Tuesday, October 12, 2010

According to their understanding

"And now they keep on sinning
and make a cast image for themselves,
idols of silver made according to their own understanding" Hosea 13:2

God cannot be portrayed from our understanding. Our understanding must be molded by the encounter with God. Jesus says to follow him. When we rest in our understanding of God we cease to be open to God's shaping us.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Need not Want

My will is not going to become a Christian because it wants to be. My will only turns to the God shown us in Jesus because it NEEDS to. It will not choose voluntary death for a life promised in the resurrection. Who will find oneself not choosing to have the bird in the hand...? It is only when I realize that the life I have now is not truly life that I will be motivated to surrender. I thought for a while that because I was MEANT to have a different life that I would be able to surrender to the better life. But that is not true. My persistence in this direction is only because I NEED a different life. I had hoped that the beauty of God's love for me declared in the Scripture and above all in Jesus would draw me out of willfulness. But the reality is my willfulness is not plied by attraction. It appears that only suffering will force me out of the false life I now lead to the life shown me in Jesus.

Is this true for evangelism? If my mission is to promote faith can I do it on the basis of the beauty of this religion; can I really do it before I have tasted its transformation for myself? It would be disingenuous to promote a path to transformation when I felt that transformation was only in germ in myself? Actually, having studied it a great deal, having tried the path, I have encountered the testimony of those who say it is true. To them I must point as I say to others this is the path I am pursuing. That is honest. Perhaps not compelling, but then again, can faith ever be compelling?