LIVING JOY
30/08/24 12:47
There is a joy in thinking of worship as a life because such mindfulness situates us in the reality of God’s being in us and with us by the Spirit. God is incarnated in the world in a general way of speaking in the creation. In the particular God, is incarnated in people who live Christ as their life. God is Jesus Christ who is incarnated in you.
DEGREES OF LIFE
There are degrees of life just as there are degrees of presence. Should we live in oneness with Christ we enjoy a personal degree of ‘presence’ that is not there for those who live a restricted life as deists, pantheists or adherents of a belief system. God is I AM and I AM is in you as Christ your life. To live in the being of God as our reality as Paul states in Acts is relaxing, an adventure and free of contrived religiosities. It’s the living way to ‘Be holy as God is holy’ because God is in us and part of our being. But it’s more than justification and righteousness. It’s more than being a clotheshorse of morality. It’s to be alive in the Spirit. In Jack Deere’s classic, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit, he offers a helpful explanation of the why bible deism is a half-life.
AUSTERITY DOCTRINE BE GONE
J. B. Torrance has observed that, “We require a better doctrine of God. For too long, our concepts of God have been dominated by Plato, Aristotle, Stoic concepts of God as primarily the giver of natural law, the contract-God of Western jurisprudence who needs to be conditioned into being gracious by law being satisfied, static concepts of “substance,” of God as an unmoved mover and an impassable first clause, etc. We need to recover a biblical understanding of God as the covenant God of grace, not a contract-God, the God who has His loving Being-in-communion, and who has, in the freedom of His love, created us and redeemed us that we might find our true being in communion with Him and one another.”
GIFT NOT CONTRACT
It's easy to try for godliness as a contract. That’s all some people know, namely ‘I do this so God will do that.’ It’s made manageable by seizing on iconic denominational ‘righteousnesses’ that we can look to as a DYI grace. It’s not grace though. It’s earning god by religion. The gift of God is eternal life, which means you have this life in the moment with Jesus. Christ in us is our life.
A HEALED LIFE
As modelled by the trinity life is found in being and togetherness. This togetherness for those who are one with the Logos means together as the self, together with people and together with the creation. The world needs a oneness with the planet that is not based on secularism and pantheism. This is not hard to achieve when we live what we have – which is Christ our life. Why live religion when you can live incarnated?
DEGREES OF LIFE
There are degrees of life just as there are degrees of presence. Should we live in oneness with Christ we enjoy a personal degree of ‘presence’ that is not there for those who live a restricted life as deists, pantheists or adherents of a belief system. God is I AM and I AM is in you as Christ your life. To live in the being of God as our reality as Paul states in Acts is relaxing, an adventure and free of contrived religiosities. It’s the living way to ‘Be holy as God is holy’ because God is in us and part of our being. But it’s more than justification and righteousness. It’s more than being a clotheshorse of morality. It’s to be alive in the Spirit. In Jack Deere’s classic, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit, he offers a helpful explanation of the why bible deism is a half-life.
AUSTERITY DOCTRINE BE GONE
J. B. Torrance has observed that, “We require a better doctrine of God. For too long, our concepts of God have been dominated by Plato, Aristotle, Stoic concepts of God as primarily the giver of natural law, the contract-God of Western jurisprudence who needs to be conditioned into being gracious by law being satisfied, static concepts of “substance,” of God as an unmoved mover and an impassable first clause, etc. We need to recover a biblical understanding of God as the covenant God of grace, not a contract-God, the God who has His loving Being-in-communion, and who has, in the freedom of His love, created us and redeemed us that we might find our true being in communion with Him and one another.”
GIFT NOT CONTRACT
It's easy to try for godliness as a contract. That’s all some people know, namely ‘I do this so God will do that.’ It’s made manageable by seizing on iconic denominational ‘righteousnesses’ that we can look to as a DYI grace. It’s not grace though. It’s earning god by religion. The gift of God is eternal life, which means you have this life in the moment with Jesus. Christ in us is our life.
A HEALED LIFE
As modelled by the trinity life is found in being and togetherness. This togetherness for those who are one with the Logos means together as the self, together with people and together with the creation. The world needs a oneness with the planet that is not based on secularism and pantheism. This is not hard to achieve when we live what we have – which is Christ our life. Why live religion when you can live incarnated?
