Communion Insights - The Price Paid

A friend's mentor in the faith told him to ask God for a new insight on the Communion every time.  Since my friend told me this, I've done so.

Today, Jesus told me that the bread is the price of my purchase from my master.

Satan wanted Jesus to worship him, and in exchange Jesus would receive a gift: the entire world.  Jesus did not dispute that the world was Satan's to give!  He would rather die than worship Satan.  So instead of giving Satan worship, He allowed His body to be taken away.

A body is strength.  A body has the ability to change the world.  Jesus, adopted son of a house-builder, certainly had a strong body, but that wasn't how He changed the world.  With His muscles, He could probably have been a great warrior, if so trained, but that wasn't how He changed the world.  Instead, He changed the world by allowing His body to be publicly drained of strength and suffocated by fatigue and killed in the place of a murderer and insurrectionist against Israel's submission to Rome.

But the trick is that He died once to free all who chose freedom.

I was born into the slavery of sin.  My heritage was weakness, my lineage was fallibility, and my master was Satan.

The price for me, one body traded for another, was paid by Jesus.  He came into the place I was enslaved, this cruel world, and asked me if I wanted to be free.  I said yes.  The eldest son traded Himself for my slave-price, and I was washed clean by the blood of the Anointed One and adopted as a son of the house of Heaven.

I am ever grateful.

Thoughts on the Cross

Thoughts inspired by my church's reading of the Good Friday account in John 18 and 19:

• Jesus' death sentence was for blasphemy. It was a false accusation, but He accepted the sentence for His friends, who each in their own sins had committed that blasphemy, had declared themselves to be more intelligent than infinite God through their defiance of His laws.  Our pride is our death sentence, and Jesus has taken it for us, if we choose to be His friend.
• “Shall I crucify your king?” Pilate asked. “We have no king but Caesar,” the chief priests answered.  In doing so, they, the highest religious authorities of Jacob's line, broke the covenant and ended the Levite priesthood. Then, upon Jesus' death, the inner veil of the Temple was torn, showing that God had accepted His sacrifice, that the age of the priesthood of Melchizedek had come, to offer forgiveness to all the Jews and gentiles.
• Pilate crucified Jesus with the sign "King of the Jews" in the languages of the people (Aramaic), of the Empire (Latin), and of the world (Greek). He was the appointed authority of the Empire of Rome, the hand of the Emperor of mankind, and he recognized what the priests refused to. In doing so, he declared who the world system would forever oppose: the King of the next world.

God Is Good, Always

This question, posted by Charles Glenn on a Christian philosophy email list, caught my attention:

Hi Everyone,

I was up almost all night thinking about this question Darrin asked: is God significantly free?

May I ask a question in response to this question?

According to Hume, free will belongs to every person who is not in chains. So is it possible that God possesses perfect free will in an eternal sense, but has willingly placed himself "in chains" as a part of his act of creation, specifically in his creation of the human race? In one sense, he would still possess free will, right? Willingly limiting yourself to "Good" is, after all, a choice that a perfect being could make if that being possessed free will - that choice would have been made freely.

I suppose that also means He could change his mind and break his "chains" any time he chooses too, doesn't it? That would imply God possesses the CAPACITY for evil, right?

I'm pretty sure that's not part of mainstream Christian theology though...

In any case, wouldn't we have to resolve this question in order to coherently discuss God's "goodness?"

-Charles

This is a question of literally eternal significance. It is also the question that has turned many from God who have seen and experienced the suffering in this world.

When I seek entertainment, I most enjoy works that focus on moral choices, not in terms of law or instinct, but in terms of free will. The factor that feeds the God-shaped void in my human heart is when a character makes a difficult decision out of love for another, not out of need. When a character chooses to be good, even when compromise is far easier and has greater benefits.

I believe that for God to be truly sovereign, He must be prior to (and/or the foundation of) everything that exists. That means He is not driven by anything out of His control. And that means He must be ultimately free, perfectly free, because what could chain Him but Himself?

When the serpent told Eve that if they ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil she would become like God, I think he was telling the truth deceptively. She became aware of what it felt like to do evil, and her eyes were opened to morality, the vast gulf between following laws by necessity, and making free choices that coincide with the laws because the laws were written by someone good and wise. Then Adam damned us all to a lifetime of making moral decisions in a fallen world, where death was let loose to ravage us all, some slowly, others swiftly, and where sacrifice became necessary.

God knows how to do evil, and could if He chose. He could be infinitely cruel, taking pleasure in the pain of others. He could ignore us, let the sun explode, and go on to make less rebellious puppets on a planet in the Andromeda Galaxy. He could lie. But He never does; He has "chained" Himself to love as He chained Himself to logic: He will never create a rock so big He can't lift it, because that would be a paradox.

As C.S. Lewis wrote in The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe:

"If there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than me or else just silly."

"Then he isn't safe?" asked Lucy.

"Safe?" said Mr. Beaver. "Don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."

His capacity for evil is as infinite as His capacity for good, but He has never and will never use it. And that is what makes the storyteller in me love Him so much. And that is why I praise Him: because He Is who He chose to be, and has promised His steadfast love to us eternally.

Love Is Not Nice

Love is not nice.

Love is real. Love is intense. Love is a deep truth not of this world, so deep that the world itself sees only its surface.

Love is what keeps mothers and fathers up nights, praying for their childrens' futures. Love is what makes pastors spend a week crafting a thirty minute message. Love is what drives the station managers to hold donation drives when the budget of the local Christian station falls short.

Love is what makes me ask you how you are, and what matters in your life. Love is what makes me wonder what deep pain from your past is keeping you from opening your heart. Love is what makes me hold my tongue when you say something inane or insulting or blasphemous. Love is what keeps me patient or polite while inside my heart is breaking to see you hurting others because of your hurt. Love is what makes me happy when you are happy, and sad when you are sad.

Love is what keeps God from consuming with fire or water this dark world of people who hurt people. Love is what makes Him seek you, sending annoying people and innocent people and fanatical people who all want you to join them in knowing Him.

Hate put Jesus on the cross, but love kept Him there.

This is love's promise: "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets."

This is love's call: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me."

This is love's truth: "Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends."

Love is not just nice. Love cares about you and wants the best for you. God is love; say yes to His love, and a whole new world is opened to you.

(All scripture references from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version(TM) Copyright(C) 2000; 2001 by Crossway Bibles, A Division of Good News Publishers, All Rights Reserved.)

Love

I saw a movie tonight which God used to remind me that He loves me.

His love is so deep that He died for me, personally. I can't express how amazing that is.

I can't express just how revolting to me the mistakes are that people have made in trying to understand Him. He did not die for humanity corporately, but personally for each and every person.

He found a way to save everyone; He stands with outstretched arms, saying, "Come to me, learn to live, to grow and learn forever. Let me be your guide, teaching you from infinite wisdom how to make right decisions, and what things have true value and real meaning."

He started the Church, not to run people's lives, but to give us a place to be at home. He is the King, and His kingdom has free citizenship, no questions asked. Have you been a bad person, a mean and spiteful person? He will forgive you, welcome you with open arms, and help you to change, to become a better person.

He is choice, infinite choice. We are made in His image; we are expressly designed for choosing. From hands that grasp to a voice that speaks, we are built for freely choosing.

His greatest gift is free will. It is this He values about us above all: we can choose. He values choice so much that if someone says, "I don't want to be with you," He lets them. It breaks His heart, but He lets them.

Choose Him, because He has already chosen you, and is waiting.