We have to test everything. Test it. Probe it. Do that to this book. Don't swallow it uncritically. Think about it. Wrestle with it. Just because I'm a Christian and I'm trying to articulate a Christian worldview doesn't mean I've got it nailed. I'm contributing to the discussion. God has spoken, and the rest is commentary, right?Anyway, that's a whole other post in and of itself. Back to my original thought process...
The following is one of the many paragraphs in his book that made me stop and really think:
The point of the cross isn't forgiveness. Forgiveness leads to something much bigger: restoration. God isn't just interested in the covering over of our sins; God wants to make us into the people we were originally created to be. It is not just the removal of what's being held against us; it is God pulling us into the people he originally had in mind when he made us. This restoration is why Jesus always orients his message around becoming the kind of people who are generous and loving and compassionate. The goal here isn't simply to not sin. It is not about what you don't do. The point is becoming more and more the kind of people God had in mind when we were first created. It is one thing to be forgiven; it is another thing to become more and more and more and more the person God made you to be.So many times I think we stop at the forgiveness aspect of the cross. While His grace and forgiveness through the cross is an essential foundational piece, it's more than that. If we fully grasp how long and how wide and how high and how deep His love is for us, shouldn't that spur us on to want to be more like Jesus? And yes, God wants us to turn from sin, but I think the ultimate goal is to have a real, raw, intimate relationship with Him.
Have you ever noticed that the more time you spend with a person, the more you start to act like that person? You might start saying phrases they say. You start to use similar gestures. Babies do it with parents. They intently watch and learn. They mimic facial expressions, and they will repeat phrases that you say. So often you hear things like, "he is so much like his father", and you hope that it's a good thing. So as we take a step beyond our first encounter with the cross and start getting to know Jesus more and building our relationship with Him, shouldn't our natural inclinations and actions grow to be more and more like His? Shouldn't we start to reflect Him? As we move beyond the moment when we surrender our lives to Jesus and accept His forgiveness, shouldn't we start extending His grace and forgiveness to others? Shouldn't we start loving others the way that He loves us?
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him.
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