A beginning...

 

Sun Jun 15^th 2025

And salvation is…..?

Dear friends,

As we continue to ponder on all the trappings that religion, tradition and the corporate church have left us, we begin the first chapter of the Jacob’s Ladder text; I have used bold print on sentences you might chew over and think on. Do not ever feel a need to agree with what you read; you must work out your own salvation. And I am but a pointer. What is important for each one of us is that we discover the real tangible, available, life situation changing, power of God in our lives now.

Ch. 1 Salvation as deliverance

 The Christian tradition has consistently relied on both intellect and emotion to explain its understanding of salvation. We have often called this approach ‘spiritual’.  But a sharp description of such a practice once described it as a marvelous combo salad – with appetizing virtues, tasteful dogmas, a seasoning of good works, a dressing of prayer and a garnish of attractive ritual, all served up by a waiter whom we call a priest.¹

But conceptual understanding and emotional affirmation cannot equal spiritual growth; they are not of the spirit. Christian religious experience has limited its horizons, as it continues to be based on academic knowledge and feeling. Its leaders have aspired to degrees in theology and philosophy, sharp thinking, persuasive skills, and emotional affirmation in preaching and worship.  All well and good; but more worldly than the call of Jesus to us. For while it is easy enough to have opinionated discussions about ethics, such discussions cannot identify right responses and are unable to show us how to live Godly, energized, Christian lives. And I am not talking about social empowerment and social action. We continue to face limits in making a critical difference in our lives and in the lives of others. Not what Jesus said about it.

We may talk about differing beliefs and share feelings about faith, but it is a different experience to grow beyond these actions into a spiritual life that transcends the limits of this physical life. Christians have the opportunity of an indelible bond with Jesus, one that leads us into a vast Christ centered spiritual experience. This may be in or out of church, but it will take us beyond the boundaries of structured and organized religion. God chose Israel to demonstrate to all people that all of creation is of God and is filled with God’s love. To begin to appreciate the broad meaning of this, we must do some work with the accounts of salvation-deliverance, beginning with Gen 12:1-3. 

The events that created the need for salvation-deliverance are found in the first 11 chapters of Genesis. God created humankind, and gave us freedom of choice, wanting us to grow into God’s likeness. The stories tell that we chose otherwise.  We lost our relationship with God, and with that loss went the relational accord that gave us discernment, understanding, and the capacity to work alongside God’s presence and power, as God’s stewards on earth, our training ground. Training ground?

For we are spiritual beings. The physical part of us is both temporary and temporal. But we are oh so tied into the stuff of the physical body. Yet we are challenged to see beyond it into the realm of the spirit. God given accord is a relationship with Jesus that empowers and guides us into being spiritual children of God in this life. But to interact with the spiritual world, we must seek the Kingdom of God. And it is more than church, which is more socio-political than anything else. Does material comfort encourage the pursuit of spiritual aspirations? Or is it the other way around – when we seek the Kingdom before everything else, do events happen in God intended order and form? When we intentionally separate ourselves from God, well then - we’ve made our choice. But if we become aware of such a tendency, we may review and adjust both our intent and our lifestyle and enable spiritual growth.

Reconsider the ‘sledgehammer’ of ‘sin’ for a moment.² Sin is the exercise of both intent and will - to separate ourselves from God’s presence and God’s will. How do we know this? Ask the Holy Spirit and look deep within ourselves.  We only want God when we need God, and not otherwise. And religion has grown up around this.  But we need to be in relationship with God in Jesus all of the time. Sin is more than an error or a mistake, or a series of preferential decisions that you and I make by choice. It is what lies behind our choices - that which defines and constitutes. We recognize mistakes by their consequences. Couldn’t we see such consequences before taking the action? Or did we choose not to see? Perhaps it’s part of what it means to be human that we can only learn by error? If so, the faster we come to terms with our spiritual abilities the better for our control of and our controlled responses to all events, expected and unexpected, in our lives! Sin is intentional self-distancing from God, created by our own preferences, and carried out by human will. As simple as when we choose to stand up or sit down. We just complicate and rationalize. It makes things much more acceptable, doesn’t it?  

But spiritual relationship with God is delicate and not easily achieved. It is a spiritual thread that begins with a fine texture, and it takes time and consistency to become strong and wield the needed tensile strength to withstand the temptations that befall us. If you live on a sliding scale of good days and bad days, you’re not utilizing your spiritual ability by a long shot. While we might feel like lost souls wandering through this world, God is consistently moving us forward into new experiences of discovering divine presence. God’s 2^nd chance to us always comes through new beginnings. We might not get a second take at the same thing, but may well end up in a new scene, where we must put to work what we have learned. God is concerned with our present existence and with our future. God is not interested in the repetition of historical dogma. In all of our tomorrows, God is always nearby.  And this future view is where tradition is limited, giving us helpings of audacious hope, soaked in claims to faith, and coated with aspirations of belief.

Tradition offers the comfort of events that are often a mix of myth and legend, and amount to a temptation to live in the past. Future direction is radically different! It is not comfortable. Nor does history need to repeat itself. History repeats itself because human beings continue to be dull sans spirituality……failing to recognize the spirits that we are! Traditional preaching style seeks to make historical leaps from past to present, from one context to another, and that doesn’t always work. The past must be equally present to you, and the present must interpret the future. We must keep looking forward.  We need new paths and must identify and then work our way onto them. Only the Holy Spirit can help us do this, not the history of biblical interpretation. The times have changed, and what applied long ago is now archaic. With each passing year, arguments over biblical truth become more historical, leaving us only with the reality of inconsistent human nature, which seems unable to change its ways and move human community forward.

Yet the Bible is about the exact opposite!³ Re-contextualization of Bible stories limits and contains the storyteller within their traditions and its specific history of interpretation. The challenge is to discover the true spiritual experience that incorporates and transcends intellectual knowledge, emotional experience, and historical tradition, so that we lose nothing, and gain everything. This is what the Holy Spirit is about. Not about claims to tongues, prophecies, and the truth of historical documents. God is of the now.

Jesus taught the path into the kingdom of God. That is what Jesus called the Good News! Many claim to have found Jesus but seem to be confused about the way into the Kingdom. They can’t see the forest for the trees? The church has done a good job of pointing to itself, but it is not the Kingdom of God. Politicians love to play God, but without money and taxes they are powerless. Today’s church is much the same, and without personnel and tithing cannot do much. It continues to employ a social approach and not a spiritual approach to the human condition. Every situation can be resolved by divine spiritual power, which is the only true power.  See Acts 3:6 for Peter’s ‘gold and silver have I none, but of what I have in the name of Jesus…..’ We call these ‘miracles’, and accept that they are rare, and so excuse ourselves from their reality in our lives. We cannot make such a claim as Peter did? But it is there for us to make.  The spiritual power is there to experience, and every other claim is just an illusion. And we cannot use the name of Jesus arbitrarily. Some do, and when they fail, often indulge in victim blaming and speak of believers as of not having enough faith. Indeed. Mustard seed sized faith will suffice. Just need to know where to find the seed, not the mustard. And it’s neither in one’s feelings nor in one’s intellect. It lies in the space between your spirit and the Holy Spirit. More as we go on next week. And…

 Your spiritual work possibilities, if not thought of yet…

If you have not done so, consider a moment every morning that includes thanksgiving for the night’s rest and for the day’s opportunities – bring up what concerns you the most that day and leave it in God’s will. God is listening.

Have a scripture that is meaningful to you, be it a sentence from Psalm 5 or the entire 23^rd; say it, sing it, praise God in your spirit with it.

Remember ‘ask and ye shall receive’ – the children of the Kingdom are always encouraged to do this – ask for an energy blessing on you, and on every part of you. It is the Spirit that maintains us; somewhere in here bring up your request for the mind of Christ in all things!

In the evening, for a while, practice focus; sit quietly, away from all distractions; and sing the Amen to yourself silently, in synch with your breathing if that works for you. Do this for a little while, let your entire body relax. Keep doing it. Keep your mind’s eye focused on God in Jesus. Watch what happens as you develop focus on God and are able to cut yourself off from distractions of the physical, mental, and emotional. This is not simply done and may take some practice over time. Then, because of that little verse in the Psalm that says ‘Be still and know…..’, when stillness is achieved, to the extent that it is, a parallel knowing follows, a difference comes. Blessings, G.