Thursday, July 3, 2008

I Don't Always Understand


Some recent theological thinking has led me to this logical (and hopefully biblical) progression of thought.

Humanity is unwilling and unable to seek God. God's goodness is so great that we (as beings thoroughly corrupted by sin) can not bear to be near him, so we flee from his presence. Because all humans are fleeing from him, in order to save individuals, God has interrupted the flight of many, and has opened their eyes to the Gospel. When God interrupts our flight, he enables us the ability to exercise our free will and choose him. God delights in wooing us and knowing that if He reveals Himself to us then we won’t reject Him. Unlike the teaching of some, God actually offers the free choice of salvation, however, because he has enabled us to see him, and we were made in the Image of God, having seen the truth, we will always choose God. That is the awesomeness of our power and freewill. At first we can (and do) reject Him fully, yet we are able to (and do) receive Him if He reveals Himself to us. If we did not have freewill, we could not choose to accept Him and He would not need to reveal Himself to us through creation and Scripture.
And the Gospel is this; that God entered into human history, he grew up and inaugurated the kingdom of God by living a sinless life,and going to a Roman Cross in the city of Jerusalem. He died an excruciating death to atone with his blood for human sin. He accomplished the salvation of humans by substituting himself as a payment for the sin-debt we owed to our Holy God, he accomplished the redemption of all who would believe, and then he rose, securing our eternal home in Heaven.
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I missed something in Romans 9 when it said that salvation doesn't depend on our will...

I love you brother...just thought I'd let you know that...and I appriciate your blogging and thoughts

July 3, 2008 at 4:49 PM
Tim said...

Salvation is not dependent on our will, but our will is working in salvation... by the transforming Grace of God in Christ.

July 5, 2008 at 5:05 PM

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The Vision?

The vision is Jesus: obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.
The vision is an army of young people.
You see bones? They are an army.
And they are free from materialism. They laugh at the markets.
They hardly care! They wear clothes like costumes:
to show and to tell, but never to hide.
They know the meaning of the Matrix; the way the West was won.
They are mobile like the wind; they belong to the nations.
They need no passport.
People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.
They are free, yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying.

What is the vision?
The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes.
It makes children laugh and adults break and cry.
It scorns the good and strains for the best. It is dangerously pure.
This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause.
A million times a day its soldiers choose to lose that they might win, one day
the great "Well done" of faithful sons and daughters.
Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night.
They don't need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards
and hear the crowds chanting again and again: "COME ON!"

And this is the sound of the underground
The whisper of history shaping
Foundations shaking
Revolutionaries dreaming once again
Mystery is screaming in whispers
Conspiracy is breathing...
This is the sound of the underground.

And the army is disciplined.
Young people who beat their bodies into submission.
Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrades at arms.
The tattoo on their backs boasts "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain."
Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their eyes.
Winners. Martyrs. Who can stop them?
Can failure succeed? Can fear scare them or death kill them?
And this generation prays like a dying man with groans beyond
talking, with warrior cries, sulphuric tears
Waiting. Watching: 24 - 7 - 365.
Whatever it takes they will give: Breaking the rules.
Shaking mediocrity from its cozy little hide.
Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs,
laughing at labels, fasting essentials.

The advertisers cannot mold them.
Hollywood cannot hold them.
Peer-pressure is powerless
to shake their resolve
Material clothes matter not
Would they surrender their image or their popularity?
They would lay down their very lives,
swap seats with the man on death row;
guilty as hell.
A throne for an electric chair.
With blood and sweat and many tears,
with sleepless nights and fruitless days,
they pray as if it all depends on God
and live as if it all depends on them.


Their words make demons scream in shopping malls.
Don't you hear them coming?
Here come the frightened and forgotten, with fire in their eyes.
Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.

And this is the sound of the underground
The whisper of history shaping
Foundations shaking
Revolutionaries dreaming once again
Mystery is screaming in whispers
Conspiracy is breathing...
This is the sound of the underground.