Spirit Gives Birth To Spirit

What is the hope of the Christian message?  Is it like Plato’s followers and the Gnostics believed, that an elect are spiritual beings living in an irrelevant and corrupt world, just waiting to break these earthly bounds and obtain a purely enlightened spiritual existence?  Or conversely, is it that we are like rats trapped on a sinking ship, and there is nothing we can do save delude ourselves with a spiritual pie-in-the-sky way of thinking?  No, far from it.  Jewish thought believed that there was a day coming, when the heavenly kingdom would come down and the saved would be welcomed in, on a restored Earth, in a return to the Garden of Eden. And the early Christians found that they no longer needed to wait until the end of time and the final resurrection of all souls to see the beginnings of this. They were surprised and their world view shifted with the early resurrection of Jesus Christ: in history rather than at the end of it. And so he adopted us as sons and ...

"It is that “oh yeah” feeling when you see something like you are seeing it for the first time." 50 days after Jesus ascended to heaven, he appeared to a group of his disciples in the upper room and poured out the Holy Spirit on them.  It was like a mighty rushing of wind that settled on each person with tongues of fire. They went out and spoke to the crowds from all nations gathered in Jerusalem for Pentecost, and everyone heard them in their own language. 3000 people converted to Christianity that day.  What was this thing that could settle on people with such power? In the trinity, we speak of the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit.  I have heard the Holy Spirit is that thing that causes sight: that thing that causes the Son and the Father to lock eyes, and understand each other. So too, it causes people see with new eyes, the truth in the Gospel, God in a sunset, and all of creation. The Holy Spirit is that personality that brings clarity.  It brin...

It is an ironic twist built into reality that sooner or later, you will come to believe in Jesus Christ.  It is just a matter of if you do it now, on this side of death, or later, when you meet him at the door. To do it now, means to gain a way of thinking and living that is purposeful, comforting, and exciting.  To do it later may provide you intolerable eternal accommodations.

In 1993, after graduation from High School, I went underground.  It was not my choice. It was not fair. It was because of an illness that onset in my first semester of college.  When I came out of it, it was almost two years later.  I started a part time job.  Then someone told me about the internet.  I was shocked to find that the dial-up system which I used to spend hours on text-based MUDs (roll-playing adventures) in high school had become an international commerce phenomenon.   I was asleep when the world changed. In Luke 9, Jesus takes his closest disciples up to the mountain to pray.  The account appears in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.  But in Luke, it offers the detail: They were sleeping while he prayed. While they were snoozing, his countenance was changed to bright white like lightening and he was conversing with Moses and Elijah who talked with him about his future death in Jerusalem. (Luke 9:29-36) 1 His sleepy disciples awoke t...

At church this Easter, my pastor spoke about experiencing God. To this end, he had us do a prayer exercise.  We were to be silent for one minute and pray, “are you there?” Just then my wife, who was sitting next to me, put her head on my shoulder. In that instant, something said to me, “I am the bond between you and her, just as I am the bond between the Father and the Son.” I realized that I was being addressed by the Holy Spirit.  If you believe this is outlandish, there is a long tradition (4000 years long) of God speaking plainly to humans in the bible.  We believe he is a living personality and he gives us nudges and words that we evaluate to see if it is God in light of a relationship with him (and knowing his personality from the pages of scripture.)  This is an especially strong tradition in the Evangelical spirit-filled church of which I am a member. After prayer, we did the doxology and I got up and went to the restroom. There, standing at the urinal,...

Surroundings are important.  I am sitting in the Starbucks at Meijer’s just down the street from my house.  The noise of the blue carts on the concrete floor is deafening.  I miss the old quaint cafés in little towns like Saline.  Now it is all big box, cookie cutter and impersonal spaces.  I have been thinking about spaces recently and where I spend my time. To this end, I have been doing an exercise where I picture myself in a calming and beautiful place.  For me, it is on the rocks by the ocean in Bar Harbor, Maine.  We went there on our honeymoon, and this picture is from that moment when I looked out over the sea and was filled with such peace and tranquility, it calmed me from the inside out.  The sun was shining, and sea gulls were flying overhead.  The rocks were warm from the sun, and the crashing of the waves was soothing music as they ebbed and receded from the rocky shore. I have been going to that place several times a day...

What does grace mean?  In a secular sense it is simply a refinement of movement, or to honor someone by your presence. But it can also mean a disposition to an act of kindness. In a religious context, it is a much bigger can of worms to unpack. The concept of grace appears in the old testament as well as the new. In the Hebrew old testament, the commonly translated grace, or favor is  chen.   It occurs 69 times and means the unmerited favor with others or with God. (but in some instances, it means elegance, as in speech). In the new testament   Charis   can refer also to elegance in speech, charm, loving-kindness, or good will.  But it is most often used as divine favor with God.  As in " Do not be afraid, Mary ; for you have found   favor   with God." Lk 1:30.   The specifics of how it is dispensed or what vary from Catholicism to Protestantism.  However, we know some important things about it. Namely, that it is ...