Christianity is the new exodus that is marching through the Valley of Tears hand-in-hand, arm-in-arm together as one family to the rhythmic beat of the loving heart of our living God! Rejoice and be glad!
Increasing our Resemblance to God
Since Eden, the Knowledge that God loves us has faded from the Valley of Tears
Centrifugal force pushes us farther and farther from friendship with God in Eden. The farther we go, the more we forget and the stranger God becomes. Nobody follows a stranger. God sent Jesus to rectify this. On the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection, He deposited the raw materials with which we can fill the gap in our knowledge of God. Explore the mystery, majesty and magnificence of God on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection. There, figure out for yourself the answer to the question, ‘Who is God?’. Figuring out the answer for yourself is not that difficult. God was not subtle.
The Elephant in the Room
Do you talk about the tchotchkes on the shelves of Christianity or the Elephant in the room? What did Jesus put in the position of prominence in the showcase of Christianity? Do you put something else? Is your emphasis on revelation or regulation? on being a witness or a king? on God or Church? on Mary or Martha? on the pizzazz of Christianity or on the nitty-gritty?
The Distribution of the Treasure of Christianity
Upon What Rock do the Wise Anchor their Understanding of God?
Whenever you fall into confusion - whenever you become disoriented - whenever you lose your way - whenever your understanding of God becomes cloudy, find your footing on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection. Stability in our understanding of God is found on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection. Regain your balance by returning to the foundation upon which the edifice of Christianity is built. Return to the rock that the builders rejected (Matthew 21:42) .
Punctuation Marks: Turning Question marks into Exclamation marks
His bloody wounds are the punctuation marks that our evil opened in his body. Before we knew what his answer would be to the evil that we did to him, his bloody wounds were question marks. After, they became exclamation points. There was a change in punctuation. The change in punctuation is the good knews of great joy - very good news for us.
Jesus broke the law of symmetry
The law of symmetry holds that evil begets evil. Evil propagates itself, like a wave, from evildoer to victim. Jesus broke the law of symmetry. He erected a firewall between himself and evil. He built the firewall with bricks of love. Love insulated Jesus from evil. His love for us stopped the propagation of evil dead in its tracks. His love for us made his answer to the evil that we did to him asymmetric.
LOVE IS THE GOLD STANDARD OF CHRISTIANITY
Love is the gold standard of Christianity against which everything else is measured. Love is not a feeling. Both its scope and its size can be measured.
With regard to the size of his love, Jesus laid down his life for us (John 10:15-18) (John 15:13). He made the payment not from his unlimited divine resources. He made the payment from his limited human resources. He paid them all for us (1 Corinthians 7:23-24). He kept not a penny for himself. He has never paid more for anything else (John 15:13). The exorbitant size of the payment is irrefutable evidence of the exorbitant size of his love for us.
Barely Skimming the Surface of God
The doctrine of the Real, but faceless, Presence of God is true - absolutely, entirely and positively. However, it is not true enough. It barely skims the surface of God. It hits the atmosphere of our understanding of God and bounces off. It is a tangent. It contributes little to our understanding of God.
The mission of Jesus
Jesus was the first drop. He started the process of irrigating the Valley of Tears with love. However, he did not complete it. It is our job to turn the drop into a flood. Jesus planted the seeds of forgiveness into the soil of our hearts (Jeremiah 17:8). The seeds of forgiveness turn into trees of love (Matthew 13:8) so that, in the gardens of the new Eden, many can enjoy the fruits of love (Matthew 13:31-32). From Jesus, the gardens of the new Eden are encroaching into the Valley of Tears drop by drop one Christian at a time. Watch his garden grow!
How do we Summon the Light from the Sky?
The Power to Do Good or to do Evil to our Neighbor
“That the Son of God did the Crucifixion tells us in no uncertain terms that there is nothing He won’t do for us. Nothing. He did the Crucifixion for sinners. Think what He is willing to do for saints!”
We are equipped with the power to do good or to do evil to our neighbor. When we know that God has our back, that is, when in God we trust, we can afford to do good to our neighbors. When we doubt, how difficult it is. Good works are the manifestation of our trust in God. The absence of good works reveals an absence of faith. The tree is known by its fruit. The fruit of good works makes known the tree of trust in God.
The Gift of Paradise
The Picture of God
Which is more important? The Love Note or its Guarantee?
Our Gag Reflex
For more than two thousand years, the Church has explored the mystery, majesty and magnificence of God. Its experience has given it great confidence - and should inspire confidence in us as well - that it knows a thing or two about God. The Church has knowledge to share with us. However, some in the Church view its knowledge as doctrine to ram down our throats. Beware. Ramming doctrine down our throats against our wills by fiat triggers our gag reflex. We regurgitate such doctrine. We are ready to be persuaded by reason. We are wary of being overcome by force. We expect that the legs of the doctrine that the Church is presenting to us are more than mere authority. Authority is the weakest of bases. We tend to reject a conclusion that has no legs. We expect a solid basis to support the conclusions that the Church wants us to reach. This is just the way rational people are. Early on in the history of mankind, we learned that our faculty of obedience is broken. The debacle of Adam and Eve showed us that it is defective. However, our faculty of rationality works. That is why God built his plan to rescue us from godlessness around our faculty of rationality and not around our faculty of obedience. God is not stupid. He does not risk our salvation on our broken faculty of obedience. He is smarter than that. Our faculty of rationality tells us to flee the sourness of godlessness and seek the sweetness of paradise. God's rescue plan is simple carrot and stick psychology. There is a current of salvation. It is generated by two engines. The sourness of godlessness pushes us to its exit. The sweetness of paradise pulls us to its entrance. There is a potential difference between the sourness of godlessness and the sweetness of paradise. All that was needed to get the current to flow was the placement of a conductor between them. Jesus is the conductor. He is the bridge between the sourness of godlessness and the sweetness of paradise. He is the way, etc. Through His bloody wounds, the new exodus is making its escape led / served by the new Moses, the Church, through the hostile desert of godlessness from slavery under the yoke of Pharaoh to freedom with God and their holy family in the promised land.
