The Gospel of Success ...

Today there are a fair number of successful preachers who preach a gospel centered on the idea of personal success.  The general idea is that there is nothing wrong with being rich, successful, and beautiful.  In fact, with few exceptions, the people espousing these ideas are themselves, rich, successful and beautiful.  The older, more traditional, hellfire and brimstone Christians take quite a bit of issue with preaching a gospel ‘light’ or gospel ‘unleaded’ message so who is right, who is wrong?  Let’s take a look.

God does not hate money.  In fact, Christ stated the ‘love of money’ was the root of all evil, not the money by itself.  Greed then, or avarice, is to be avoided – but not being rich.  What about the old adage He also spoke of in that “it is harder for a camel to travel through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”  Again this is not a condemnation of being rich, however it is quite an astute social commentary on the feelings of affluence when it comes to recognizing our spiritual need.  The biggest problem with rich people is their ability to mask their true needs.  Money does not buy happiness, but it will sure try to rent it.  When feelings of need emerge, a rich person is able to mask them through new acquisitions.  New things can temporarily mask real need.  It is not a permanent solution but as Band-Aids go – sign me up, or no rather not, well maybe … 

You see we all share a basic desire to have enough money to survive, and beyond that, to be ‘comfortable’.  Most poor people will tell you that if they could just pay the bills, put food on the table, and have a little left over, they would be happy.  This is of course true.  Except that as the money increases the bills simply get bigger, the same horrific patterns of overspending continue just on a bigger scale, and problems they faced while poor, are now only magnified by excess.  Of course the misery is somewhat masked by the scale of their success, but the need to learn how to manage the resources one already has access to, remains. 

The other problem with rich people, is they have the means to indulge in a much wider variety of temptations.  Could a hard working man who picks fruit all day long to try to feed his family, have an affair with another married woman – you betcha.  But what are the odds of his finding himself in this condition compared to a rich man, who does not need to work, is surrounded by beautiful women, who may be shallow and attracted to wealth and power.  Lets face it, rich people tend to be prettier than poor.  They have access to plastic surgeons, and the best clothing, make-up and hair artists.  They tend to be more educated.  They live in better neighborhoods and have access to better schools and better teachers.  They tend to be more spoiled, as their cuteness may have gotten them many breaks over the course of their lives.  This is why rich people are stereotyped as superficial, but beautiful people even more than rich.  Are there exceptions, you betcha.  But by and large these categorizations tend to hold true.  The fruit-picker may have one affair, the rich playboy may have a hundred.  They are equally guilty, but the rich man faces temptation much more frequently than the poor.

Is this where the gospel of success would have us all go?  Should we all become so affluent we forget our real spiritual needs, and find ourselves facing a world of temptations?  I know God wants us to be comfortable, or does He?  You see the character changes you need to make in your life to lead you away from self-inflicted pain of evil, may require you to acutely realize your need.  You may need to face hunger, to see the need to eat without excess.  You may need to juggle bills to see the value in paying Tithe despite the absolute knowledge you do not have the money.  You may need to look closely at the one you love, to see the real value of that gift – so that you do not discard it lightly in the pursuit of ‘different’.  Everything that really matters does not require money.  You need money to survive, but does too much of it cause decay?  I believe riches are a burden, placed on the shoulders of those who God really wants to teach a lesson too.  Those that come to understand the value of imperfect living conditions, and facing needs in their lives every night as they drift off to sleep – begin to acutely appreciate the value of a God who solves their problems for them.  The rich face no such dilemma, so learning to trust requires more from them.

The more tradition hell-fire and brimstone Christians have it completely wrong as well.  Heaven is not a fire escape.  You do not get there from fear.  You get there from simply accepting the gift of salvation.  The saving part is not from a future burning, but from a present evil and separation from God.  The concept of sacrifice on our part is completely misguided.  We do not ever give up anything of real value in our walk with God.  Everything we discard along the way is trash and baggage.  Oh it may feel a bit painful in the short term to part with something you like, but when you look back on it, you realize it was something that only caused you pain.  It is as if we cling to shards of glass, holding them tightly while bleeding all over the place – this is what our sin is like.  But we don’t see the blood, we ignore the pain, or blame it on something else, and cut ourselves ever deeper.  Then God comes along and asks us to loosen our grip on our ‘favorite toy’.  We start listening, and as we accept His governance of our will, we let go the glass.  He carefully and tenderly bandages the wounds we caused in ourselves, and takes the broken glass away from us.  As we heal, and as time passes, we being to see our ‘toy’ for what it really was – a broken shard of glass.  With the benefit of hindsight we cannot believe we ever thought that glass was ‘fun’.  We see it now, in it’s real condition, and we begin to realize what God has done for us in removing it from our lives.  This is the nature of salvation.  Where do you hear our sacrifice in this process?  What did we give up – only the cause of our pain, nothing more.

It is not our sacrifice our God requires, it is our vision to see what we are clinging to.  It is our trust in Him when our vision does not recognize the danger of our ‘toys’.  What God wants is not our misery, whether in abject poverty, or in extreme wealth, or simply in the danger zone of comfort – He wants our eternal happiness, routed and grounded in the principles of Heaven.  Wherever you find yourself, in whatever conditions you exist within, praise God.  If you are poor, you are blessed.  Your need will force you to rely on your God, and in so doing, you will inherit the Kingdom of God.  If you are rich, you are blessed.  Guard against your acceptance of comfort, and trust only in the hands of the invisible one – for He has entrusted much with you, and will be teaching you much as a result.  If you are not poor, nor very rich, but find yourself comfortable – wake up.  Do not let your affluence mask your real needs, be generous with your time and your money, and guard against the distractions that would keep you busy and away from source of all love and joy.

If the gospel of success you listen to, does not ask you to change, it does you a disservice.  We exist in a world of pain in which we must change ourselves to avoid.  If the gospel of success you listen to tells you God wants everyone to be rich, it does you a disservice.  Few can handle the burden of riches, and maintain any form of spirituality.  Success for Christians should be measured in the changes in character we experience, and love we find reflected in our relationships.  In this way, success is something God intends for us all.  This is the measure that counts.

Homesick ...

There are times when you find yourself miles away from the familiar, disconnected from loved ones, in a strange or foreign place and the heart strings ache to return to a place you call home.  Is it merely a longing for the routine that nags at our soul; or could it be something of more depth?  Would the maker of all things have any idea what his creation goes through with respect to feelings like this one?  Or maybe, could God have even invented this feeling and if so, why?

We go through our lives scarcely aware of our surroundings, we mark time in routines, are casual with those we need the most; UNTIL - we find ourselves separated from these common things and begin to feel that separation.  Then the commonplace becomes appreciated, the things we took for granted become the prize we crave.  What is it that makes one feel a longing for home?  Could it be the emptiness of things, or the lack of value in experiences that go unshared.  Whatever the motive, the feeling is distinct and unmistakable.  It is rough to be homesick.

And believe it or not, God feels it perhaps more than we.  You see, God has a bad case of empty-nest syndrome.  All of His children are far away, disconnected, and not ready to return home just yet.  The parable Christ told of the prodigal son, reveals the feelings of His Father when He runs towards his long-lost son and throws His own raiment on his filthy starving child.  He welcomes his son home with a great feast sparing no expense in celebration.  There is no condemnation of his son which would be rightly deserved.  Rather there is nothing but an overwhelming expression of love.  God after all, is love.  And love yearns to connect, to share experiences, to find value in others.  Things do not even rate a concerned word, but people are praised above all else.

Ever find yourself at home, and still homesick?  The patriarch Abraham was defined as a sojourner wandering in a strange land looking for home promised by God.  But since Eden, mankind has not known his true home.  We have been wandering in a strange world, separated from the source of all love.  And though the good-news of the gospel reveals the plan of redemption, and we begin to reconnect to our God through the grace of His Son Jesus, we still find ourselves here.  We remain in this strange and foreign land.  Until we come to see the nature of our disease, until we recognize we so desperately need the cure, which only the Master Physician can apply – we remain in our strange land, distracted, and unaware of why we feel such a longing that cannot be filled.  Homesick, and ignorant of why.  When we recognize the nature of sin, and reject it, and realize what it means to turn away from evil and embrace what is good – we begin to be ready to return to our real home.

It is hard to learn the lesson of helplessness, of humility, of dependence.  We are much more acclimated to be proud than to admit shortfalls.  We are inclined to embrace self-sufficiency until we finally hit ‘rock-bottom’ in our lives.  Unfortunately these lessons are sometimes required in a spiritual context in order to see where spiritual growth actually occurs.  Just like the heroin junkie, or hard-core alcoholic, we realize our powerlessness and admit we need help outside of ourselves – even for the ‘little’ sins.  The work of Salvation belongs to the Lord.  Our role remains to accept it.  When we turn aside from this, we embrace an ignorance that prolongs our separation.  God does not help those who ‘help’ themselves – God helps those who realize they are powerless to do anything to ‘help’ themselves.  It is our weakness that enables His strength.  It is our recognition of our blindness that finally gives us sight.  And it is our death to self, that finally brings us life, and life eternal.

So when will our homesick condition finally end?  A question asked from Adam till me, and with luck by only few more moving forward.  I thought in my teens that I may never see college in this world as God would return one final time to take us home and end all this.  But in my teens I did not see the nature of my sin.  I thought God wanted to deny me the ‘fun’ things when He did return.  In college, I thought not to see my 30’s for surely the time is near then.  But while in college I discovered the love of God, I still held that some sins were simply too important to be shed of just yet.  Then in my thirties I thought my children would not see college in this world, but would have to rather enroll in Heaven University.  Wrong again.  But in my thirties I began to reap what I had sown for so long, the sin I had cherished hit me hard, and repeatedly.  The habits I had developed had it in mind to destroy me utterly.  And I began to realize the true nature of sin, any sin, all sin, my sin.

I am older now, in my forties, the golden age J.  And I realize my wisdom is naught, my goodness entirely lacking, my faith is only a gift (part of the package of redemption I chose so long ago).  While my certainty in the existence of a benevolent God is rooted in a lifetime of my relationship with Him; I find all things of value associated with me actually come from Him.  Our relationship is one-sided; He gives and I try not to refuse or get in the way of His gift.  My ambition becomes to be a more effective channel.  And my goal to see a complete eradication of sin and evil in my life and as other recognize it, throughout the Universe in total.  I crave an end to the homesickness that plagues me to the core.  I yearn to curl up in the bosom of the Lord and know peace.  I wish to play like a child in Heaven’s parks at the feet of Jesus.  And I wish to learn, explore, and find service my calling. 

As far across as the Universe may be, and as much as I plan to traverse it, I cannot exist long outside of the immediate presence of my Father God.  Home is truly in His presence.  And Homesickness will exist until I am able to physically enter His presence without fear, doubt, or hesitation.  Though I will never be worthy, I will be forgiven.  And He will run to meet me.  He will throw His righteousness over my filthy existence covering me with an honor I will never warrant.  He will celebrate our reunion with more joy than even I could experience.  And my homecoming will finally be complete.  But I will not ever comprehend why or even how He could feel so strongly about me.  This is the eternal mystery of love, which I yearn to embrace.

But for now, I wait here, in a strange land … homesick.

An Image of God ...

The Bible states we were created in God’s image and in His likeness.  This phrasing has puzzled man for centuries.  Does God have a physical body like ours; arms, legs, a mouth, ears, eyes, etc..?  Is it our ability to understand morality, love, and service for others that the text was referring to?  Is it our ability to think, to pro-create, that is similar to our Lord’s?  Perhaps some combination of all of these, we do not know.  With almost equal fascination, man has pondered what exactly God looks like.

Despite our roots in a single set of original parents Adam & Eve, and then again in the re-genesis of Noah and his 3 sons and family, we tend to think of ourselves as so different from each other.  Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, to name just a few categories we ‘belong’ to as sub-classifications in our human existence.  What does it mean to be African-Black versus Norwegian-White?  What is the difference between Korean-Asian and Mexican-Hispanic?   Does it matter what God looks like, or what language He prefers to speak? 

The differences in language and culture we have today began due to an act of defiance some time after the great flood.  Despite a promise from God that He would never flood the world again and the introduction of the rainbow in the sky to remind us of His promise – man did not take long to degenerate into his old ways of embracing evil and breaking trust with God, again.  Rather than trust in the word of God, man decided to build a tower so high that any flood could not reach the top of it.  God did not get angry and kill everyone who was involved with this project (He is not the bloodthirsty dictator Satan accuses of Him of being throughout the Old Testament).  He merely “confounded their tongues,” and introduced the variety we see in each other today.  People began searching for others like themselves and eventually migrated across entire continents.  Base language dialects evolved with subtle nuisances over time, bringing us to where we are today.  God is able to speak once and be heard and understood in the language of everyone (referred to in the New Testament as ‘speaking in tongues’).  And the idea that Heaven must only speak English, or Spanish, or Swahili, or Mandarin is probably a bit biased on our part.

Unfortunately, instead of us appreciating our diversity as yet another reflection of the infinite variety God enjoys in His creations, we have elected to see our skin pigmentation, different languages, and strange (i.e. foreign) customs as a reason to judge each other in collective groups.  We make categorically false claims based in prejudice and hatred and some extremists have even tried to use scripture as a way of condemning entire races as lost from the possibility of Salvation.  There is nothing farther from the truth.  Nothing and no-one can ever separate any human being from the Love of our God.

So then the question is posed, does God have His favorites?  Quite simply, yes.  The reason why Abraham was so favored by God is because Abraham was looking for God.  Abraham was unique in his world as he was searching for meaning, this led him to want to reconcile to his God, and this led him to the favor of God.  Much the same as Noah, and Enoch were ‘favored’ by God, in that they were willing to get to know God.  The same logic applies to us today.  Christians are favored by God, as are all who seek to get to know Him.  Because of God’s promise to Abraham, his descendents were especially favored in that the Messiah would be born of this lineage.  There is a misperception that we sometimes buy into today, that birthright (as with the Jewish heritage) is the only method of gaining the favor of God.  The truth is, those willing to listen to God, to give over control of their lives to Him, become His favorites. 

Christians are sometimes plagued by the idea that a particular brand of doctrine or religious organization is superior to another, or in worse cases, the only way to reach Heaven.  We further subdivide ourselves along theocratic lines, with disagreements about the application or understanding of scripture used as a basis to again judge each other.  How sad.  The unifying principle of Christianity is Love.  As Love is the unifying method of government for the entire universe.  Christ was the human example of what ‘love’ truly means.  All Christians should be able to unite around this premise at a minimum.  The further search for truth should be then grounded in love first, then under the guidance of God, a careful review of Biblical texts as a whole, not out of context, and not with predefined ideas.  There should also be a great degree of trust among Christians that God will lead all seekers of truth to truth.  He would not allow them to be deceived by a lie, and then simply ‘bless’ the lie.

Investigation of other cultures, habits, art, languages, food, and music to name a few can greatly enrich the student.  Everyone who engages in this study will come away with certain things they like and dislike, but their lives will be enriched as a result.  No-one can be expected to like everything about another culture, as no-one can truly say they like ‘everything’ about their own culture.  Our differences then can give us an even more fulfilling life than we imagine, if we have the tolerance, and interest to begin to understand them and participate in them.  This was God’s intent.  There was no judgment of particular races that occurred at Babel, simply a further enrichment of variety in our lives, and a formidable distraction from a vain construction effort that would yield no real results.

Evil uses our every difference to try to separate us from each other.  We are easier prey when alone, and relying on our own wisdom to meet problems and discern between good and evil.  This was Eve’s predicament we discuss in another section.  But when we humble ourselves to begin to accept the wisdom of others, grounded in Biblical support, we become very strong as a group.  As we meet together and socialize and begin to share our experiences, our thoughts, and the blessings of God in our lives – we begin to strengthen each other, to build each other up.  And when we further realize that everyone who participates in this process enriches us all, we begin to value the opinions and experiences of those who are specifically different from ourselves.  Men value the counsel of women.  The young listen to the old.  People being to be patient and start looking for the good in another culture.  And where love rules, all of this GREATLY enhances the group as a whole.  This principle works equally well in the business world.  The ‘best’ advice you can receive in the business world will not come from a group of 10-15 white men in their 40’s.  Rather it would come from a group comprised of 10-15 men and women from different ethnic backgrounds and different ages.

Let us then try to reflect an image of God through our propensity to love others, to embrace others, all others.  This is how others will begin to see God within us.  For loving and accepting those who are different is a characteristic usually only found in those who have come to know God a bit more…

Origin of Love ...

Ever thought about where love came from?  If because man has embraced evil and has passed this tendency through genetics down through the centuries, we have become incapable of originating any good thing, then how does love function?  Does it move through us, having originated somewhere else, are we merely vessels or carriers of love?  How do we experience it, and how do we share this experience with others?

Telling someone you love them for the first time is sometimes a daunting event.  You are not sure if the other person feels the same way about you.  If you speak your true feelings too soon, will you push them away in fear?  Will you come across as desperate?  In short, a declaration of love on your part, is also a fair gamble of vulnerability.  What if your love is rejected?  How crappy does that feel!  But if your love is returned, Oh the joy that rushes over you.  It is as if you have found a rare or precious jewel while walking through your front yard.  You cannot believe your luck.  You found something this great, and even better, it is mutual.  Yes for love to be real, it has to be mutual doesn’t it?

That first expression of love, comes as a verbal announcement of the internal feelings of warmth, affection, and attraction you have for another.  It feels like love.  But doesn’t familiarity over time dull these feelings?  If so, do people then ‘fall out of love’.  See herein lays a characteristic of love we seldom pay attention to.  Love is dynamic, and always on the move.  Either love deepens over time, or it dies over time, it will not hold still and just be.  Which direction love moves depends in part on how you focus it.  Do you take all your warm, affectionate, and attractive feelings for another, and then begin to contemplate how to derive as much pleasure for yourself from them as possible?  Is your first thought when thinking about your new-found love, what it means to you as a person, what you will get out of this new relationship.  If so, you are focusing your young love inwards, and are therefore predestining it to die.  At some point, the newness of your relationship will wear off.  At some point, when the excitement of the moment has passed, and you have spent countless hours with this person you thought you loved, your discovery will seem more like having found a sharp stone in your shoe.  Every step you take will be painful.  And all you begin to think about is how to get rid of this pain in your … foot.

But on the other hand, you could turn all those feelings of warmth, affection, and attraction into determining to make the life of the object of your love - a better thing.  Focusing your feelings on pleasing another will ultimately bring you even more joy, as you catch it reflected in their life.  This outward focus of feeling will cause love to deepen, and is the most likely way of eliciting a similar response in your new-found partner.  So does that mean you give, if they give?  NO!!!  It means you give (period).  No expectation of a response from them.  This is not give and wait for an equal response, it is give and the act of giving is the joy you seek.  Response is just icing on the cake, not the cake itself.  That kind of unselfish love, can grow VERY VERY strong. 

When time has passed and the newness of this relationship has worn away, when the excitement of first kisses, and holding hands for the first time has long since departed.  What takes its place is a level of contentment, trust, fulfillment, and joy in truly becoming one with another; One in mind, one in thought, and one in purpose.  You begin to meld even your personalities into each other, adopting the likes and dislikes of the other over time.  These relationships are not easily shaken.  They do not tend to result in divorce, or affairs, or dissolution, because they are based on a principle of unconditional giving.  In short they are founded on God.

A fair question is how do I know if another truly loves me?  How do they treat you?  Are you their first thought, their first priority?  Is your happiness the uppermost thought in their mind?  Do they inquire about your thoughts, feelings, and activities?  Do they serve you without hesitation, or expectation?  Do they do these things over and over without so much as a word?  Do they try very hard to avoid conflicts and seem to always try to give in when one arises?  Do they forgive, show patience, and support you in what you try to do?  This is a demonstration of love from another.  But a far more important question MUST be asked.  Do you do these things for them FIRST?

You MUST show love before expecting to feel it.  This is what God does for us, and what we must do for each other.  He offers us unconditional love a long time before we even know who He is, and why He would do so.  He gives us love while we are throwing rocks in His face and rejecting His every advance.  BEFORE we consider whether someone else loves us, we must first truly examine whether we have really shown them love.  Telling someone you love them is nice, but is it meaningless.  Do you follow your declaration with actions that prove it?  Or do you simply repeat empty words that sound nice but are really intended to elicit a response in someone else for your own selfish purposes?

Understanding and matching demonstrations of love is important as well.  For example some people equate showing love as care-taking.  They equate the level of love someone else has for them, in how well they take care of you.  So if hubby is an excellent provider, cleans the house, cooks the meals, and takes care of the kids – he must really love me.  Or if wifey stays home from work, cleans the house, cooks the meals, taxi’ cabs the kids, and sews knicknacks in her spare time – she must really love me.  Actually this may be true, but also it may not; perhaps hubby or wifey work so hard around the house to cover a guilty conscience about many unknown transgressions.  Or perhaps they work so hard to avoid having real conversations, show real feelings, and reveal who they truly are inside.  Being an excellent care-taker may be how you demonstrate love, or may have nothing to do with it.  You need to find out what another person values, not simply assume it is what you provide them.  Your significant other may care less about a care-taker and want rather simply to talk and spend time together.  They would be happy living in a messy house, eating fast food, and playing with the kids as a family – than doing anything else on planet earth.  It is important to match the demonstration of love to the needs of the person you claim to love.

So often I have heard teenagers crying over a breakup stating how much they loved that other person.  My question to them is; Oh yeah, what did you ever do for that person without asking for something in return?  What did that person really like doing for fun?  What was their favorite food?  What did they value in life?  What made them happy?  What did they really want to do when they grew up?  If you are able to quickly answer these questions, then perhaps you truly were in love.  But most often, the teenager has only considered their own responses to these questions, they have no idea what the purported object of their love would say.

When you examine love from the standpoint of what it means to another, it answers some of the other nagging questions of life.  Like can a person love more than one other at a time?  On the surface, yes.  But really, down deep, No.  The two people they truly love, are self and self.  Breaking the heart of another by splitting the love between more than one person is not real love, it is real selfishness.  Can a person truly love no-one.  On the surface, yes.  But down deep, No.  They wind up loving themselves.  A great many people have only learned how to love themselves, how to please themselves, and how to mask their vast unhappiness with multiple distractions.  These are the most miserable of all people, because they know not how to love anyone other than self.  They may claim to love you, they may even do things for you to show you their love.  But the motives are always acutely aware and evident that they require WAY more than they offer.  Any gesture on their part REQUIRES an equal or larger gesture on your part, or an argument will ensue.  This is not love, it is selfishness.

We seem more than capable of creating from within selfishness, but almost devoid of the ability to generate unselfish love.  Our ability to do evil seems unparalleled, but our interest in doing good barely registers on the map.  In short, we may have lost the ability to create true good.  But we can connect to the ultimate source of all good.  It is that source that allows real love to flow through us.  It is our God that enables us to forgive another, to have patience in the face of evil intent, to ignore selfishness, and offer anyway.  It is GOD ALONE who can accomplish this on our behalf.  We are mere carriers of His love.  We often pollute it with our own ideas about satisfying our needs, or dilute it by trying to drink it in and absorb the goodness of loving feelings without sacrificing for another to achieve them.  But in the end, a connection to God, is a connection to the fountain of love.  It is this fountain that is the real power in the universe.  We experience it most keenly as we realize our need of it, and connect ourselves with it.  And the good news is our God is just waiting for us to do so.  He longs for us to become connected with Him.  This is His entire desire, to reconcile with His children, us.  Herein lays the origin of all love…

Which God ... No Really ...

So the next nagging question becomes which god is God?  It may be plausible to accept our current definition of God without Him having to be the one from the Judeo-Christian Bible (although this source seems to have the only plausible explanation for the existence of evil - [see the previous sections on existentialism]).  We know God is completely 'good', He has existed forever, He is the author of Love, Freewill (i.e. choice), Emotions, and the laws of physics, science, etc..  In short, we have determined that God is omnipotent, and benevolent.  But doesn't more than one religious belief system claim these characteristics for their own 'version' of God?  It is arrogance for any created being to assume they could ever 'fully' understand what God is, but that leaves us far from being totally ignorant on the subject as well.

So why is my God better than your god?  Ouch.  Sounds a little cocky doesn't it?  To begin, it is necessary to explore another avenue of the definition of what 'Love' means.  Beyond the simple chemical reactions we normally attribute to romantic love, are other deeper applications of the term.  For instance another popularly understood use of the term applies to the relationship between parent and child.  Love in this case is anything but romantic (Woody Allen and Sigmund Freud's views notwithstanding).  Love takes on characteristics such as comforting, protecting, caring for another, nurturing, supporting, and yes even sacrificing for another becomes a key ingredient in the definition of true love.  All these attributes I just described can and sometimes do appear in the context of romance, but for purposes of this example, please try to focus on them purely in the parent-child sense. 

Attempting to measure the depth of one's love for another is often done by how much one does for another, or how much one gives up for another.  If I never give anything of high value to my children, not time, not affection, not respect, not support - Do I truly love them?  If I granted their every request, and their every whim was immediately gratified, despite what I believed was truly in their own best interests - is that considered love?  How many people can truly say they are where they are in this world, without the sacrifice of anyone else in their lives?  We love to toot our own horns about the level of accomplishment we have made, but when closely examined there are usually others who contributed if not sacrificed for our success.  Most parents spend the majority of their lives trying to improve the lives of their children.  Most children don't recognize it or appreciate it, until they see it in themselves as they repeat the cycle with their own kids.  Why do we do this?  What it is about love that inspires us to sacrifice our self-interest for the benefit of another?  Simple preservation-of-the-species is not nearly enough to cover the depths of a mother or father's love for their child, whether biological or not.  Could this be a God-like characteristic that the author of this Emotion fully understands - and does Himself?

What is the key difference between the God found in the Bible and other potential suitors: the level of sacrifice the Bible God does for His errant creations.  In the Bible, God is described as existing in three parts, a Father, a Son, and a Holy Spirit.  All united in purpose, all considered equal in power and ability.  But there does seem to be a pecking order in that God the Father seems to be what we understand about Father figures - whereas God the Son appears more personally identifiable to us.  Given the unity of thought, purpose, and intent this should not be, but human nature being what it is, our perceptions of hierarchy persist. 

Picking up where we left off in a previous section regarding the prologue of our existence, it turns out that God goes ahead with our creation in spite of the fact that He has just won a recent war over the number 3 guy in existence (Lucifer, now renamed Satan).  Before we go even one step further, you need to consider something.  God is the author of choice, but as we established He is also omnipotent and benevolent.  So even before we were created, God knew what choice we would make.  Were we predestined then for failure, quite the opposite.  Were we predestined then for ultimate death and non-existence, again no.  It turns out, that even before our existence, a plan was formed by the Bible God for our redemption (i.e. the saving of man, from the choice he was likely to make).  The plan consisted of essentially allowing man a second chance after the original choice he made.  That second chance however, would not be cheap, nor would there be a 3rd, 4th, or 5th chance to change our minds.  In order for the even the second chance to exist, a death had to occur.  And only God himself, in the form of the Son, could make this sacrifice in order to offer man a second shot at reconciliation with Him, and the Father.

Here is the fundamental difference between my Bible God and ALL the others:  My God was willing to die Himself for the creatures he made.  He loved us SO much He would sacrifice His Son, the glory of heaven and perfection, and die a criminal's death, tortured by the very creatures He was here to save.  Where has Mohamed ever offered to literally be tortured and killed in order to save the infidels who do not believe in him?  When did Buddha, ever sacrifice himself for his followers or the unenlightened?  Jim Jones, Harry Krishna, David Koresh, any current sect leader, do they ever seem to completely lay down their own lives in order to spare their followers any pain.  The Hindu gods represent all kinds of human emotion, strengths, and weaknesses, but none do the work of redemption on behalf of their disobedient followers.  You incur these gods anger by noncompliance; they do not sacrifice themselves to help you see you have other choices. 

My God did all this for His enemies.  My God did all this in order that we could 'choose' to become friends again.  The nature of every other religious philosophy holds one thing in common - the responsibility for the ascendency of man lies in his own lap.  Every religion but one, requires man to achieve his own salvation by his own human means.  Only Christianity recognizes man's true inability to save himself.  And ONLY the Christian God is willing to sacrifice Himself to the point of death, for creatures who would still not choose to follow Him.  This is the depths to which God is capable of loving, and I believe it will take an eternity to begin to understand only a little what that means.

Discovering the true God does not end our difficult questions however, nor should it.  But it does begin to shed some light on the meaning of our lives, of our individual lives.  Discovering the true God puts the existence of evil into context along with assurances that evil will not be tolerated forever.  In a future next post we will discuss the meaning of the individual, as well as set aside some myths we cling to that make it hard to reconcile a loving God with what we see around us.

Fact versus Faith ...

There are very few absolutes in the world around us.  We can scientifically verify the existence of gravity by its affects on us as we attempt to defy it.  We can measure the force of gravity, and then ascribe the measurement in ‘weight’.  And since everyone has a personal familiarity with the concept of gravity and its effects, we begin to accept gravity as an absolute truth.  But for example, if you tried to examine the great number of things in your life you take for granted as truth, you would find little absolute proof of any of them. 

Take your name and parents for instance, are you really certain your name is what you have been brought up to believe?  Could it have been different on your birth certificate?  How can you scientifically prove your birth certificate is accurate?  Could it’s authors have been lying about certain facts?  Was the hospital notary in on the deception?  Could you truly be the product of another entire set of parents but simply taken at birth?  You were too young to know, so how do you scientifically prove something that happened before your cognitive memory?  Ah yes, the good old DNA test, we can get one of those now and clear all this up (at least we know we were not stolen at birth).  But DNA does not verify the truth of the documentation associated with your birth.  With some work at it, we could round up witnesses, get copies of corroborating documentation, talk to the doctor who delivered us, etc..  At some point we would have enough support to believe the truth we know, but it would take work, and in some rare cases may never be proven scientifically.  Is it any less true, without the science to support it?

If you use the name you have been brought up to believe is yours, if you answer to it, if others know you by it, then it is a truth, even if it conflicts with paper signed long ago.  At some point each person chooses to be known by the name they validate, if they are not happy with the one they have, they change it.  The point here is that some truth is simple enough to believe in, without a ton of scientific data to back it up.  That presumption of truth, is called faith.  In order to have faith, you have to trust the person(s) you put your faith in.  It does you little good to put your faith in something random, unknown, or unfamiliar.  You may ‘bet’ on someone else’s good nature, but that can hardly be called having ‘faith’ in them.  Faith and trust then are in separable.  And with faith, you may be able to believe in the truth of something without all the science behind it, and sometimes even when what you look at, tells a different story.

Most people who support evolution as the basis of our origin, believe Christians to be using a ‘weak’ argument whenever they rely on ‘faith’ in the absence of scientific fact.  Yet the ‘science’ of evolution requires a great deal of ‘faith’ as it cannot answer many pertinent questions either.  When science lacks the answers, it is rationalized as ‘undiscovered’.  But when a question regarding God comes up, any response of ‘faith’ is deemed as naïve blind obedience.  I suppose the reason for this is a fundamental lack of trust in who our God really is, and what He is all about.  Consider for a moment what we believe about our God; that He is good, and that He wants only good for us; and that we are free to choose for ourselves.  Given this, we are not slaves, because we choose to serve Him.  This is not forced labor, it is labor based in love.  Given God’s intentions for us, we can trust in Him, to ALWAYS look out for our best interests (even if they conflict with our own wisdom).

I love the example of Abraham in scripture who is touted as having great faith to leave the land of his father, for a land he had never seen, based solely on a promise from God.  I love how at age 100 he finally has the son he was promised by God to populate the earth like the sands of the seas.  But most of all I admire the relationship Abraham had with Christ, that he was so close to Jesus, they actually talked to each other.  Abraham knew it was God, when God told him to take Isaac to sacrifice him.  Think about this for a second.  God was telling Abraham to commit first degree murder of his only son, as a sacrifice to Him.  At the time ONLY pagan / heathen gods demanded such child sacrifice, and these rituals were always STRONGLY condemned by God.  Yet here He is, asking for the same thing.  I would have freaked out, and refused to accept this was really God talking, sounds way more like Satan to me than God.  But Abraham knew the voice of God first hand, had followed it all his life, and did so again, hoping against hope God would withdraw his request.  Not until the angel stopped Abraham from actually committing murder, did God stop this ‘test’ of his faith. 

We have such a hard time believing that God will follow through on His promises to us.  And so we ‘help’ God by taking care of ourselves financially instead of sharing our money back with him.  We protect ourselves from the world, by keeping away from homeless crazy people who need us, but might hurt us while we sleep.  We avoid dangerous places like prisons, soup-kitchens, shelters, hospitals, and nursing homes for fear of our own mortality.  And we think we follow God in faith.  How much ‘faith’ does living this way really require?  Is that why we don’t give our faith a good work-out like we do our bodies?  We play it safe all the time, risk little or nothing, and learn to trust little at all. 

We couch our prayers for the sick in weak words like “but let it be according to Your will” as if it would ever be God’s will for someone to suffer or die.  We suffer and die from our own choices, and from the effects of evil on others.  Why not pray boldly for healing instead of just comforting the loved ones?  Is it because we don’t want to give ‘false’ hope to the sick; with our weak faith perhaps the hope would be false.  I say instead we boldly ask God for the miracles He wants to pour out on us.  Stop hiding behind weak words, and ask God for what we really want.  Let Him say no, if He does not want to grant our request, but let us make the request in faith with power.  In faith that KNOWS God wants to pour out His healing upon us so we don’t even have room to receive it. 

This kind of faith takes trust.  It’s risky to call out for God to help and put the attention on Him to see if He does. 

Faith then is not the last resort of those who lack scientific proof of their beliefs; rather it is the first thing we look to in any situation we face.  We rely on our faith to bridge the gaps in our knowledge, not because we have NO knowledge of God, simply because we may not yet have a complete knowledge of God.  We add faith to our reason, and to our personal experience with God, and in so doing, faith grows.  As we witness the results of trusting God, we constantly prove His care and goodness in our lives.  Once you begin to KNOW what God does in your life, your faith starts a fire inside you, that no man, and no evil can ever put out.  This becomes yet another avenue of a life altering experience.  Our discovery of God and His true character and intentions makes us stronger still.  Our incredible weakness and unworthiness, covered in a blanket of love that changes the core of who we are.

Of course this kind of faith is not something to play with kids.  Once you get infected with trust like this, and see results like this, you will catch fire like you can’t imagine.  You will not be able to shut off the spickett once that channel gets opened up in your life.  Once this gift of faith God puts in your heart starts to bare harvest, watch out.  You may just single-handedly change the world, not you per se, but God working in you and through you…

Why Me (part 3 of 3) ...

We have been exploring answers to the simple question 'Why Me?'.  First we defined our individuality and uniqueness, then confronted the existence and impact of 'evil' on our lives - now it is time to explore the positive reference to this question - getting something (a gift) we do not deserve.

Recognizing the existence of a benevolent God was the first step in our journey towards individual meaning to our lives.  It begins our quest to fulfill our unique and invaluable purpose.  But how do we go about it?  How do we come to know this creator God we have discussed?  How do we communicate with Him?  It is logical that given our finite status, and since He is infinite, it seems most, if not all of the work, will have to rest on His plate instead of ours.  Since we recognize His existence, and our separation from Him, we begin to feel a need to reconcile with Him, and get close to Him again.  This need is born into every human who has ever lived.  But not everyone recognizes it, or understands it.  It is like a hunger that is never satisfied.  It is a combination of ambition, the pursuit of excellence, curiosity about what is possible, and an insatiable need to be loved and accepted.  A desire to return 'home' even though 'home' may not be fully understood.  The more one gets to know God, the more the intensity of this desire to reconcile can be felt.

The burden for communication has already been addressed by God.  It turns out having created us for a specific purpose, God is able to read and understand our thoughts, desires, and deepest motives.  It is both scary, and exhilarating that God easily penetrates the facade we present to others, and knows our deepest core.  There is NO hiding from God, not physically (remember He can transcend time, space, and matter), and not mentally (having authored our ability to both think and feel, He can easily see into our true selves).  Every word we speak He knows.  Every intent, whether open or hidden, He is keenly aware of.  So to communicate with Him we need only speak to Him, or perhaps 'think' to him silently and He will hear us. 

A modicum of respect would be a good idea on our part in this process.  As much as God loves us, and relates to us, and intends nothing but good towards us - He is still the Supreme Being in the Universe.  It doesn't hurt to remember that the courtesy of His friendship does not negate His awesome power and position.  In other words, for God to come down to our level to speak with us, does in no way make us equal to Him.  He may be family, but He is still the 'dad' of this family, and His word goes, period.  But there is equally no reason to fear talking to God.  The analogy of young children speaking to 'daddy' is both welcomed and accepted by God.  Young children respect their parents while still having fun with them.  This is the nature of our communications to God.  He is patient with us, answers our questions, helps us in times of need, and most importantly teaches and corrects us as we need it (what is in our own best interest from an eternal perspective - i.e. sometimes beyond our ability to understand in the here and now).

What about God's communication to us?  Obviously we have NO ability to read His thoughts or intents from our finite minds.  So how do we 'hear' him?  Again, He knows our limitations and has addressed this as well.  There are lessons on the nature and character of God that can be found in His creation - in the harmony and balance of unspoiled nature - in the order and precision of mathematics - in the tender intimacy of a relationship between parent and new born child.  There are a great many things we can learn about God, as we marvel at the beauty of His creation that still shines through our 'evil' polluted world.  The second way, in which God reaches out to us, is through a carefully crafted and divinely preserved set of written records of His love (i.e. the Bible). 

Why the Bible, and not the Quran, or the writings of Confucius, or the Torah (which technically is a subset of the Bible), or the mysterious plates of Joseph Smith, or this book, or any other written source of men.  Again we look at it logically, the Bible is the only written record which completely outlines ... 1.) The Existence and character of God, 2.) The origin and existence of Evil and its goals, 3.) Our existence & the ONLY plan that could work to reconcile man back with God, 4.) The ultimate destruction of evil, and 5.) The definition of love.  The Bible is full of prophesies which can be historically proven, and predicts the Messiah where every single attribute that is foretold is fulfilled in total in Christ. 

I believe Biblical writers were inspired by God to write what they did.  They were not perfect, but their writings were accurate enough to enjoy the preservation of God.  Many dismiss the 'numbers' in the Bible as inflated, and the claims of miracles as nothing more than allegory.  We will discuss this further in specifics as needed, but this claim in its premise states that a loving creator God - did not think it important enough to keep the single most referred to method of communication to us - accurate.  In effect God doesn't seem to mind some sort of sliding scale of accuracy; then in that case, why not a sliding scale of love, or of goodness.  It is not consistent with His character to be sloppy.  Therefore His communication should be able to be counted on as accurate.

I realize that many do not want to accept the Bible because of the scope of some of its claims.  For instance, according to the Bible our world was created in only seven days.  In fact the Bible says that our Earth (the rocks and dust, etc. was "without form and void" - i.e. an asteroid without water, air, or the ability to support life).  God selected this floating rock in space and began to shape it.  He gave it an atmosphere (air), He gave it water, then land.  He placed it in, or simply created the surrounding solar system to give it a sense of time, and location in space.  Then He brought life into our planet, first with growing things, then with animals, finally with us 'in His own image' (something to discuss in a later section).  Because the carbon dating of the rocks on our asteroid date back farther than 6000 years, is not hard and fast evidence the world was not created exactly like God said it was according to the Bible.  They are not mutually exclusive.  This first claim of the Bible has been historically hard to accept by the non-believer; the idea that God created us.  If you accept this premise, the rest of the Bible becomes God's communication to us.  We have explored the alternatives to this logically and already came to this conclusion, so we will move on.

Lastly God can communicate with man, those who choose to listen; through the 'still small voice' he hears when he is quiet, undistracted, and well practiced at truly listening for God.  I believe sometimes that 'still small voice' is our conscience - nudging us to choose right when faced with a choice.  Sometimes it comes through the counsel of others in our immediate circle of influence.  Sometimes 'the voice' is neither quiet or small, sometimes it is unavoidable, loud, and clear - even miraculous in its manifestation - but these times and people tend to be rare (very rare).  The results of any of these communications should be able to be measured against the written words in His book, and compared against the consistency of His character.

So communications then, have been established between us and God.  There is a way to learn what God wants for us, what His plan is.  We can begin building a personal relationship with God immediately.  Think about this concept carefully - we can begin to know God right now - we can begin to reconcile with God right away - we do not have to wait.  We will discuss later the concept of 'Hell' being the torturous recognition of our separation from God and all that is good.  For now we are talking about the concept of 'Heaven' where all that is good can begin to be understood right now - no waiting.  Heaven then, is MORE than just a place.  It is NOT just a destination.  It is a lifestyle of reconciliation of us and our God.  This is what 'Salvation' (or saving us from our evil and forced separation) is all about.  It’s not about escaping doom it is about experiencing LIFE right now.  It is about being HAPPY right now.  This is the gift we have been given - right now.  And like any other gift, it is free to us; ALL we have to do is simply accept it. 

How do we go about that? ... will be discussed throughout this book.  For now focus on the concept that your reconciliation with God can begin immediately.  Your communication methods have been outlined, no need to wait...