not at the expense of peace. In the end, letting a person’s choices stay between them and God is the wisest course, with neither side thinking it fit to look down on the other for how they are free or how they are bound.

With Jesus in the background asking us not to judge each other, surely we err on the better side of caution by heeding this message rather than one of rebuke for the sake of peace. All the better to ensure that our arm as the body of Christ isn’t at war with its foot, or at war with the bodies of other faiths.

Cries for religious conformity mock our diversity

We are many peoples on this planet. While we are united in our humanity there is much about us to distinguish one from another as individuals, right down to the most uncannily alike twins. A combination of genetics and the passage of time with experience mold not just the image we present superficially to the world but also the spirit that infuses life around us.

Why, when God has created this diversity not only in our genetics but also in our possible experiences in the world, is there an insistence on a uniformity in our relationship with God? People argue not just across lines of faith but also between denominations. It seems that even praying to the same God isn’t enough for people, the prayer, worship, and behaviour has to conform to some preset norm.

Even discounting our diversity, look at what the bible shows us. The leading lights of faith are all so different. They had their own ways of expressing their love of God, their own ways of practising their faith, their own ways of acknowledging and working, or not working on, their weaknesses. Why would we insist on a conformity of faith from others?

It also goes against the idea of a strong body of Christ ready to serve in a variety of ways. Sometimes God needs a Moses when a Gideon won’t do. Sometimes a situation calls for a Samuel more than a David. As the world continues to grow along with the challenges we face, surely there is a need for new leaders that do not fit the mold of anyone in the bible save Jesus.

Furthermore, when God is such an infinite being of love, surely the greater the spectrum of perspective the stronger our fellowship. We all look on God with different eyes and can see facets of the infinite in ways those around us do not. Allowing for a free sharing of these ideas gives much fuel for further prayer and personal growth that isn’t possible if we’re all reading from the same book with the same interpretation.

Part of God’s joy in our individual relationships must come from their uniqueness. If God wanted a homogeneous faith relationship the creation process could have stopped at the first person.

So why do we take away from the integrity of the individuality that God created? Especially when the practical result is the suppression of anothers individual faith in favour of our own individual perspective?

Look to love for change in the spirit

Christians often make headlines in the media or our notice in our personal lives through rebuke. Either with the physical or metaphorical wagging of a scolding finger, they berate the lack of righteousness in peoples’ lives with a veiled threat that the individuals concerned are going to hell if they do not change.

It’s a counter intuitive approach to bringing about real change in the spirit. If one scolds another, threatens them and wears them down enough, the result is like any other victim of torture. Bringing change is normally a superficial coping mechanism designed to bring an end to the punishment through the path of least resistance. In addition, one normally finds that once the threats are taken away, the facade relaxes and the old habits come back.

What about love? Love sets an example and works hard to be the change that others want to manifest in themselves. That is how Jesus was able to draw people to him more than needing to solicit the attention of people on the street in any way. The way he carried himself in his spirit was a beacon of change that drew the average person to him of their own accord. While they never reached Jesus’ example, there was at least a permanent change of desire in spirit that was so because it came from within, not from without.

No doubt, bringing change through love is the harder prospect because one has to exemplify virtue so much as to make it attractive. The humility in the process makes the individual more accountable to the change they do or do not see around them. Lets face it, if one walks like Jesus, speaks in wise parable, lives in harmony with the average person and loves enough to heal the sick at will, people are are going to be drawn to that. Especially if that person is also strong enough to stand up to the religious establishment when they go wrong. But examples of this are few and far between so change is similarly rare.

Why? Probably because the process is continually short cut through rebuke. Change has to take place in a person’s heart to stick. What sense is there to go to the source of a person’s love with a stick?