One Church

Throughout most of my adult life I have been fortunate to visit and be hired to play my horn in a number of denominations. While having a great discussion one evening during a faculty dinner, I was asked, "what church have you not played in," and I quickly replied, "my own." He seemed a bit embarrassed for asking the question and humorous to me was the fact I do so by choice. Things we grow up with feel familiar and problems only exit when we consider our decisions to be the right way or only way.

While it was appropriate for Jesus to say, "I am the way," we often need not look past our own groups to find those who equate themselves with Jesus and make claim to a similar statement, "this is the right way and those who don't agree are not welcome." Before straying too far in my thinking, it is important for me to remind myself how Jesus is the only way. As I begin a statement to say I believe there are a myriad of right possibilities in the life of every individual, I am not saying there is a variety of names or methods by which one is saved. I fully believe God will use the blood of His son to cover those He acknowledges as part of His family and according to His plan. According to this plan and not the understanding of me as a human will God find us "not guilty" through what Jesus finished on the cross.

As a child, one of the memory verses I had to learn was Romans 1:16 because it was important for me to understand I was not to be ashamed of the Gospel. Oddly, it was not until this past year when I discovered the power of verse 17 and realized the significance of the Gospel (for me) is found in the righteousness of God being revealed to us through Christ. In my reading, the importance of this statement if found in the expression of knowing the righteous will live by faith.

Yes, I believe we can be successful living for God in this generation because we are not held to a system of perfection, but one of righteousness through faith. WE CAN DO THIS! Under the Law of Moses, man had to live a perfect life to be successful and even then, there were those who lived by faith (through faith) and were found pleasing to God. I am convinced God found favor in them the same way He finds favor with us. Jesus/God was willing to live the life of perfection in our place and in His sacrifice credit us with His perfection. The faith then and now was placed in God and not our ability to direct our own path correctly. Having expressed this, it is my conviction the "One Church" exists in the favor of God, not because we are doing the right things, but specifically because we choose righteousness of action over evil/wickedness in our lives and ultimately place our faith, not in our ability of obedience, but in the righteousness of our savior, Jesus.

Possibly a long time getting to the point but we are capable of living radically different and yet righteous styled lives for God through faith. The myriad of paths we can follow are not found in a choice of savior but again, a choice of righteous acts. We are instructed to encourage our brothers and sisters to goodness, kindness and acts of love. We are not instructed to demand specific acts of righteous behavior if we are to be saved. I believe in an endless possibility of living a life imaged after the life of Christ in righteous behavior and be pleasing to God.

The "One Church" is not to be defined by the appropriate creed or the pattern of worship practiced on any given day but instead, defined by the one who was successful for all of us in His life. The true church, the One Church, is made up of all who through many trials and failures continues living a life style of righteousness patterned after the righteousness revealed in the Gospel. It is our faith in Jesus being responsible for 100% of our salvation which allows us the freedom from our mistakes and worry concerning the condition of our salvation.

I have not always been at this point in my life but I now can tell those, who might hear, "ANYTHING GOES" for him that seeks after righteousness. Find something good and do it even if I don't like it or believe it is not right for me. As part of the "One Church," find something good to do and enjoy your freedom of life in Christ.

Too Good To Be True?

In our daily walk, we are heavily influenced by many aspects of human nature when challenged to understand God's message to us. Having grown up and having been indoctrinated with the concept of the road to heaven being so narrow, I came to believe few of those professing Christian beliefs would "make the cut" on judgment day. I have chastised others and been chastised myself for suggesting that salvation is not challenging to obtain, but rather easy.

As I read through the Bible and hear God speaking to me, I find it increasingly difficult to believe God would give His son in such a cruel form of death and then make His offering into a life or death game of chance where I attempt to discover and meet the expectations of God and finally be given my reward. In fact, I can answer now and save all of us the pain of attempting this feat since none of us is capable of meeting the expectations of God. If we have to be obedient for salvation, we have already failed in our first sin. Basing our hope on obedience becomes a game of how much or what percentage of obedience is required since total failure is acknowledged with our first sinful act. If we come to God with the expectation of being judged according to our obedience on any level, we fail and should expect condemnation.

When we consider the death of Christ as forgiving all sin, we find ourselves in a position of having no penalty for the sin in our lives because it has been forgiven. I fully believe this to be the thought on Paul's mind when he asks the question of whether we should continue in sin so grace would abound. Let it not be said we can sin as much as we want because our sin is already forgiven.

I find myself coming very close to the sense of Universalism as I consider and even now believe the sacrifice of Christ forgave all sin and therefore reconciled all men to God. Where I differ in my thoughts from the Universalist is in my belief that some will perish because they simply choose to leave the family of God.

In the tradition of my youth, the churches of Christ, I was taught the concept of what it took , from us, to gain admittance to the family. We were responsible for the covering by the blood of Jesus and we were the ones, through our obedience, responsible for coming into contact with the blood of Jesus. We, not Jesus, became responsible for our salvation via the choices we made. My current thoughts center on Jesus being responsible for our salvation and payment has already been made for my sin. My choice then would not be on how to become reconciled with Christ but rather the choice I make not to leave God's family. I see these thoughts being much more than semantics because I now look completely to the grace of God which has provided salvation for everyone. My choice now is so much different because I choose to grow the relationship established freely from God or deny the offering and not one of "what must I do to be saved."

It sounds so easy and from the world view, we come to believe it can't possibly be true since we have been indoctrinated daily with the view of "nothing being this easy. As I write these words, I am reminded of a question asked recently by one of my seventh grade students. The question, "why is the bible so confusing," was one I have asked many times during my life and only recently begun to answer for myself and remain consistent with what I am learning from the reading of the Bible. We make the bible a source of confusion when we attempt to decipher the "hidden" message of God. We can't allow ourselves the simplicity of a plan where all details (that matter) have already been taken care of by God and we are simply the recipients of this tremendous gift. It is too good to be true and so we search for the "right way" where only a few dedicated and faithful servants might discover the path missed by so many.

While I can applaud the life of and individual attempting to make their lives as perfect and appealing to God as is possible, I find our problem becoming one of attaining a greater level of understanding and service becoming a source of "correctness" for all of God's people. We then take our knowledge of how things should be in our own life and with comparison to others, we begin our life of judging the salvation of others. Our initial judgment might only be born of a desire to share Christ more fully with those we love and yet it can easily become an open condemnation of someone not accepting the truth of God.

Rather than being a positive influence of Christ in the lives of those we love, we become the source of confusion and successfully steal the joy of God from their lives with doubt. Our influence becomes one of reminding others of how the offering of Christ was not sufficient and how we need to, not only add our part, but add our part accurately. We take "it is finished" and turn the tables on God as we choose to become "worthy" of His offering.

Yes, we miss the point of being able to accept how none of us can ever be worthy. We miss the realization of how much God really loved His creation and how truly wonderful the gift is given for all of us.

For man, it is too good to be true because we have no understanding of GOOD! We have no real understanding of God who is defined by GOOD. Salvation is not too good to be truly a gift because it comes from God, not man. I pray we not live any longer in the bondage of men requiring so much more than God would require from all of us who will never be worthy.