Tag Archives: Christian

Day 2: Verse 1—For the Private Christian, Justification

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I love Thy cross, Your justice paid to reconcile the lost
To kill our sin that’s killing us, You gave Your life the cost
Take heed, disciple, bear thy cross, it marks His way to Heav’n
And by it draw all souls to Christ to see their sins forgiv’n

The first verse is about justification—the jewel in the crown of Reformation Theology. It is at the very heart of the gospel itself and the most notable and essential work of Christ on the cross—the payment for our sins and the making us right before God by grace through faith. Any song about the cross would be replete without this glorious world-turned-upside-down significance of this singular historical moment. “He Himself bore our sin, in His body on the tree that we, having been dead to sin, might live to righteousness.” Romans 3 is a wonderful part of Paul’s theological treatise on how this works: from our sinful estate to God’s free gift of salvation in Christ Jesus. The verses I will highlight here are verses 23-25, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation (or valuable sacrifice) in His blood through faith.” This means that there needed to be a sacrifice made to pay for the sin causing us to fall short of His glory, and Jesus willingly offered Himself as that sacrifice for all who have faith in Him.

He had to take our sin into His body to become sin for us, so that the sin which kills us (Romans 6:23) may be put to death. And no one could pay that cost or can pay that cost except the one through whom, for whom, and to whom are all things: Jesus Christ, God incarnate. What a wondrous and glorious mystery!

The implications for a Christian for why they must carry their cross are these: Jesus left His people here on earth to carry their cross and follow in His footsteps so that:

  1. People could see Jesus’ work in a fresh and living way in His people, in whom Christ is formed.
  2. People can see that true freedom and release are not the absence of suffering, but fully entrusting oneself to the One who makes a dry-land pathway through the river of death.
  3. It is in dying daily that we are daily reborn to eternal life until He comes again.

There is little in this world more distasteful than a “Christian” who is unloving or selfish. If only we could learn to lay down our lives in love for others the way Jesus did on that cross for us. Christ indeed showed us the humble way of total surrender to the judgment of the Father, not for His own sins, but for the sins even of His enemies. This Love is the only love that breaks the power of sin and death to blind people from recognizing the God in whose image they were made. A Christian, by the Holy Spirit’s power, can love like this, and by his or her love draw people to experience the transforming love of Christ. Perhaps as more Christians do this, the less deconstructionism, church-hurt, and hypocrisy we will hear about, and the more baffling, unexplainable grace will draw souls to Christ so they might see their sins forgiven in Him.

Reflection Questions:

  • Tell the testimony of how the gospel has changed your life. Then check: did it include your sinfulness, Christ’s sacrifice, and your acceptance of Christ as your Lord?
  • How have you encountered Jesus in the world? Through whom have you experienced His love?
  • How might your relationships with others be impacted if you lived sacrificially for them, instead of for your own sake?

Day 1: For All Christians, Exhortation

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“Sing to one another in songs and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.” Ephesians 5:19

One of the signs of the filling of the Holy Spirit is the ability to relationally and whole-heartedly express oneself in conversation with God and one another. This hymn is a rare juxtaposition of these two conversations, each being done in the presence of the other in one Trinitarian-plus-us community. The basis for this juxtaposition is the thing in common we share: Jesus carried His own cross and told His disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me.” Luke 9:23. Each time He said this, He did so in the context of Him being the anointed Son of God, and in His foretelling His future suffering.

For us, this cross-bearing is different and similar in important ways. It is different because His was a capital-T “Thy cross” because the cross He carried and died upon is where He fully accomplished salvation once for all. Christ alone has borne that cross fully, nor are we able to pay for our own sins by our own suffering to any degree. It is also similar in an important way because we can only grow into the full stature of Him in whose footsteps we are following by carrying our own cross to the end as He did. The whole Christian life can be seen as preparation to one day give your life in a shameful and humiliating fashion for His sake.

However, this exhortation doesn’t make sense to many who bear the name “Christian.” After all, “Jesus died a shameful death so I wouldn’t have to, right?” If Jesus truly intended that, would He have called His disciples to follow him and carry their instrument of ignoble and excruciating execution? What else would they need it for? The beauty of what I’ve discovered is that the church of Christians alive today is Jesus’ body still on earth, and therefore, she has much of the same physical work which He did: healing the sick, casting out demons, preaching the good news, and bleeding for the world. The whole Bible story from Genesis to Revelation bears out the ugly, inescapable reality: the world is only redeemable through the blood of the guiltless, trusting surrender to God. Before Christ, it was sacrificial lambs; after Christ in full, those echo the sacrifice of the Lamb of God in laying down their lives even for their enemies. These are indeed His disciples.

If we want to be His disciples, we must answer the question: What does it mean to carry your cross? It means to live a life on earth that is constantly being laid down for God and others, in preparation for the day and the way He chooses for it to end. This entails resistance to searching it out, as some martyr-wannabes might mistake my meaning, being eager to be done with the heavy load they carry for a consequently cheaper glory. Instead, it means living faithfully in full surrender until that last day so that we can share in the glory to be revealed at His coming. This is the joy we are offered if we do, the same “joy that was set before Him.” (Hebrews 12:1-2), “That I may know Him in the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings being conformed to His death.” Philippians 3:10

Reflection Questions:

  • Is there anything you are still holding onto that you haven’t fully surrendered to be put to death in your life? What fundamentally motivates you in what you do that is really about you and not about God?
  • What does carrying your cross look like in your current life stage? What will it look like in the next? How can you prepare for it?
  • How does a person embrace the cross in such a way that avoids the traps of “cheap grace” theology, while also avoiding the trap of legalism?

“I Love Thy Cross”– One-Week Devotional: Foreword

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I want to be careful not to be too careful in this devotional. Not only is the message of the cross offensive and foolish in man’s eyes, but any attempt to make it otherwise is offensive and foolish in God’s eyes. I also don’t want to explain too much behind the artwork, depriving this form of its potency. Still, I think some guided reflection can be helpful both for those ready to pick up and carry their cross and those not prepared to do so.

Furthermore, one of the purposes of this song is to be an anthem for the body of Christ, the church, to sing as one. In the poem, there are five problems that afflict the body, keeping it from cooperating to carry something as uncomfortably heavy and deathly humiliating as a cross. While in each verse, the cross answers a different issue, every believer needs the reminder of these aspects of the cross. I hope that this will inspire more verse and song written about the Cross of Christ.

The first verse addresses the tendency to keep one’s Christianity private and personal to the individual. It calls the one not bearing fruit of loving relationships to meditate on the significance of justification and to walk in Christ’s steps by laying down his or her life each day so that others may know Christ’s love through him or her.

The second verse addresses the stumbling block of feeling too wounded and broken to bear any cross on anyone else’s behalf. It calls the one who feels this way to recognize Jesus’ restoration that He accomplished on the cross, that His glory is revealed in brokenness.

The third verse addresses how many feel the torment of demonic oppression ties their hands. For the one who feels too bound up with spiritual torment to carry the cross, this song calls him to embrace the emancipation of Christ’s victory on the cross and bear his or her cross as the means to conquer spiritual adversaries.

The fourth addresses the appetites of the flesh and the old self to which Christians so easily succumb, independent of following Christ. To the one who is living for self and too distracted or drawn away by idolatry and addiction, this song calls to ongoing liberation, carrying a cross that calls for an embrace of death to self and the experience of walking with Jesus in newness of life.

The fifth verse, like Jesus’ end to the Sermon on the Mount, delivers an ultimatum to those who remain uncommitted to carrying their cross and shows them a polarization, calling them to bear their cross with Jesus, or they will find themselves on the wrong side of the lines drawn by persecution.

“Have You No Decency?”?

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This news article from this past Tuesday, March 11, 2025, on Straight Arrow News contextualizes the title of this essay.

The question of the question comes repeatedly to my lips as I marvel at the collision of two worlds over my head in that government chamber. One World is a place in which there are only two genders designated by God, and so the most respectful thing is to call people by the gender of the body God gave them. The Other World is where human beings have the right to determine their own identity and to expect that fully informed, well-adapted human beings will address them according to that self-declared identity. The point of contact of this collision is encapsulated beautifully in this word “decency.”

The cursory Google definition that popped up on my phone for this word is: behavior that conforms to accepted standards of morality or respectability. This definition lays out the trajectory for collision between these two worlds: behavior that conforms to accepted standards of morality and respectability. These two worlds of the representatives from Massachusetts and Texas do not have an accepted standard of respectability to conform to. The result in this issue is that so long as there is no agreement, there is no decency to be had.

Or is there?

One is doing the most respectful thing they know by calling a transgendered representative by the title of their gender given at birth because God gave them that gender. The other is doing the most respectful thing they know by correcting someone who is not recognizing a representative’s own personal designation in this public government setting. Personally, I chuckled at the actual representative’s response referring to the Texas male delegate as, “Madaam Chair.” While it was not “decent” for that human being to do so, it kept the dialogue going, because there were more important things to discuss. Perhaps that is all we can do.

Or is it?

I watch these worlds collide and recognize my own place in one of them. One world was created by a loving God, the Other World is created as an imitation by God’s human offspring whose relationship with the Creator is estranged and hostile.

And despite what some may say, I propose that this estrangement is not the Creator’s fault. I think the fault lies at the feet of those who claim to be that Creator’s “ambassadors of reconciliation.” Their lack of willingness to carry Christ’s cross is the reason this Other World persists so, spinning on an axis centered upon the self as the highest god: because there has been so little vision of the True God represented as a New Humanity.

It is not a sad fact that only one of these two worlds will last longer than the other. After all, the way of renewed life is the One World, not the Other World. What is truly sad is that the citizens of the One World are not inclined to lovingly pursue the citizens of the Other to the point of laying down their lives for them. Decency can only exist in the One World and not the Other, because the Judge at the center of the One world is not fickle and imperfect like self, but rather is fundamentally and perfectly compassionate and inexorably justice-oriented.

I just wish that more citizens of the One World understood what “justice” means. Jesus knew, and he showed us that it looks like a cross: A cross surrendering the precious self to abject humiliation for the sake of others because the whole of all our sins merits such a gruesome spectacle.

This is the offensive glory of the cross by which only the humble can be transformed. But those who are transformed, after these two worlds are finished obliterating one another, will find an eternal place in the New Heaven and Earth where righteousness dwells. This transformation is necessary because the One World and the Other World are both doomed, and those in the One World, though it be stronger, will not escape the wrath to come unless they go the way that Jesus paved out of both of these two worlds: the cross. The cross that says, “I lay down my own identity (in the right or in the wrong), and submit to God’s desire and design to love those who do not deserve it.” And to the tender heart I think this, dear reader, better represents the true meaning of “decency.”

A Guide to Reconstructing Christian Faith Part 5–The Body

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Faith may be immaterial, but it is bounded up with the material. Not only did Jesus sum up all things within himself by taking on a human body, but his doing so codified the very essence of faith itself: it is the meeting place of Heaven (the immaterial) and Earth (the material). The Story of God did not happen merely in people’s imaginations, but rather in recorded eye-witnessed history. The Holy Spirit does not merely repair immaterial wounds, but by His life animates the solid and tangible to life in a mystery still being unravelled by the ever-out-stretching rubber band of science. And the direction of the Christian’s life is not merely a gnostic prizing of the immaterial over the material, but the bringing of the material to its end, and making something new and alive in a material sense by the imperishable immortal power of His Life. The Christian faith is not a disembodied faith, but rather it is embodied.

In one sense, it is practical: “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” (James 2:26) One might say not only that the body is meeting place of Heaven and earth, like a temple, but it is the very home in which the glory of the invisible is made visible. The body is where the image of God is stamped just as much as the immaterial parts of us. Therefore, it is in our physical presence, our physical touch, our physical actions that the glory of God impacts the tangible world around us. This gives us the borrowed power to bodily impact the world for His glory that His life and goodness can flourish.

In another sense, it is archetypal. The body is not only a mystery in itself in how God in His Heavenly power makes the material come to life and grow and by its departure brings about death, but also a revelation of His intention for all reality. He intends that the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord. This is seen in a group of people functioning so in sync with one another that the best metaphor to describe them is a body. Is it just a metaphor?

Faith without a body is an idea, but with a body, it is a power to effect real change in the world. The presence of God in us gives life to our mortal bodies on the other side of death, and a repurposing of every broken thing in our bodies on this side of death. And the body of this death, though sin has reigned and wreaked all sorts of havoc, has been transformed into something new: a temple of the Holy Ghost. See 1 Corinthians 6.

Let our bodies be the instruments of righteousness to God that they were created to be, (Romans 6:13) and so demonstrate how Heaven and earth are indeed going to be one again, beginning with the Holy Sprit’s abiding presence in us.

He who has ears let him hear.

A Guide to Reconstructing Christian Faith Part 4–God’s Breath

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If you’re still listening and looking for more, yes, there is more to being a Christian than the three previous posts. Some Christians will get a little bit nervous here. After all, You’ve got the Person of Jesus Christ, you’ve got the Word of God, the Scriptures, and you’ve got the Spirit. What more could you ask for?

In a word: direction. What do you do with all of this? Are you just . . . in? Are you a Christian and that’s all there is to being a Christian? Is it all just meeting a Person, knowing a Story, and receiving a Spirit?

No. These are just the beginning, and the root system of a tree that has only begun to grow. Tree’s don’t do Heaven all that much good, but it is through growing toward heaven that they become trees that bless more area of the earth. The Tree of Christianity begins with growing Heavenward. In other words, once you become a Christian, you need an orientation to your new life.

I have met Christians who say, “You’re saved so now, all you got to do is pray, read your Bible, and tell other people about Jesus.” This to me is unattractive, over-simplistic and non-compelling. This illustrates a life that if I have met Jesus for real, have been swept up into His story, and filled with a death-conquering Spirit, honestly feels quite anti-climactic and purposeless. What is a Christian saved for? Just to tell other people so we can all be good little “Christians” who are good and know our Bible by heart and are nice to people?

No. The Christians journey to full growth is patterned after Jesus’ journey. And look where his journey led him: to a cross. Didn’t Jesus Himself say, “If anyone would follow me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me”? The life of a Christian in name only does not care to carry a cross anywhere. They’re out for their own salvation. This is no evidence of Jesus’ Spirit living in them.

I have not met many Christians who put it this way, “You’re saved, so now get training on how to carrying your cross, because one day you’ll need it.” And yet, a Christian should expect not only tribulation but persecution. Not only persecution, but opportunities to suffer along with Christ, and be obedient in the way Jesus Christ was– to death, even death on a cross.

Prayer, Bible study, and evangelism are all part of the training process of carrying your cross, but some key elements should be included as well. These I will mention for now.

  1. Being led by the Holy Spirit,
  2. Fasting
  3. Casting down anything in life to which your heart is devoted more than to God.

All that is in our lives that keeps our old-pre-Christian life alive will motivate us to get peel us off the cross the moment we get near it. The Christian-ese term for this is often called “Putting to death the old man.” But it often takes the form of sputtering attempts at being more holy, but ends up making a believer more discouraged or ashamed or entrapped in other sins.

So, we have all we need for the journey: Jesus Himself, His Story, and His Spirit and the expected destination for this journey is a nebulous word called “the cross.” I truly haven’t summed it up yet, but I’ve hinted at it. Rather than immediately answer the question “Why does death on a cross, literal or figurative, equal obedience to God?” I want to give you some time to figure that one out. Instead, I’ll review that the putting to death of the old man, in the form of fasting, being led by the Spirit and casting down all other heart devotedness. Now let me answer the question: how does one do that?

A tad-pole breathes water only until it comes up on land, then it uses its lungs as its primary source of oxygen. A Christian is like a frog. He can go back into the water, just like the frog, and live in it, but he needs to learn to use these lungs. That means instead of relying on earthly sources of life, lean on heavenly sources of life. Instead of being led by your own desires, be led by the Holy Spirit’s promptings. Instead of feasting on earthly food, drink, and pleasure, feast on God’s Word, God’s presence, and the pleasure of His presence. You’ll find alot more oxygen in God’s presence than any pleasant place in the world. Instead of letting your heart get energized in pursuit of anything in this world you love, let the heart melt for God above all, and let your affections be stirred by the Highest and greatest object of your heart’s desire. A Christian needs to learn how to do this, so that always everywhere, he will be empowered to walk in the same world, but being empowered by the Breath of God.

One more thing: remember how this is not all hokey impersonal spirit stuff? We were designed for relationship with God. Our primary, our most essential, our most important relationship is with the Lord. This is the essence of what it is to be a Christian: to live in communion with God in Jesus Christ. He who saves you, draws you to know Him more, and this relationship with Him is eternal life.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear!

A Guide to Reconstructing Christian Faith Part 3– The Spirit

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Talking about this part of the process is kinda like describing sky to someone underground. If someone has never seen the sky, You might depict to them, “It’s like instead of having earth over you, it’s empty. . . no that’s not right. . . . It’s like being in an open cavern where its so dark you can’t see the rock face. Except the rock is lit up, and has a bright glowing light in the middle.” But does that really do it justice? I don’t think so. Ponder the sky (not too long, as that would be unwise) and see how you could describe it to a creature having only lived underground. It’s like that to talk about the Holy Spirit.

To begin, the Spirit is not an “it.” He is a person, just like Jesus is a person. In fact, the Holy Spirit, is the Spirit of Jesus Christ. This same spirit which raised Jesus from the dead also changes a person who is a Christian from a thoroughly corrupt human, bent on self and gives him the ability to live for Someone more worthy and more lovely than any other. He specializes in making Jesus more evident in the world. He makes the Scriptures come to life as much as Jesus’s crucified body He brought back to life, and this is the slightly weird part: he makes Jesus come alive in Christians.

A Christian is not one who just believes the Bible and tries to obey Jesus. The Bible clearly says, “If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ he does not belong to him.” (Romans 8:9) The Holy Spirit needs to live inside that person.

This sounds hokey though doesn’t it? Again with the describing the sky to one underground. No offense, it’s just that hard! Let me try again.

Right now, you are breathing in a certain type of air. Maybe it’s stuffy, or fresh. How does it smell? How cold is it? Underground people know air that is mostly cold and stuffy. The air above ground, at least out in the open, is sweet and free. In the same way, a human being naturally breathes in a cold, stuffy type of air that barely keeps him going: its a close mixture of his self-emissions which are toxic, and the collective toxicity of all other people doing the same thing. This is the “spirit” of the age, which arrests and putrefies the breath in our lungs, and causes us to scratch and claw for freedom wherever we can find it. This spirit is slavery. This spirit is living death. This spirit is against Jesus.

I have met so called Christians who are so stifling and stodgy, haven’t you? Even if it’s from breathing bad vapors, or by refusing to take a deep breath of fresh air, “Christian” air in churches often feels dead. These are not walking the paths of life.

The paths of life are like breathing in fresh air. The Holy Spirit is like this too. With him, there is no ceiling looming over your head, but rather a perpetual light glowing in your mind and heart, radiant with joy and . . . forever. The world changes in your eyes because you are given eyes to see and a new heart to appreciate it. The Holy Spirit inspired the prophets to write a living book. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of that very living Person whom you have encountered. And this spiritually being real allows for some very awe-inspiring things to become real for you as a Christian. Jesus and you are together always: which means if He is in Heaven seated at God’s right hand, guess where you are too? And Jesus is still on the earth showing His love, His truth, and His power through his representatives: Christians.

Dare I pose the question: How does one get the Holy Spirit?

I hope this is enough of an answer to get you started: Can I take the analogy far enough to say, “Follow the surface dwellers to the surface.”? Come out of your burial in the death of the natural life, and come up to the surface, and walk in the sunlight of God’s love.

Do I need to remind you that you are broken irreparably, dead, breathing poison in and out? After saturating in the Story, have you seen just how messed up you are, and how messed up Humanity is? This is also the Spirit’s doing, because he paints the whole world in light of Jesus Christ. If you cannot see your sin, chances are you’re still breathing the wrong stuff.

He who has ears let him hear!

A Guide to Reconstructing Christian Faith Part 2– The Story

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And for those still listening, where to after “Listen to Jesus”?

How to make sense of all the lies, the doubts, the ruined way of things? How to sort through the ruins of religious beliefs that were once glorious temples to the familiar and the sacred?

Well, the for starters, the building materials were probably not all bad. It was just put together in a certain way that eventually left the Holy Spirit out. T. Austin-Sparks talks about how once Christianity becoming crystalized: turned into an institution that fits the times and pleasures of the people who founded it. In my words, it is like taking a living tree and making it into a dresser drawer. To put it cleverly: to “crystalize” Christianity is to un-Christ-alize it.

Christianity can become like every other religion of the world, if it crystalizes, even if it crystalizes around a person. To guard against this, the story of the person, like a crown situating a diamond, situates the truth of Jesus, but it must never situate it so rigidly that the many facets of the diamond cannot shine His variegated light. The story gives plenty of room for the whole Gospel to swallow a person up the way the ocean swallows up a diver.

Christianity is not a set of rules that helps a person become better if he follows them, otherwise it would be like any other religion. It is situated in a real-life story interpreted in the framework of relationship between God and Humans. It’s a story that invites us to interpret our lives by it, and invites us to become a part of it. For the Christian, Israel’s history, interpreted by the prophets is our history.

What gave a prophet the right to interpret Scripture? How can I trust these so-called prophets to tell me the story in a way that won’t mess me up? Who is to say that as soon as Prophets wrote the Scriptures down, it was just “crystalizing” it again?

That’s a great question. From my own personal experience with the Bible, the more I’ve read it and learned the layers of meaning accessible at any level to which a seeker may dig, the more I see a living intelligence behind the intelligence of the authors. There is plenty of fascinating connection between the whole Library of the Bible which tells an intricate and thoroughly rounded out story, which leaves room for its readers to take part. The treasures of these layers are suited to the hearts that seek them, as if the Scriptures itself could talk directly to each person who is honest and listening.

If a person is going to reconstruct their faith, one has to start with and never leave the person, and the second place to start building is the Book. The Book has guidelines for how it must be read–culturally aware, on its own terms, multiple times, with a group of people. All of these ensure a more rich and correct way of reading it. And not just reading it, but hearing it read to you, and not just listening to it, but chewing on it. The Bible is thoroughly interesting, with many different flavors: emotional, matter of fact, narrative, art, poetry, song, numbers, records, visions, history and more.

In short, “Chew Bible-Gum!” You’re going to get that bad post-flavor taste in your mouth chewing Hallmark movies, news stories, pop-novels, blog posts, and even classic literature runs out of flavor eventually. You will experience only ever increasing flavors, and the flavors will also . . . how do I put this delicately . . . reveal what you’ve got in your insides. It will paint pictures of the most glorious and disgusting parts of you. It takes courage to give the Bible the authority to examine you.

Start in the Gospels, reading about Jesus, then go into the Old Testament and see Jesus’s rich cultural heritage in which it is not too hard to find each of us, nor to find One very persistent Hero who will fight the hardest battles to win back the heart of His beloved.

And not to make this too self-focused, but His beloved means you.

He who has ears to hear let him hear!

A Guide to Reconstructing Christian Faith Part 1: The Person

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A volcano–pagan-rooted name for a mountain of fire–the ultimate natural agent for reconstruction at least at the outset.

All of earth is not solid, but sustains life floating above a sea of fire, which regularly resurfaces this terrestrial home.

Is the truth really that different?

Historical, evident, specific, general, absolute, situational–you may smash a rock to atoms, but the Truth? Can you build it on a shifting foundation of fire?

No. The Truth may have been viscous and immaterial at first, but it has become material. It upholds all things by its existence. Things that really exist, are because the Truth is. But Truth is become material, and when it did, it did not become a rock, or a planet, or any element. It became Human. Jesus Christ revealed that deeper than objective reality there is a personal reality.

Now this has led many to question the solidity of truth. Perhaps it is merely whatever melts the heart into whatever shape I would take according to myself. But no. There may be a strain of the pattern of true humanity recognizable in us, but equally recognizable is that our humanity is so thoroughly misshapen. It takes fire to melt, but it takes a mold to be recast. And the fire of the Word of God became real in a person: Jesus Christ.

This is the basis of so called “Christianity”: not objective truths which philosophy arranges per cultural speculation, but a Person living today in relationship with others. The bedrock of our faith is a real person.

Could it be that many who are, as some put it, “deconstructing their faith” do so because they are missing the Person? Or that Christianity has been an egg shell with no living creature inside it? Having been taught Truth as if it were an impersonal thing, for fear that the personal would cause a person to drift away from what is not in keeping with their own caprice, have we merely traded an “all consuming fire” for a ideological idol of invisible stone? What is the alternative?

The beginning point of reconstruction is Jesus, anointed by God. “Listen to Him!” Not in the sense of hear what he has to say, but chew on it, do it, and become it. You’ll have a house built on the rock. He is the foundation. See 1 Corinthians 3.

We seek so many proofs before we trust, but really it is faith which is the decision to obey before all the proofs are given. This is the real terror that drives many deconstructionists away from the faith. They would rather be their own master, lost in a room with only the voices to which they would rather listen to, than the One who is proven to be the supreme Person by his rising from the dead. Do not seek to dodge His call. He is the “Truth.” He Himself calls himself that. Get to know him and see that he calls you to walk a narrow path.

Many on the “Christian” road today are lost. There is a broad path and a narrow path of what is culturally called “Christianity.” I say truly, there is a broad path of by-name Christianity that still leads to destruction. The difference between a Christian on the narrow road that leads to life and one on the broad path that leads to destruction is this: one is out to gain life for himself. The other is out to . . . oh why is it so hard to even articulate this? It’s like the twisted weakness of sin in me refuses to let it out. Lord grant me the grace to even say it. The second has already lost his life and seeks now only to live for the One who is truly worthy of all blessing, honor, glory, and power. Can I say it more clearly? The narrow path of Christianity is the path walked by the Prophets leading to Christ, and the Apostles leading from Christ. The narrow path of Christianity is the way of the Cross, which Jesus called people to carry, not around their necks, but upon their backs. The narrow path of Christianity expends the self for Jesus with joy. The broad path seeks to expend Jesus for self with pride and avarice.

Reconstruction is not chaos. It is willingness to be lost, so that you can be found, or as Paul put it in 1 Corinthians 3– “to become a fool that one may become wise.” But if one in search of wisdom references all according to his own heart, he is just as much a fool as he was at first. After all “He who trusts in his own heart is a fool” (Prov 28:26) even if the divine fire warms his chest.

So then how does one go about it? This is the starting point of how to find the truth about what real Christianity is: “Meet Jesus.” Talk with Jesus like He is there, and you’ll discover that He is, or you are not oriented toward Him. In encountering Jesus, you will find the answer to that which your faith questions.

Where does one meet Jesus? With someone who has been changed by Jesus. Next time you meet someone who calls themselves a Christian, ask them, “Would you say you’ve been changed by Jesus, and if so, how?”

He who has ears to hear let him hear!

Omni-scient or Omni-quaerens?

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I hope this can generate some healthy clarifying discussion without causing heretical divisions.

I have known most of my life that God is all-knowing, but a childish question that often comes upon the first discovery of this truth is the question, “How does He know everything?” The simplest response is “Because He’s God, and that’s just who God is. He knows everything.” This is not satisfying to me as an explanation. I want to understand what it means for Him to be all knowing. I also don’t want to make sections of the Bible fit my conception of God knowing all. Rather, I want to let the Bible be the prime informant, and the Holy Spirit be my prime guide to understanding this about God.

Anyone who talks about God flirts with heresy, a cardinal evil which is to be avoided at all costs not only for the detriment it causes to the heretic, but to all who are confused and misled by him. So why bother to reexamine the nature of God’s knowledge afresh? For me, I am motivated because doctrine separated from conversation with Him grows stale as a result of the deceitfulness of sin. Our hearts grow hard as we “figure things out” about God. Yet, are we not most like Christ when we are humble? Is Christ not imaging God best when He is being fully human? Humanity reveals God, just as the character of God reveals humanity, (Just as the Imaged and the image) and it is in relationship that these questions are answered in the way the heart needs for them to be answered. After all, if we wish to have a solid bed-rock faith, the confident assertions of theologians are not enough for many seekers to ground us in something so all-encompassingly real as God. We should ask questions and search things out, for this is the glory of a ruler. (Proverbs 25:2)

On the one hand we have the doctrine that God is omniscient—“All-knowing” that there is nothing that is not encompassed in his infinite knowledge, and therefore lacking nothing that anyone would teach Him. I have found it interesting that Scriptures that are cited for this do not express exhaustive knowledge so much as a privy position to all knowledge. 1. He knows the deepest secrets of all hearts. 2. He has understanding that is infinite. 3. Nothing is hidden from His finding out. Does this automatically mean He has exhaustive knowledge? The only passage that seems to say this explicitly says, “We will know by this that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart before Him, in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things.” ~1 Jn 3:19–20. How should we consider this in light of other passages of scripture?

On the other hand, we have a God who seeks things out. In Latin this could be expressed by the phrase omni-quaerens: “All-searching-out.” Genesis 18, Genesis 22, The Lord’s messenger expresses that the Lord is looking into things. He sees, and in the moment interprets the value and meaning of what He sees before Him, and He responds to it in an un-premeditated way. Could this same type of “(now I know)” also be applied to passages in Genesis 3 and 4, when God asks Adam, Eve, and Cain questions? Could this be a clue to how His knowing all things works?

When we put both of these together, we see both a God who knows all, and a God who discovers. There is a tension that He who knows the end from the beginning is able to express fresh, genuine, present response to a situation as it unfolds. This is a beautiful mystery, which somehow keeps in play both His eternity and His intimacy; His immensity and His immanence; His being higher than Heaven and deeper than the deepest thought; His being the crafter and basis of the craft of every human heart, and the one who turns each heart over to delight in or disdain the aspects of His creation gone awry. Is one picture more accurate to God? Both are present, and to relegate one to a lesser place of importance leads to a misappropriation of the nature of the One whose image we bear!

The same God who asked where Adam and Eve were in the Garden, was the same God who promised ahead of time what would happen to the seed of the Woman and the seed of the serpent. The same God who told Abraham the way things would be for Abraham’s Seed in Genesis 15, is the Same God who expressed “new” knowledge when Abraham sacrificed his son Isaac. Is this just anthropomorphism– talking about God in human ways but not really encompassing his True nature–or is His true nature revealed in His image of Humanity on earth, specifically in the person of Jesus Christ?

Here is where I think the conversation leads: The same God with all power and love who promised the future to be, also adjusted his course of action in response to the failure and successes of the humans with whom He partners. This, I think is key to plumbing the depth of this mystery. After all, how can an all-knowing God say He will do one thing, and then change His mind when there is a human to intercede? Surely this does not point out a deficiency in the character of God, does it? Is this just a mystery that has to wait for heaven to be entered? Or is there something here as to a clue to the relationship between Christians and God, faith and prayer, the Trinity with the church, and the intended plan of the One who was perfectly represented in Jesus of Nazareth?

Lord, grant me audience before Your throne. There is a sense in which You, O Lord, know all. What are You seeking? Do You not seek to unveil to us Your designs and desires as you invite us to step along side you and see things from Your perspective so that we can rule and reign with You one day? Is it not also for training and development You ask? Furthermore, is it true that You search out the truth of something, as G. K. Chesterton said, because You never tire of the truth? Truth is always fresh to You. Could it be that every time you see the result of a test, you rejoice to perceive that truth afresh?

Furthermore, are we most like You when we know all details in full, or when we search things out? Humility is not merely an earth-bound beauty which You do not possess is it? It isn’t possible that the earth You made could have a beauty that could not be chiefly arising from Your own person. Humility is as fundamental to Your own nature as it is to true Humanity.

Lord, grant that I approach with the utmost fear and trembling, not because you have a cold compendium of knowledge, but because you are ever attentive to each detail of my own heart and the heart of every other human. Though You have no need for anyone to teach You, You still search things out to discover and to respond, and You delight in that which You have made. Such knowledge is too high for me. May I never seek to teach You anything, for all truth is sourced in You, as Paul said. “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor? Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever.” ~Ro 11:33–36.

Finally, Lord, grant that Your Spirit who searches out Your heart and mine, may guide me into all of Your truth summed up in the person of Jesus Christ. And let me discover this as You do, that I may share in Your delight!