THE STRAIGHT AND FULLSOME WAY
18/08/24 12:08
We should not assume that the Gospel we have been taught is Christ’s authentic Gospel of the Kingdom. Some ‘gospels’ are bent due to the passage of time. Others are the result of lies and a conspiracy to gain notoriety. Gospels may decay losing their verisimilitude to Christ’s Gospel. They can embody historic distortions such as Arianism and Arminianism or more commonly overt and inherent legalism. Or they can be false gospels based on so called revelation by charismatic figures who claimed to speak for God and didn’t. Even if a ‘gospel’ is slightly divergent it is what Paul called, ‘No gospel at all.’ A slightly divergent gospel is just as dangerous to the Body of Christ as a defective gene.
LIFE AND TRUTH ARE ONE
If we are passionate seekers of life. We will have journeyed out of misguided gospels into better renditions of the truth. But to do this we will need to be a person who places more value on Jesus’ and the apostle’s version of the Gospel than inherited, faith community versions from which we think we are deriving some status and identity. The pure (undivided) in heart will see God and learn to know God as God is. Distracted by other considerations, we will see what we wish to see and become captive to these illusions. Spiritual disease comes from attempting to draw life from substitutes for Christ and from false christ’s. If our Christ starts with Himself and leads to the law he is not the Christ of God.
PATHS CAN BE STRAIGHTENED
Martin Davis observes that, “To overcome the distortions of the character of God that arise from painful childhood experiences or from misguided preaching and teaching, we should follow the example of a man who knew God well. The apostle John was one of the original twelve disciples, or followers, of Jesus. In regard to one-word descriptions of God, we can do no better than John’s beautiful description. John said, “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16).
TRINITY IS LOVE
Think carefully about what John is saying. According to John, God is “love.” Love is not merely one characteristic or trait among others that may be ascribed to God. Love is not merely something God “does.” Rather, love is what God is—or better yet, love is Who God is. Because God is “love,” every act of God flows from an unlimited fountain of love, the love that God is by nature.” (1)
A COMMUNION
God’s love is not an abstraction. God is love because God is Trinity. The persons of the trinity are real persons, not figments. They live in mutual love and joy in being who they are. Love is expressed as life, truth and the correct path, which is why Jesus as the Emissary of God is the way, the truth and the life.
JESUS AND FATHER’S KNOWING OF EACH OTHER BECOMES OURS IN CHRIST
Jesus’ intimate knowing of the Father becomes our progressive knowing when Christ is our life and we live from the oneness of the atonement/ incarnation. Such living weaves us into God and God into us, so that we are instructed accurately as to who God is and who we are in Him from within our being, from the Word, from good teaching and the experiences of life.
‘KNOWING’
‘All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him’ Matt 11.27 NIV. Because Christ is our life we are privy to what Jesus knows by nature and experience. Christ in us shares His knowledge of Father with us from within our being. The Son reveals Himself to those who prioritise His invitation to live in His light and life.
(1) Davis Ph.D., Rev. Martin M.. A Window into the Heart of God (p. 7). AsiAfrica Ministries, Inc.. Kindle Edition.