A NATURAL LIFE-GIVER

I was in a friend’s house and a man had come to fix the blinds. As he went about his work, it became clear that he was excited about the Lord, enthralled in Jesus and not just a ‘I was there’ man. There’s not a lot to be excited about if all you have is an ideology.

MORE THAN POSITIONS
It’s not uncommon to be baptised into a body of belief. This is not the same as being baptised into the Body of Christ, although it may lead to it. Christianity, although a belief system is not primarily a pattern of beliefs. It’s Jesus Christ and our union with Him. Thus, spirituality, rather than propositions to be attached to, it is a state of being one with God in Jesus Christ. Spirituality in secular terms is mainly religion. So is spirituality in a law-culture. Law adherence does not favour spirituality but it does favour conformity and addiction to externalities. Legalism is as irritating in the church as ‘political correctness’ is in general life.

We can claim ‘belonging’ in the Body without actually enjoying spirituality. It’s the difference between words and The Word. One is ‘the letter’ and the other is union with God.

WE BELONG
Belonging is ours even when we have merely put our toe in the water. A worthy life project can be our bid to enter the fullness of the belonging that is already ours. To ‘know God’ is to enter eternal life which is infinite in scope and rich food for the soul and brought forward by the Spirit into today.

“[The Fathers] were concerned with God and not with the divine. Philo’s idea of a God who speaks, who declares Himself, is given a sharper edge and more immediacy when, with the Fathers, he becomes the God who speaks and declares Himself in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. To know God is to accept that revelation, to participate in God’s self-communication thus made known. So for most of the Fathers (with only rare exceptions) the ‘mystical life’ is the ultimate flowering of the life of baptism, the life we receive when we share in Christ’s death and risen life by being baptized in water and the Holy Spirit.”

HE WOOS US
God speaks to us before we know who God is. He desires our company and seeks to make Himself known. In a sense God is un-knowable but in reality He is made known in Jesus Christ. In Christ we have entered the realm of an unfolding revelation of God.

AN ADVENTURE
Once we have met the Christ of God our progress in knowing ourselves and God accelerates. If humble enough we will increase in the knowledge of the world as well as in an understanding of spiritual realities. God is not an abstraction. He is in you and with you sharing Himself with your deep person.

If you are smart enough to relate to Jesus as Himself rather than accommodate yourself to a religion or belief system that is only a partial gospel, you will increase in your knowing of God, your ability to separate life from the common degrees of death and you will know yourself and who you are in Father. This will insulate you from the humbug of the religious and the Christian workaholism of the Martha’s but making you a Life-giver.