A little something that’s been brewing.

Well, here goes nothing:

I believe God is our eternal Father.

I believe God is the great artist and all creation comes from him and only him.

I believe God came incarnate as Jesus Christ, his only son.

I believe God walked the earth in grace and truth.

I believe God was crucified.

I believe God suffered under God’s own judgement for three days.

I believe God did this so we won’t have to.

I believe God resurrected.

I.

Believe.

God.

Resurrected.

I believe God is alive.

I believe he speaks to us and operates in and through us through his Holy Spirit.

I believe that through his Holy Spirit we have an advocate. That we have comfort and peace. And that we have power to see God’s Kingdom enter this world and bring abundant life.

I believe God will return to us and will judge the world with his perfect grace, mercy and love. (I also believe God’s judgement may look quite a bit different than our judgement.)

I believe that a new heaven is just waiting to explode in the midst of this world, creating a new earth in perfect harmony with the Kingdom of Heaven.

I believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. I also believe that this is different than it being the literal, inerrant words of God (which I do not believe).

I believe that through the ages we’ve gotten a lot of things wrong. That a lot of people have been hurt, oppressed, killed, driven to atheism—by a dysfunctional family that’s still trying to figure it all out.

I believe there are a lot of things we’ve focused on that God wants to, in his perfect grace, shift our hearts and minds away from and toward issues that really matter.

I believe there is a place for everyone in the Kingdom. Everyone.

Every. One.

I believe there are new things and new ways of living that God is slowly revealing through his Spirit. We just need to listen (and be willing to let our old understanding fall by the wayside).

I believe in faith, hope, and love. The greatest of these being love.

These are the things that I know to be true.

“…I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.”

—Jesus, on the night of his death.

As a Christian, this is my favorite time of year. Not because Easter is our highest holy day. Not because I can go evangelize people, proclaiming the real Easter story. Not because I love candy so much (I do).

This is the one week of the year where we Christians can agree on something. Something that matters.

The only thing that matters.

This week is the climax of the Christian narrative. The thing that makes the whole plot make sense. The twist in the story. As liberal as I get, as intellectual as I get, this concept still blows my mind in a childlike-wonder kind of way.

God, incarnate.

God, letting himself go for the sake of His creation.

God, alive.

Death, defied.

A beautiful reminder that suffering and injustice don’t survive when it’s all said and done.

We get so caught up in this argument or that doctrine or this dogma or that statement of faith—we get so distracted. This week shows us where we are missing the point. (News flash: we all are much of the time.)

This week shows us what unity looks like—laying our hearts, minds, and lives down for each other, and asking for nothing in return other than faith, hope, and love.

It doesn’t matter what kind of Christian you are. It doesn’t matter if you’re universalist, fundamentalist, conservative, liberal, emergent, post-modern, post-conservative, gay-affirming, legalistic, liturgical, organic, evolutionist, young-Earth creationist, Calvinist, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, or non-denominational (amongst a million other classifications)—we’re Christians, our center is Christ.

Christ incarnate.

Christ crucified.

Christ resurrected.

Proverbs 28:19 says: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Let’s remember that. Let’s remember our vision.

Christ incarnate.

Christ crucified.

Christ resurrected.

Our vision is Christ.

Ten years ago, I reached a point in my Christian life where I made a conscious decision to not call myself a Christian anymore. It wasn’t a crisis of faith, in fact my faith was never shaken, only stronger. It was a crisis of faith in my fellow Christians. I had exhausted my patience for judgementalism and fundamentalism. I was sick of Christians preaching love and grace and not showing love and grace whatsoever. By the grace of God I decided to keep my “title” and instead try and “reclaim the name” for the true Gospel of Christ.

Fast forward 10 years. Last night I had a Christian meltdown. All of this Rob Bell/universalism/Calvinism/Heaven-and-Hell talk has taken it’s toll on me. Last night I was more embarrassed to be a Christian that I have been in these past 10 years.

After some careful consideration, discussion, and prayer from my wife and two of my best friends, I’ve decided to write this letter. Like any good Christian, I’ve split my friends into two groups (sarcasm) and I have split this letter into two parts.

First, to my non-Christian friends:

I’m sorry. I can’t say this enough. Speaking on behalf of my incredibly dysfunctional family, Christians, I’m sorry that we’ve come across as the same self-righteous, I’m-right-you’re-wrong, jumping-to-conclusions, ignorant assholes that we always have. If you have Christian friends, I’m sure you’ve read some tweets, some Facebook discussions, or have even seen a news article on your favorite mainstream news website about how “evangelicals have called one of their own a heretic.”

“One of their own.”

It’s a shame, really.

I want to tell you that the true Gospel of Christ is so much bigger and so much better than these petty arguments that are going on right now in the Christian world. These debates don’t really matter in the long run. So please, try and look past the rhetorical argument (screaming match) going on right now and look at the living, breathing Christ standing behind it, because he sure as hell isn’t in it.

Matthew 7:16 says “by their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, and figs from thistles?” And Galatians 5:22-23 says “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” So as you look out across the Christian landscape, if you are going to judge us by anything—let it be that.

And I can’t stress enough that you try your hardest to not judge the God of the Bible by the way His followers are acting. Christ is alive and incarnate among us in Grace and Truth.

(And a side note, the earthquake/tsunami in Japan wasn’t Him either.)

Now, to my Christian friends:

We are not doing anything good for the Kingdom of God. Nothing. Our current arguments are nothing but rhetoric and in no way represent the living Christ.

Whatever “team” you are on in this current landscape, chances are that you are just “defending the true gospel.” The Gospel does not need to be defended. If we are walking in Grace and Truth like Jesus did, the true Gospel will speak louder than we ever could.

We must remember that we are one body with many parts. Our head is Christ. The body can’t survive if it cuts one of it’s own organs out. Well, it might survive, but it will walk with a limp at least.

If you are a Bell supporter, stop defending him. He’s a big boy and can take criticism. Defend nothing but the Gospel of Christ. His death and resurrection.

If you are a Bell detractor, please look at the fruit of his work before you start saying things like “false teacher,” “itching ears,” and “heretic.” Because if someone is leading folks toward the living Christ—that’s not false teaching. The false teachers the Scripture talks about would draw people away from Christ, not toward.

Regardless if you agree with Rob Bell or not (this is not about him by the way, this would be the same if any one else—Rick Warren, John Piper, John MacArthur, I don’t know—brought this conversation to light), he is doing work for the Kingdom of God. Matthew Paul Turner said on his blog yesterday that the fact of the matter is because of Bell’s message, many who probably closed the door on God a long time ago have a reason to reopen it. Let’s not give them a reason to slam it shut again. The Holy Spirit is the one who convicts, not us. If Bell’s teaching is off, the Holy Spirit of God will convict accordingly.

In John 13 Jesus, speaking to his followers, says that we will be known to the world by our love for one another. We must keep this at the top of our minds as we engage in public discourse. We are looking to the world right now less like two brothers who can’t get along, and more like two brothers who have decided to divorce themselves from their family.

If you believe the Bible is composed of the inerrant, literal words of God, that’s fine. I don’t. Which is also fine. I believe the Bible is authoritative, inspired by God, breathed by the Holy Spirit. I believe it’s the living, breathing Word of God. Literalist or not, we can both agree with that. The Word is Alive. Let’s let it be that and agree to disagree. If the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is at the center of our teaching, preaching, and conversation, everything else is just theology.

One more thing, Christians:

The fruit of the Spirit is

love,

joy,

peace,

patience,

kindness,

goodness,

faithfulness,

gentleness,

and self control.

Matthew 7:16 says “by their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, and figs from thistles?”

Correct answer: they don’t.

If you are a Christian, and you are on Twitter or Facebook, I’m sure you’ve come across someone going nuts about the advertisement for Rob Bell’s new book, Love Wins. He might be flirting with Christian Universalism in it. Or he might be just doing what he does—raising questions for you to think about and not actually answering them (this is more likely in my opinion). Regardless, I’m not really going to comment on it, because its a book synopsis that people are arguing about, which is written by the publishing company for the sole purpose of selling the book. But all of this defense of Hell has gotten me thinking quite about our nature as humans and what we really think about Hell, God, love, and justice—and I think we’ve swung the sovereignty scale a bit too far in our direction.

Before I say anything, I’ll start by saying that I am not a universalist. I really wish I was one, but I just can’t find the evidence in scripture. I actually subscribe to Annihilationist theology. Not only does it have the most brutal name, I personally believe it holds the closest to how I view God’s love, justice, and mercy. That being said, I believe some sort of hell exists, and that it’s true separation from God.

I’ve noticed something in the blog posts, Facebook comment threads, and Tweets getting thrown around all weekend though. It seems to me that all of the judgement, hate, and criticism getting thrown Bell’s way isn’t rooted in some higher view of God, but really rooted in a very saddening defense of damnation.

I’m really not concerned with the fact of belief in Hell or not. Or believe in universal reconciliation as opposed to eternal conscious torment. Because none of these things should change our view on how we look at the person of Jesus, and the death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. Because Universalists and Calvinists and any other Christians can all agree that Jesus’ blood is the only thing that atones for our sin as humans. And this is where our focus should be.

In Matthew 22: 36-40, Jesus puts it as frankly as possible:

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Jesus focuses on one thing: Love. Although Jesus speaks very seriously elsewhere about the reality of separation from God and really believing in Him, when asked what is the greatest commandment—which in my opinion could be read as “where our focus should be”—he doesn’t say anything about judgement, condemnation or hell here. He is telling us to focus on love. Walk in love for God and love for humanity, and everything else will fall into place naturally.

The problem I’m seeing with all of these Hell debates is that the idea of condemnation and suffering is being defended with an almost excited zeal. I know that’s kind of an intense statement, but I really believe it’s true. I believe what we humans have turned the theology of hell into is an outlet for our own judgements and ideas of what justice looks like. Jay Bakker asked in a sermon once if we are “eager for the damnation of others.” Again, a brutal statement, but it holds a lot of truth. We are much quicker to point out why a certain attitude, sin, lifestyle, sexual orientation—you get the point—puts someone in danger of the fires of hell than to actually tell them how much God really loves them and wants to meet them in whatever place they happen to be in. We are too quick to whip out all of the scriptures that talk about (how we view) hell, and not nearly as quick to bust out the more important scriptures about love, grace, mercy, and acceptance.

I think that this idea really manifests itself in a tired old phrase: “go to Hell.” We’ve seen it in movies. We’ve read it in books. I’m sure we’ve all used it at some point. But I think it perfectly illustrates how we have re-imagined God in our own image. I know it sounds like I’m making a big deal out of a little statement, but I think it just describes the bigger picture so well. Telling someone to go to hell puts us on this “godlike” pedestal where we can make ourselves feel better by telling someone off in a way that describes the worst possible punishment we could receive. And at the same time, subconsciously, we paint a picture of a god who points and zaps people to eternal damnation because he happens to be unhappy with their actions that day.

In the bigger picture, the obvious problem with this mindset about God’s “love” and “justice” is that we leave out God’s grace and mercy, and are left with the same image of God that much of the world hates us for in the first place. This immature God playing chess up in heaven and being completely happy with the decision to sentence someone to eternal suffering. When in reality, if hell and eternal separation from God exists, I believe that it is a much sadder, heart-breaking decision for the Most High God.

In Jesus’ great commission, he tells us to go and make disciples of all nations. He doesn’t tell us to go and argue for or against the existence of hell and why or why not people should go there. He doesn’t tell us to call out other Christians who might not believe the same as we do on stuff that doesn’t really matter in the long run. He commands us to go out and love and train up the generations to continue to love. It’s not our job to make the judgement call about who is going where. And it’s not up to us to trash other theologies that are still completely rooted in loving and following Jesus, even if we cover up our hate speech with out of context scripture defending judgement of other believers.

God is the sovereign one. It is up to God who gets their names written in the book of life (and although I’m not a universalist, I can still hope and pray that it’s everyone, right?). And as for us humans walking out the great commission, there is no room for condemnation in the love we show the world.

It was an interesting post. I was really trying to do nothing more than declare over us that “it’s OK” as long as the Holy Spirit is involved. Turns out a couple of semi-bold statements kind of overshadowed that. One statement in particular was very polarizing. Many of my Christian friends got a little tweaked about it, and many of my non-Christian friends praised it and said it helped them feel better about how they viewed Christianity.

I said that there are things in the Bible that I know I don’t believe. After thinking about it this week, and talking about it with my wife and a couple of my best friends, I’m changing my mind on that one. I actually went back in the post and edited the sentence. The point is still there, let me clarify it: there are plenty of theological concepts and popular/”orthodox” interpretations of scripture that I do not believe or subscribe to. (I am not going to go into them here, I feel like it has the potential to be counterproductive and distracting. Get at me if you really want to know.). This does not change my belief in the power of the living Word of God.

I believe the Bible is Holy. I believe it is sacred. I believe it is the Word of God. I believe it is truth. I believe it is transformative. I believe it is beautiful. And scary. And uplifting. And confusing. And thought-provoking. And angering. And more than anything, I believe it is ALIVE.

I also affirm the Nicene Creed. By these standards, I guess I could consider myself truly Orthodox.

Whew, I’m not a heretic after all.

The point I was originally making is that beyond our belief systems, we need experience. We need to get in touch with our inner mystic.

That word conjures up so much weird cultural baggage. Like all of a sudden I am advocating some far-eastern religion or going all new-age on everyone. What I am meaning is really getting in touch with the Kingdom of God here and now. Really looking for and feeling the presence of the Holy Spirit of God. And not in some trite, overly-emotional charismatic way (not trying to sound condescending), but really just laying our hearts and minds down and letting the Holy Spirit work in us. To call on God to feel His presence, not just to ask for something.

I was walking the dog tonight and reflecting on this. I am going through a someone stressful time with my family right now, trying to sell our condo in a bad market. For over a year now. Running out of space for our family, and needing a lower mortgage payment. It’s been really hard. But I start to think about how I really only truly give my heart and mind to God when I am at my most stressed moments—when I’m freaking out the most. Why do we only call on God when we “need” him. The fact of the matter is that we need the power of His presence ALL the time (Psalm 140:12-13).

Maybe if I was walking in the physical presence of God all of the time I wouldn’t be overly stressed in the first place? Maybe I still would, but I’d like to think that I’d have a better perspective on my problems.

I’ve found myself pouring over the Scriptures, trying to figure them out, wrestling with them, searching for their “true meaning.” This is all good. Wrestling with the Word is a great thing. But out of it’s proper balance, it does us no good. We need times to just soak in what God wants to speak to us through the Living Word. We need to meditate on it. We need to let the Holy Spirit open it up for us in a different way than the last time we read it.

Too much do we look at the Bible as a finite, completed textbook. The Word is alive. The Word existed before the Bible (John 1:1) and will exist after it.

The Word came incarnate. The Word resurrected. The Word still lives. The Word is still speaking. We just need to be listening.

I grew up in an interesting time. With some interesting friends. I went to Cornerstone festival every year for 6 or 7 years. I used to wander the grounds—the merch tents, the drum circles, the disgusting lake, the campsite crustpunk shows—and dream. Many of us had the same dream:

“How awesome would it be to live outside the grid of American religiosity? Just us and God. All on the same level. Not being bastardized by Western Christianity. Not following the rules of man-made religion.” It sounded awesome then, and it still sounds awesome now. The shame is, much of the time that attitude just doesn’t work.

Most of my friends that dreamt that same dream with me became one of three things: an agnostic, an atheist, or a slightly more liberal/hip version of good ol’ Churchianity (I’m not going to focus on this one). But why? Why have so many of my friends given up on the faith? Why have so many of them turned their backs on their “first love?”

I chalk it up to a lack of balance that leads to a subconscious rejection of the moving of the Holy Spirit.

Much of the attitude behind the fringe-Christian’s dream stated above starts in a rejection of leadership. “Whoa! Stop right there,” you say, “who do you think you are? A megachurch pastor?” No. I’m not. I believe the rejection of the form of church leadership so prevalent in our country deserves to be rejected.

Too many churches have turned the idea true, biblical servant leadership on it’s head. Leadership has been turned into an authoritarian power-grab based on a cultural (and wrong) definition of what it means to submit. This theology should be rejected. The real shame though is that in our Christian culture, this dangerous form of leadership tends to be (also wrongly) synonymous with discipleship. So when being discipled gets defined as being “led,” which actually means “being told how to live my life,” discipleship gets thrown out the window as well. This attitude of rejection that’s being repeated and becomes a lifestyle, it festers, it corrupts, and turns from something that may have originally been a beautiful, fresh idea into a haven for negativity and rebellion.

And I believe (warning: bold statement ahead), that this lifestyle of rejection trickles up the ladder all the way to the Father. It plagues our minds to the point that even true, real, loving discipleship from the Holy Spirit becomes a casualty to the rejection of authority.  The voice of God becomes a whisper, then silence.

Oh, how quickly can “my Kingdom is not of this world” turn into “no gods, no masters.”

Paul was definitely right in Romans 8:7 when he said “The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.” It’s such a simple concept. A mind shut off to the work of the Spirit of God physically can’t give itself to anything but itself.

But I don’t blame my atheist or agnostic friends. At least not completely. Like I said, I’m often surprised I’m not right there with them. And I am by no means picking on my punk/hippie/anarchist/liberal/intellectual friends. I only used that as an example because this is the story that I’ve experienced first-hand.

The bigger issue is just that our culturally-formed Christianity has lost its balance. By its own obsession with self it has unknowingly driven out those who wanted to embrace it in its purest form. But when the Spirit of God is taken out, Christian spirituality can’t stand on theology and religiosity for long.

If I based my spirituality on my theological questions alone, I would have become an atheist a long time ago. We need a little mysticism in our lives.

There are a lot of theologies/interpretations of things in the Bible that I know I don’t believe. There’s even more that I’m not sure if I believe. But belief alone isn’t the whole picture. Experiencing the supernatural is the other side of the same coin. And in my opinion, it holds even more weight.

James 2:20 says that “faith without works is dead.” Our faith, our salvation, is meant to be an ongoing, interactive process with God. I’m sure in this verse “works” just means the fruit of being a Christ-follower. But I believe the Word is truly alive, and looking at it from a bigger perspective, couldn’t “works” mean wrestling with belief through prayer and petition? Could it mean lamenting? Or praising? Or could it also mean the work of the Holy Spirit in us?

I believe it’s all of these things.

Sure, belief is great. But faith alone can quickly turn to the self. It can turn into a crutch to make ourselves feel better. It’s nice to believe in something. (I can’t take credit for those last two sentences, I’ve been reading and listening to a lot of Peter Rollins lately.) But really feeling or hearing the touch or the voice of the Spirit of God? I believe this is God’s true desire for us. To feel His power. Getting in touch with the mystical side of our minds adds the most real, beautiful balance we can dream of. Not to mention how seeing or experiencing the work of the Spirit through healing or the speaking of wisdom with a truly open heart actually strengthens our belief.

I’ve got my questions. And for many of them, I definitely don’t have answers. But in Paul’s words:

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:13

That’s what keeps me around.

In our culture, the Nativity has become two things. The first being a legend. Christian or not, we grow up hearing the “true meaning of Christmas” to be this story of a manger, a drummer boy, stars, and wise men. It does make for a good story, and regardless of what you believe, it tends to be this nice heartwarming tale of the season. (In actuality the story is not that cutesy.) The second thing the story has become is political fodder. The War on Christmas. The “you better believe it’s my Constitutional right to put my Nativity scene out in front of my business” war on Christmas.

So we have two things—a good story and something to argue about. That’s the “true meaning” of Christmas?

I’m starting to recognize the story of Christmas to be a really tangible view into the character of God—a God that’s not afraid to get His hands dirty.

I have always held to the traditional theological understanding of the virgin birth. Sin is passed through the male, death through Adam, so if Jesus was going to be completely sinless, that was the only way it was humanly possible. I’m not sure I totally buy that now, but I’m not trying to say I have all the answers, and I sure haven’t studied that one, so I’m going to leave it at that. But what I am finding about the virgin birth to be so beautiful is the fact that God was so sure about it. Here’s the conversation between Mary and Gabriel in Luke 1:34-37:

Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”

The angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God. And behold, even your relative Elizabeth has also conceived a son in her old age; and she who was called barren is now in her sixth month. For nothing will be impossible with God.”

It’s easy to read Mary’s question as a simple “well…explain to me how this is going to work, God.” But I can’t help but think it’s more than that. In her culture, a “virgin” getting pregnant makes no sense. People would think she was lying. People would probably start to gossip about her throughout the community. And in Matthew 1, we see a very confused Mosaic law-abiding Joseph who wanted to divorce Mary (although he loved her enough to want to do it “quietly”).

I believe God is a big god. I believe that he could come Incarnate to earth riding in on fiery clouds with lightning and thunder on a half-unicorn-half-siberian-tiger. With his angels by his side riding dinosaurs. But he didn’t. He chose to become one of us, through very messy means. He wasn’t afraid of the implications of this decision. Because He came in His infinite power. The Amplified version of the Bible translates Luke 1:37 a little better in my opinion:

God came to us in a messy way. But he came knowing that those He chose could handle it. He came as a baby. In a poor Jewish community. In a way that confused everyone involved. But along the way He only affirmed, assured, and gave Grace and favor to those whom “He called according to His purpose.”

We often use the name Emmanuel this time of year, but I feel like more often than not we use it interchangeably with the name Jesus. They are both names for Him, but they mean different things. Emmanuel means “God with us.” Not ahead of us. Not behind us. Not above us or below us. (He is all of these things.) But with us. He decided to come among us not to clean up our mess. But to be with us in the midst of it. To walk us through it in only ways that the Most High God knows we need.

That is good news of great joy.

We are all image-bearers of the Most High God, and we are considered good. Our identity only lies in that. But how do we, as Christians, relay this message to each other? And more importantly, how do we relay it to the world around us?

We use a lot of Christianese that often doesn’t even make sense to Christians themselves (what does “hedge of protection” even mean, anyway?). We use nasty sounding words like rebuke and repentance. Sometimes even the word sin. I am in no way discounting the meaning or importance of words like this, I’m just stating the facts: certain words we throw around do carry a negative weight and sometimes do more harm than good. Where does this connotation come from?

I’m pretty sure it’s not from the words themselves.

It’s really easy to point fingers at “those Christians.” The ones that we think give us a bad name. The ones that use those nasty words with an emptiness behind them. If you’ve ever been the recipient of a badgering by a street preacher or tract-hander-outer (I have. That’s what I get for having tattoos, piercings and/or long hair), you’ll know what I’m talking about. The gospel they are preaching may or may not be true, but there’s an obvious lack of real love or discipleship behind the words. Their speech and actions come across much more as just another tally on the “got ‘em to heaven” sheet.

But what about us? What about us who aren’t those Christians. What about those of us who like to think we aren’t like that? I’d say most of us still are—in less overt ways.

Many times in my life, growing up in the church, I’ve seen these concepts used against people in the most mean-spirited ways. I’ve seen people point out the speck in their neighbors eye like the best of them, while ignoring their plank, and wearing a snarky smile on their face. Again and again, I’ve seen angry people tear other people to shreds, not in the name of their anger, but in the name of rebuke—out of “love.” These examples run rampant in our culture’s bastardized version of Christianity.

Where am I going with this? I’m not just bringing this up to state my nature as a bitter, jaded, been-a-Christian-my-whole-life a-hole. By God’s grace, I’m starting to leave that attitude behind. The reason I am talking about this is because I believe if we see ourselves and others through the eyes of the Creator—created in the image of Perfection—we would relate to each other in a completely different way.

The Way that looks a bit more like Jesus.

How would we correct each other? Would we speak to someone’s sin with an arrogant, sinless attitude? Would we continue to feed guilt? Or would we recognize the person’s identity as an image of God—rather than in their sin—and administer grace within our rebuke?

How would we relate to each other in general? Would we actually recognize our God-given emotions rather than burying them underneath Biblical concepts “because it’s how good Christian’s act?” We are emotional beings. Joy, fear, anger, sadness—these are all creations of God, and we are allowed to feel them. We don’t have to justify our emotions if they are felt in righteous ways. Even anger.

How would we evangelize? Would we stop giving away tickets to the first spaceship out of here, and instead actually operate in the Ministry of Reconciliation (II Corinthians 5:11-21) and reconcile our world to Christ here and now as well as after this life? Would we actually meet people’s needs instead of just chalking up another salvation that day?

Lastly, how would we see ourselves? Imagine what this world would be like if we all woke up in the morning, looked in the mirror, and saw the Image of God. Where would our self-esteem problems be? Where would our lack of confidence be?

Look at John 1:14:

“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

And in Matthew 5:48, right in the middle of Jesus’ most famous teaching, the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says:

“Be perfect, therefore, just as your Father is perfect.”

Listen to that. Let that soak in. That goes directly against what many of us have heard from the Church growing up.

God is inviting us to take part in His incarnation. He tells us we have what it takes to be perfect. He tells us that we have what it takes to be like Him.

I can’t get enough of that.

At your deepest level, your identity is in one thing and one thing only: you are created in the Image of the Most High God. God only sees you at your core as good. You are nothing less. God wants to teach you to love your neighbor as yourself with perfect love. And before that, God wants to teach you how to love yourself (no matter who you are, where you’ve been, or what you’ve done). God wants you to know that you’re worth it. God wants to use you to help return this world to what it looked like in the first two chapters of Genesis. God wants to use you to reconcile this world to Him. God wants to use you to help return yourself and this world to knowing these simple truths.

And God wants you to know that you have what it takes.

I must preface this section by saying that much of it is inspired by/appropriated from a sermon Rob Bell gave about a year ago, titled “The Importance of Beginning in the Beginning.” If you can get your hands on it and listen to it, I wouldn’t be able to recommend it enough. It is literally one of the most important messages I have ever heard.

I’m pretty sure everyone knows the Creation story. Or at least the gist of it. And I’m also pretty sure that everyone knows at least the most important part of the story of the fall of man. They are stories that are ingrained into Christians from a young age, as well as stories that permeate our culture and humanity. No matter what you believe—or if you even believe it—this idea that we were once perfect, and then something happened to screw it all up, it’s just in us.

But where are we starting the story? In my Bible, Genesis 1 and 2 come before Genesis 3. How about yours?

Genesis 1 and 2 are two distinctly different, and beautiful pieces of poetry revealing God’s nature as a Creator, and revealing our proper nature as the Creation. In end of the first part (1:31), the text reads:

“And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good (suitable, pleasant) and He approved it completely. And there was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.” (Amplified Version)

Notice the text doesn’t say “perfect”. This is interesting to me. God made us “good,” “suitable,” and “pleasant” but with the ability to choose imperfection. Anyway, in the second part (2:7), another great thing is revealed:

“Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath or spirit of life, and man became a living being.” (Amplified Version)

So we learn from the very beginning of our sacred narrative that we were created good, and that we were given the very breath and spirit of life. Even though the Hebrew word for life in this verse is predominantly talking about literal, physical life, I can’t help but connect it to the spiritual, abundant life that Jesus speaks of in John 10:10. Our identity from our very creation is in the fact that we are made in the image of the Most High God. It’s who we are.

It’s not until Genesis 3 where humanity chooses imperfection. Humanity chooses to separate itself from this “good” thing. But as much as it would be easy to say this is where our identity changes form because of a stupid, selfish choice, it’s just not true. And if we start our Bibles here, we start with the posture of who we aren’t, rather than who we are.

I look mostly like my mom, and kind of like my dad. I act mostly like my dad, and kind of like my mom. My last name is Simula. A name that was passed on by my dad, a name that I, in turn, am passing on to my sons. At any time, I could choose to change my last name. Or I could get cosmetic surgery to change my appearance. Or I could see a behavioral specialist and try to change how my personality works. I could choose to never speak to my family again. But the fact of the matter is that nothing I can do can separate me from the fact that my identity as a human is in the fact that I am a Simula, and I am a spitting image of my mom and dad. I can try as hard as possible to change this fact, but the bare facts will still always remain.

It’s that simple. We were created in the Image of God. And we are considered good, suitable, and pleasant. Our story starts with this simple truth. And nothing can change that.

On to part two »