The issue with religion is that religion says, something scared has to take place in order for something to be spiritually “Holy”. But the question is what makes that thing any Holier then the other thing? And the answer is….(wait for it, wait for it) it is not. We miss the power of God if we think that He is limited to ritual. This misunderstanding of ritualistic Holiness ends up harming us and confusing God’s plan, purpose, and presence in His creation. Holiness and Sanctity are everywhere and we are not awake to it. He is everywhere and we are asleep. He is always in the place and we are the ones that just showed up.
Jesus was teaching us to be in tune to what is always happening around us. The idea is that you might live a better life if you understood that He is involved and concerned with every area of your life. Every interaction, every conversation, every place, every person, every mess, every time, every problem, every location. God is always doing something. It’s not a view that He is involved with the things that are “churchy”. He doesn’t get bored with one thing and moves onto another thing and forgets about the first thing. If He is not done with me then He is not done with you. If He can be here then He can be there. He is always working. Life in Christ is about being fully awake to the work of God in all things. (John 5:17)
“The purpose of worship is not to escape from this world, into the other world, but to open oneself to the meaning of Christ in the Common.” Church is not supposed to be a bubble that you run to, to hide from the world. It is a place where you go to learn how to make every place a sanctuary. We are to learn how to be like Christ in unChirst like situations. Worship is to help is realize these depths of our world. If worship doesn’t do this, then it is an empty ritual.” (John Robinson-Honest to God)
CHURCH!
The Reformation of the church gave us the “5 solas” of the church: Sola Fide, Sola Christo, Sola Gratia, Sola Scriptura, and Soli De Gloria(Faith alone, Christ alone, Grace alone, Scripture alone, to God be the Glory). The 21st century has brought us a new “sola” that is described in the Neo-Reformation as Sola Cultura (Culture Alone). Sola Cultura has caused much argument within the modern church because of the belief that it should be separated from the other Solas.
Scripture has no power if culture is not present. Scripture is the story of the supernatural God, intersecting with real people within their culture.God power can never be denied because the whole earth is filled with the significance and weight of who God is. Truth is everywhere. So we should not surprised when God’s truth pops up in all places, and all cultures. We are called to confirm truth where ever it pops up. No matter where it comes from, even if it is not from the places that we think are of God. God’s word even contains words from people who didn’t believe in the one true God that our bible is written about.
Acts 17:28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.
As some of your own poets have said,’We are his offspring.’
Relation is the best teacher. Scripture, Jesus, and the One true God are all foreign concepts to them, but Paul uses relation to argue his point about the One true God. He not only affirms what the Greek poet said about “their gods”, he spins it and claims it for the one true God.
The reality of God so profound, so wide, and so deep that we can take statements that are not in relation to the one true God and spin them to affirm and testify of the truth of God.The history of the church is filled with ideas that came from contemporary understanding at the time, to be used to better understand the world that we live in. Why? Because, “all things are ours”, and we are of Christ, and He is of God, and He made the whole world and we just live in it! The depth of God is everywhere!
CHURCH!
When it comes to faith, everybody has it. I have often heard people say that they are unable to have the same faith that I do because it is just too hard. The idea that some people have faith and others don’t is a very popular, although it is not true. Everybody has faith! Everybody is following someone or something. Over the majority of modern history, Christianity has been under the scrutiny of the world’s religions for being “closed-minded” and believing that Christians are the only ones with faith and this is not true. No matter what your perspective is on life, it is a faith perspective. The person that says we are here by random happenstance is using faith to determine and follow that notion. An atheist is a person of tremendous faith. We are not talking about faith or no faith, belief or no belief. We are talking about faith in what? Belief in what? The real question is not if we have it or not, but what we have put it in.
The tension of faith is not a new one. Paul argued this point for the Gentiles that had received Christ in Galatia, when they faced the challenge of what to believe, how to believe and what should be the expression of their belief. (Gal 4) This argument transcended time and raised its head again in the 16th century and was the wedge that created the Reformation and formation of the Protestant church. Martin Luther stated that Sola Fide (Faith Alone) is “the principle on which the church rises or falls.” John Calvin later affirmed this statement by saying that “justification by faith is the principle hinge by which religion is supported”. But the message the moves through the minds of men for the dawn of time is how to get the all knowing, almighty, all seeing God on your side. Mankind seeks acceptance, and questions what will be enough to get the thumbs up from the creator.
The fight of faith was exposed in the lives of the first family with the first sibling rivalry between Cain and his brother Able. This story of a favored offering that sparks untamed anger and leads to ultimate destruction is a conflict between Cain and Able, but it is an insight for works vs. faith and even deeper, religion vs. revelation. Psychologically man becomes uncomfortable with the notion that what I do, what I participate in, and what I offer through my actions may not be good enough. What can I do to be enough? I mean, we live in a quantifiable world. I know when enough is enough with every intersection of my life, but this invisible God leaves this unquantifiable gap between humanity and divinity. But does He? Does an all knowing, all seeing, all powerful, almighty God leave justification to be an ambiguous undefined subject in our existence?
This is the question that man attempts to answer with the creation of religion. Man uses religion to restore himself to God due to his unpleasing fallen state. But there is a fatal flaw in religion. Religion will always find its strength in what my hands do themselves. Religion puts the emphasis on the work that I do. The problem with religious justification is that what I do is already flawed, if I am doing it for myself. Religion only gives you the credit for what you did. Religion will always honor itself and a faith in that is misleading. This is the tension that Cain found himself in. The work that he did with his hands; the plowing, the tilling, the hoeing, and the harvesting was not acceptable enough. This was because Cain was his work. Cain was his religion and to separate the two meant destruction to who he was, not knowing there is a difference between religion and revelation. True faith brings about revelation. It was this revelation that Able operated in. If man is going to be in right standing with God, it is going to take blood. It is the shedding of blood that will redeem a fallen state of man. Able had the revelation from God that it is not about what I raked and hoed and labored to do. But it is through only what God can give that I can obtain righteousness. Because what God demands, God will give. What God asks, God will answer. What God needs, God will supply.
“It strikes us, when year after year our longed for perfection of life does not appear. The only thing one can do is accept the fact that you’re accepted. This is grace. You may not know more than before. You may not feel different than before, but everything it transformed”-Paul Tillich
CHURCH!
