Tag: Bible reflections

Have you ever stopped to wonder why the good news is really good news?  I often do – because when I think of the North American Christian experience, it is often a lot more like the proverbial church coffee compared to the richest most delicious dark roast that exists on earth that were the experiences of the early followers of Jesus.  It’s like mowing down on funeral sandwiches when there is a feast spread with the most tantalizing dishes created by human tradition and imagination.

Anyone with me?

I grew up in the church. When I was 4 we were doing a family devotional that talked about being ready so that when Jesus returned we would be able to be with Him and enjoy the wonderful eternity that he has prepared for us. I decided to ask for forgiveness for my sins and ask Jesus into my heart because I loved Him and wanted to follow Him, but also because I didn’t want to miss out (hmm…just had a little aha moment there…might have to explore that in a future blog). So I accepted Jesus as my Saviour at the age of 4. I was baptized at the age of 7. I didn’t have a rebellious youth. I don’t have a dramatic rescue story or jaw-dropping before and after photos. It was hard to really capture what was so amazing about the Good News. My christian experience for most of my life had been trying really hard to avoid bad things and to do good things to please my Heavenly Father.  Not exactly compellingly good news either.  I was way too old before I started to understand how the good news affects my current reality and not just my eternal destination, when I began to understand grace and intimacy with God, when I began to clue into the fact that the same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead, that resurrection power is at work in ME! (Romans 8:11)

So this is a question that I often still ask myself…what really is so good about the good news and am I living in that reality?  Several years back Dan and I had privilege of attending a one day workshop put on by Jeff Vanderstelt. He taught us this really helpful rubric for thinking through the ramifications of the gospel and also analyzing where we are living out of false beliefs.

Who God is — What He does — Who we are in light of that — What we do.

God demonstrates who He is to us by what He does.  What He does for us ultimately informs our identity (who we are) and then we are able to live out of that identity.  So our doing comes out of our being which is defined by God and His work on our behalf.  Our behaviour can be a reflection of gospel identity or it can highlight some wrong belief about who we are or who God is.  I have thought of this often since I first heard it.

The other day I was reflecting on creation and identity and marvelling again at the gospel, the truly good news.  I was thinking through some of the ways that God created us in His image and how that impacts our identity and how we live out that identity. I was thinking about the Fall and all that Satan set out to destroy in the garden. A light went on for me that illuminated so many facets of the gospel!  When Satan deceived Adam and Eve he wasn’t just trying to trick them into eternal suffering; He was attacking his greatest enemy, God, by attempting to destroy His very image in us!  And what Jesus accomplished on the cross what not just about ensuring our eternity with him, it was about restoring His very image in us!

As I was thinking about this a new rubric formed in my mind.  It goes like this:

Who God is — How He created us in His image — How Satan sought to destroy that — What Jesus’ saving work through His death and resurrection does to restore what was broken — Who we are because of that — how we live out of this restored identity.

Here are some examples:

God is triune (communal) — He made us for community — Satan and sin brought shame which broke community between humans and God and one another — Jesus restores honor — We are adopted sons and daughters, coheirs with Christ — We live in community with God and others in the new family of Jesus.

God is present and close and speaks — He made us to enjoy His presence and hear His voice — Satan and sin broke our communion — Jesus’ death tore the veil — We are a temple of the Holy Spirit – He actually makes his dwelling in us (!!!!) — We manifest God’s presence to a world starved of communion with Him.

God is holy and good — He made us perfect and good — Satan and sin brought guilt and marred perfection — Jesus justifies us and makes us righteous again before God — We are redeemed — We reflect again God’s beauty in a broken world.

God is powerful/in control — He gave us authority — Satan usurped our authority, making us fearful slaves — Jesus rescued us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the Kingdom of the Son He loves — We are free, citizens of the Kingdom, ambassadors sent out with His authority — We rule again through Jesus’ authority.

God is love — He made us to be recipients of His love — Satan and sin introduced doubt and fear — Jesus demonstrates His love for us through His death on our behalf, while we were still his enemies — We are deemed worthy — We are free to receive and give love.

God is our gracious provider — He made and gave us everything that we needed — Satan introduced doubt about God’s good and gracious provision — God’s grace and provision is extended to us anew through Christ’s work on our behalf — We lack no good thing — We are blessed to be a blessing.

God is creative/life/life-giving — He breathed His life into us – Satan and sin brought death — Jesus died and rose to break the curse of death and breathe new life into us again — We are new creations, we are filled with the Spirit — We bear good fruit, we speak life, we create and celebrate beauty.

Now that, my friends, sounds like really good news.

I’ve been hanging out for awhile in John’s gospel, reading it alongside some friends.  I’ve always loved this gospel because of it’s intimacy.  I love how John refers to himself: the disciple whom Jesus loved.

In the other gospels we see a more detailed picture.  John was a fisherman who worked alongside his brother and on a team with Peter and Andrew.  Jesus referred to him and James as the “sons of thunder.”  He was a part of what people call the “inner three” who along with Peter and James were privy to some of Jesus’ greatest and most difficult moments, like the transfiguration, the healing of Jairus’ daughter and his anguish in the garden.

We are also privy to some slightly les flattering moments. He angrily wanted to call down fire from heaven to smite people who had refused to welcome Jesus in their Samaritan village. He complained to Jesus when some outsiders were casting out demons in Jesus’ name. He and James vied for special seats in heaven to the left and right of Jesus’ thrown.

But although we get a glimpse of an eager, easily-angered, perhaps power-hungry or at least positionally-striving disciple who let his special friendship with Jesus perhaps go to his head a little, we get none of that in his Gospel. We hear only of “the disciple whom Jesus loved” and he never even mentions his actual name.

And this is precisely what inspires me about my kindred spirit John.

I believe that time with Jesus began to form and inform him, that the resurrection was a turning point and that the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost revolutionized his life because all of the sudden so much made sense.  It always boggles my mind to think of all the things the early believers of Jesus had to figure out along the way with the help of the Holy Spirit.

If the John I described above,  from the other gospel accounts is more like the before picture, John’s gospel and his letters are the after picture.  What I see is a man who encountered the love of Christ in such a profound way that it completely rewrote his identity and priorities.  I see a man that took Jesus at his word when we talked about abiding and experiencing union with God. I see a man who came to understand all who Jesus said He was and discovered what that made him. I see a man who came to realize his identity, not as James’ brother, Peter’s friend, right or left-hand man, inner circle-dweller or one of the powerful elite, but simply as the one whom Jesus loved.

May our false identities have the same encounter with Jesus, I am, the Bread of Life, the Water of Life, the Gate, the Great Shepherd, that John had and may we all come to know ourselves, first and foremost as the one Jesus loves.