Touchpoints on Salvation (Page 2)
Getting Rid of the Bubble Wrap
“This is a text to read when it feels like the world is crashing down around us, when our minds are too jaded and our spirits too discouraged to see how God may be present in our current darkness. This is the passage to read when we come face to face with the mess we as humans have made of our relationships and of this world, when we recognize how profoundly broken and how incapable of fixing ourselves we are. For it is in this place of helplessness and disorientation that hope emerges.”
Let It Be
“Now I’m not sure what this says about God the Father, but I am clear on what it says about God the Son. He will not go back on forgiveness. He will not go back on grace. He will not deal with us on the basis of reward and punishment or getting what we deserve. Not now, not next year, not ever.”
John the Baptist’s Hot Sauce
“And so, I need that unquenchable fire to burn in me. To burn away the chaff in me so that I can bear fruit that befits repentance. What I need is a continual baptism of water and fire. Though frankly, I would just prefer the water.”
God Is a Ball Hog
Grace and peace from the Mystery in whom we live and move and have our being. Behold the days are coming when I will make a new covenant…This is the covenant I will make: I will put my law in their minds… I will write it on their hearts. I will be their God… I will forgive their wickedness… I will remember their sins no more.” Jeremiah 31:31-34 God is a ball hog. When it comes to our salvation, God…
With God, All Things are Possible
“Deprivation is not the point of this passage. Neither is it the point of the kingdom. The point of the kingdom is in the caring and the sharing of all that we are and all that we have. The point is to live in the reality that all is a gift…and NOTHING is a possession. Or should I say, NOTHING is the only possession.”
Jesus Forbids Forbidding
“Jesus takes on the ultimate exclusions, murder and death. And transforms them into resurrection and life. You see, even exclusion gets taken up into the Mystery and is transformed into healing and wholeness. Jesus forbids forbidding by transforming it, not excluding it.”
Jesus is JUST KID-ing
“While your relationship with Jesus may be personal, it is not private and neither is your salvation, your healing, or your wholeness. Which, by the way is what the word ‘salvation’ means. It means ‘healing,’ ‘wholeness,’ ‘completeness.’ And none of that can you accomplish alone…in private…personally.”
The Other Side of the Storm
And perhaps that can give us a different perspective on the disciple’s cry, “Do you not care that we are about to perish?” The disciple’s cry speaks to more than a storm on a lake. It is the cry of all who go with Jesus, who follow Jesus to the other side. And while Jesus does calm the storm, perhaps their perishing is exactly what needs to happen.
Crazy Jesus
You see, for Jesus, the Holy Spirit is not something you can name and claim. It is so far beyond you and me that no family or religious system can contain it. It is free to blow wherever it will and it catches up all kinds of people in its presence.
No Choice in the Matter
It’s a theological Copernican revolution if you think about it. Just as the sun doesn’t revolve around the earth, God doesn’t revolve around me. I revolve around God.
The Final Line
Grace and peace from the Mystery in whom we live and move and have our being. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. John 3: 14-21 It’s always the next line. The one, after the one you know, that is often the key. You know, like… “The wages of sin is death,” You’ve all heard that one or read it on a…
No Payment Made, No Payment Received
Grace and peace from the Mystery in whom we live and move and have our being. Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.” John 2: 13-22 I was online the other day and a headline popped up on the side of the page, “The Wealthiest Pastors in America” it said. So I clicked on it and read and looked at pictures of how the richest pastors in America live. WOW!!! Impressive!!! One of those pastors lives in Houston. You may…