Entries in gospel (3)
Meme: Passion Quilt
I’ve been tagged by Kim of Hiraeth for the passion quilt meme. Here are the instructions.
- Post a picture or make/take/create your own that captures that about which YOU are most passionate for students to learn.
- Give your picture a short title.
- Title your blog post “Meme: Passion Quilt.”
- Link back to this blog entry.
- Include links to 5 (or more) educators. (I won’t be doing this. Tagging people is not favorite thing.)
If you’ve read here for a while, you won’t be surprised by where my passion lies.
The Cross
This depiction of Christ being lifted up on the cross is by the French illustrator, Gustave Dore.
- The cross is the solution to everything that’s not right with the universe, including what’s not right with me. No matter what the human need, it is, ultimately, met at the cross, and all real hope is grounded there.
- So many of God’s attributes are seen most fully in the cross. The cross is, for instance, the pinnacle of the expression of God’s grace. It was also a public display of God’s mercy, love, holiness, righteousness and justice. Do you want to know God? Look through the lens of the cross.
- What happened on the cross is, in one sense, simple: Christ died for our sins. He bore the penalty for our sins so that we can be forgiven by God and reconciled to him. On the other hand, there are so many layers to the work of the cross! Or maybe it’d be better to say that the work of the cross can be seen from many different angles and they all fit together to paint one picture that grows more and more glorious as it is viewed from additional angles. That makes it an infinitely fascinating work and an infinitely satisfying work.
- The work of the cross is the center of everything: the gospel, God’s plan for history, our Christian faith.
- The cross is powerful: it transforms lives; it gives meaning to life. It is because of the cross that we are new creatures; and the cross, in turn, calls us to live out our new-creaturely lives in “the way of the cross.” It is because of the cross that we are to “take up our cross daily.”
- For those who are redeemed by it, the cross of Christ will be an enduring passion, a passion that only increases in eternity. Christ’s work on the cross is the centerpiece of the new song:“Worthy are you to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation,
and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God…
“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honor and glory and blessing!”
rebecca
in theology, soteriology, memes, gospel
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A Post In Which I Boast
I don’t remember the whole sermon, but I do remember that somewhere within it there was an explanation of Christ’s death on the cross and I was transfixed. I saw an image of my Saviour on the cross, suffering for me, and at that instant I understood that I needed what was accomplished for me there. And more than that: I knew that I wanted, above everything else, what was provided for me there.
rebecca
in soteriology, gospel, real life
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Housewife Has Questions, Part 2
Continuing on with Housewife’s questions. (Part 1 is here.)
Housewife finishes her list with these two questions:
Is part of your mission in life to convert people to your religion?
Do you really think that G-d is angry with people who don’t pray the same way you do?
I’m going to start with the second question first, because my answer to the first one builds on my answer to the second.
Do I think that God is angry with people who don’t pray the same way I do?
In order to answer this question, I have to qualify it a bit. God’s anger with people has nothing to do with praying the same way I do, as if, first of all, it’s primarily a method of prayer that matters; and secondly, that doing things my way has some significance. I do believe God is angry with people, but never because they don’t pray my way. He may be angry over certain methods of prayer, but that would be only secondary to the real issue—whether they are worshipping him, the God who is.
And that’s the biggie, the bottom line, the universal truth that no one escapes: God is there; we know it; we don’t worship him. We all know God is there because we look out and see the universe and the world we live in. Deep down, we know that it all didn’t come from nothing, but from something or someone.
That’s not to say that people know everything there is to know about the something or someone from which it all came by looking out and seeing what there is, but we do know some important things: the Creator is unlike the universe and more than the universe; existing not only in the universe, but also outside or beyond the universe. In other words, the one who created the universe exists in a category of one: the only uncaused, the only independent, the only self-existent. We, on the other hand, are caused by the uncaused, dependent on the independent, existent only as long as the self-existent sustains us.
And because we know that God is there and we know these things about him, we also know that this is the sort of God to whom we owe worship. But none of us do that, and there’s the rub. We either deny God exists at all, or we choose to think of him as something different—less, actually—than we know he really is. We bring him down into categories we know and understand from experience—categories we know, deep down, don’t apply to him. We think of him or imagine him as something more like we are and way less than he is, because we are more comfortable with something more like we are, something not quite so “other”. That’s bringing God down to our level or (probably more accurately) raising us up to his. The Bible calls this trading the truth about God for a lie, and yes, it draws out God’s righteous indignation, or his anger, as you call it.
Is part of your mission in life to convert people to your religion?
I believe that the only way out from under God’s righteous indignation is through the good news that God sent his own Son as Saviour for everyone who believes in him. It’s good news, and I believe it’s good news that everyone needs, since everyone falls rightfully under God’s indignation.
I guess my answer to your question would be yes and no. I wish everyone would believe the good news; I think everyone needs to hear the good news; I think helping to spread the good news it my duty. If I believe this good news the only way out from under God’s righteous indignation, and I care about other people, what kind of person would I be if I didn’t share it? But at the same time, I’m not going bop someone upside the head with a two-by-four to get them to sign on the dotted line. Getting someone to sign on the dotted line whether they want to or not isn’t my responsibility.