It's About Life

 "The glory of God is a human being fully alive!" This was said by the second century Church Father Irenaeus. In Christ God seeks to restore us to what God intended for us from the very beginning of creation, which is to be people who are the image of God! Christ calls us out of our tombs of sin and self-centeredness to become truly alive in showing God's goodness and mercy. This is why Jesus said to Martha just before he raised Lazarus from the dead, "Did I not say to you that if you believed you would see the glory of God!" God is revealed in glory when we respond to God's call to life. In our world people try to make themselves alive through things that promote only themselves. Money, lifestyle choices, focus on sex, forays into the myriads of entrapping addictions --- all these do not remove the stone that covers our tombs. We end up settling for lives of disillusionment and disappointment because we don't see any other way. This is life far below what God wants for us. God in Christ makes us free through looking beyond ourselves to see God's love for us in Jesus' sacrifice for us on the Cross and in his resurrection from the dead. Instead of the false freedom of fulfilling our own desires, we can have the true freedom of being fulfilled by God's desire for us to live for God and for others. This is living in the light of what is good and beautiful. This is the evidence that God did send Jesus to show God's glory by giving us full and abundant life that is dazzlingly real and intriguingly everlasting!

It's About Grace

Grace is the source and spring for our experience of God's love and for expressing our faith in God through Jesus Christ. Grace entirely is God's gift to us and work in us! This happens through God's presence with us in Jesus and through Jesus' giving himself for us in his sacrifice for us on the Cross. God entered into all of human experience, both the best and the worst, and in this a bridge is made between us and God. Despite our unworthiness and sinfulness, God provides a way through Jesus that restores our relationship with God, making us (as Pope Gregory the Great emphasized) "friends of God." This is all God's doing and it depends completely on God's power, love, and goodness. It's all about grace!

It's About Faith

Love is the power of faith, and belief is the engine of faith. It is an immersion into an experience of God that happens when we trust Jesus, which means giving our lives to him! Believing in Jesus is to encounter the living God and this encounter affects everything about us! In fact, it actually makes us who we are. As Rich Mullens sings, "I believe what I believe is what makes me what I am. I did not make it, it is making me! It is the very truth of God and not the invention of any man." We are like instruments played by a master musician, or paintings created in the distinctive style of a great artist. After all, life is about faith!

It's About Love

Love is the power of faith in Jesus Christ! It is difficult at times to understand how God is working in our lives, especially when things get tough. We may question why God allows us, others, and the world to suffer pain and problems, but our experience of God's love for us is what sustains us and carries us through. Without love (as the Apostle Paul says) our faith and our actions mean very little, but with love everything in our lives becomes significant and meaningful in God's plan, even those difficult things we all must face. Love -- God's love! -- is the "heart" of our relationship with God.