A God-Bathed World: Chapter 3

Jesus’ good news about the kingdom can be an effective guide for our lives only if we share his view of the world in which we live. To his eyes this is a God-bathed and God-permeated world.

It’s been said that your view of God will determine your relationship with Him. This is an extension of this point – you can’t understand Jesus’ Father in Heaven unless you see Him the way Jesus describes.

It is a great and important task to come to terms with what we really think when we think about God. Most hindrances to the faith of Christ actually life, I believe, in this part of our minds and souls.

The first step in correcting your view of God is to honestly come to terms with what your view is right now. Break through what you think you’re supposed to believe and examine what you really believe. Then you can begin to make new faith choices.

We should, to begin with, think that God leads a very interesting life, and that he is full of joy. Undoubtedly he is the most joyous being in the universe… He is simply one great inexhaustible and eternal experience of all that is good and true and beautiful and right. This is what we must think of when we hear theologians and philosophers speak of him as a perfect being. This is his life.

This view is quite a contrast to the view that God is angry all the time. He certainly can get angry at sin, but it’s not like anything that happens on earth could ruin the day of a perfect being.

Now, Jesus himself was and is a joyous, creative person. He does not allow us to continue thinking of our Father who fills and overflows space as a morose and miserable monarch, a frustrated and petty parent, or a policeman on the prowl. One cannot think of God in such ways while confronting Jesus’ declaration “He that has seen me has seen the Father.” One of the most outstanding features of Jesus’ personality was precisely an abundance of joy. It is deeply illuminating of kingdom living to understand that Jesus’ steady happiness was not ruled out by his experience of sorrow and even grief.

Jesus was joyful in spite of His earthly circumstances. This is such a blessing of being a believer if we will tap into it. Our circumstances do not have to dictate our joy.

We know all about “simulations,” we think. Moreover, we have heard of psychological “projection,” and our heads are full of pseudoscientific views that reject a spiritual world and insist that space is empty and matter the only reality. So we are prepared to treat all of this long historical record [miracles of the Bible] as a matter of “visions” that are “only imagination,” or as outright delusions, not as perceptions of reality.

The reality of the Kingdom is that the spiritual world is more real than the physical. Until this thought is grasped, it is difficult to understand much else in the Kingdom.

The damage done to our practical faith in Christ and in his government-at-hand by confusing heaven with a place in distant or outer space, or even beyond space, is incalculable. Of course God is there too. But instead of heaven and God also being always present with us, as Jesus shows them to be, we invariably take them to be located far away and, most likely, at a much later time – not here and not now. And we should then be surprised to feel ourselves alone?

What an amazing revelation that God is near. He inhabits the entire universe, but still longs to be near His children.

But the response to this mistake has led many to say that God is not in space at all, not that “old man in the sky,” but instead is “in” the human heart. And that sounds nice, but it really does not help. In fact, it makes matters worse. “In my heart” easily becomes “in my imagination”… This ill-advised attempt to make God near by confining him to human hearts robs the idea of his direct involvement in human life of any sense. Ironically it has much the same effort as putting God in outer space or beyond.

Willard notes another good example of how “cute” sayings can backfire. God does not live on in your heart – He is everywhere, but yet chooses to interact with our spirits on the inside as well!

Now, roughly speaking, God relates to space as we do to our body. He occupies and overflows it but cannot be localized in it.

A very simple way to explain where God is – I occupy my body, but you can’t cut me open and find “me”. God is everywhere, but he can’t be pinpointed to a physical spot.

Once we have grasped our situation in God’s full world, the startling disregard Jesus and the New Testament writers had for “physical death,” suddenly makes sense. Paul bluntly states, as we have just seen, that Jesus abolished death – simply did away with it. Nothing like what is usually understood as death will happen to those who have entered his life.

This goes back to the point of the spiritual being the higher reality than the spiritual. Death has been completely conquered in the spirit realm for those in Christ. The physical aspect of our being is but temporary and inconsequential in light of eternity.

When Mickey Mantle was dying of diseases brought on by a life of heavy drinking, he said that he would have taken better care of himself had he only known how long he was going to live. He gives us a profound lesson. How should we “take care of ourselves” when we are never to cease? Jesus shows his apprentices how to live in the light of the fact that they will never stop living. This is what his students are learning from him.

This is the essence of teaching of this book. We are to enter our eternal life right now. This is what Jesus came to show us – how to live in light of the fact that we are eternal spiritual beings.

This structure [the first shall be last and the last first] indicates that humanity is routinely flying upside down, and at the same time it provides a message of hope for everyone who counts on God’s order, no matter his or her circumstance. There are none in the humanly “down” position so low that they cannot be lifted up by entering God’s order, and none in the humanly “up” position so high that they can disregard God’s point of view on their lives.

This is the good news of the Kingdom. Our earthly limitations don’t have to hold us back in God’s Kingdom.

To become a disciple of Jesus is to accept now that inversion of human distinctions that will sooner or later be forced upon everyone by the irresistible reality of his kingdom. How must we think of him to see the inversion from our present viewpoint? We must, simply, accept that he is the best and smartest man who ever lived in this world, that he is even now “the prince of the kings of the earth” (Rev. 1:5). Then we heartily join his cosmic conspiracy to overcome evil with good.

Sooner or later everyone will accept the reality and supremacy of God’s rule – better soon than later. I love that Willard waited 90 pages before he spelled out exactly what the Divine Conspiracy is – God’s plan to overcome evil with good.

The powerful though vague and unsubstantiated presumption is that something has been found out that renders a spiritual understanding of reality in the manner of Jesus simply foolish to those who are “in the know.” But when it comes time to say exactly what it is that has been found out, nothing of substance is forthcoming.

Nothing has been discovered that renders the spiritual world irrelevant. It takes the same faith to believe in nothing beyond a physical reality than it does to accept the spirt realm as a higher reality.

Though this is not the place to discuss it, you can be very sure that nothing fundamental has changed in our knowledge of ultimate reality and human self since the time of Jesus…Many will be astonished at such a remark, but it at least provides us with a thought – that nothing fundamental has changed from biblical times – that every responsible person needs to consider at least once in his or her lifetime, and the earlier the better. And as for those who find it incredible – I constantly meet such people in my line of work – you only need ask them exactly what has changed, and where it is documented, and they are quickly stumped. Descending to particulars always helps to clear the mind.

This is such a great point. In regards to the ultimate questions: what is the meaning of life? Why are we on earth? No new knowledge has been gained since the time of Jesus to adequately answer these questions.

Our commitment to Jesus can stand on no other foundation than a recognition that he is the one who knows the truth about our lives and our universe. It is not possible to trust Jesus, or anyone else, in matters where we do not believe him to be competent…Once you stop to think about it, how could he be what we take him to be in all other respects and not be the best-informed and most intelligent person of all, the smartest person who ever lived?

His teaching about life is not obsolete. The principles in the Bible are still the best way to live our lives.

Turn gravel into gold and pay off the national debt! Do you think he could get elected president of prime minister today?

I’d vote for Him.

He knew how to suspend gravity, interrupt weather patterns, and eliminate unfruitful trees without saw or ax. He only needed a word. Surely he must be amused at what Nobel prizes are awarded for today.

It’s an interesting thought that Jesus didn’t use hocus-pocus to do things. He made the world and literally knew how to do them. Certainly our problems are not too big for Him.

And one of the greatest testimonies to his intelligence is surely that he knew how to enter physical death, actually to die, and then live on beyond. He seized death by the throat and defeated it. Forget cryonics!

Death defeated – is there a greater earthly accomplishment?

“Jesus is Lord” can mean little in practice for anyone who has to hesitate before saying “Jesus is smart.” He is not just nice, he is brilliant. He is the smartest man who ever lived. He is now supervising the entire course of world history (Rev. 1:5) while simultaneously preparing the rest of the universe for our future role in it (John 14:2). He always has the best information on everything and certainly on the things that matter most in human life. Let us now hear his teachings on who has the good life, on who is among the truly blessed.

Here we have to come to terms with what we believe. If we read the words of Jesus in the Bible and find them irrelevant or obsolete, it ultimately means our confession of Jesus as Lord isn’t worth much. He is more than a nice guy – He is the most brilliant man to ever live! If we find His teaching unhelpful, the problem is on our end. Ignorance is easier to overcome than unbelief. The next chapters will illuminate what Jesus meant in His instructions for our everyday lives.

Gospels of Sin Management: Chapter 2

Well, it certainly needs to be said that Christians are forgiven. And it needs to be said that forgiveness does not depend on being perfect. But is that really what the slogan (Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven) communicates?
Unfortunately, it is not. What the slogan really conveys is that forgiveness alone is what Christianity is all about, what is genuinely essential to it.
It says that you can have a faith in Christ that brings forgiveness, while in every other respect your life is no different from that of others who have no faith in Christ at all.

Dallas continues with his pet peeve of theological bumper stickers. His growing point is that our ideas about our faith are important and will influence our behavior. When I think of that bumper sticker, to me it sounds apologetic or defensive – “just because my life doesn’t look any different than yours doesn’t mean I’m not a Christian.” Whatever your opinion of the slogan, I don’t believe it’s a particularly helpful idea for the aspiring disciple of Christ.

Many others are angry with such a view of being Christian because to them it seems irresponsible. They contemptuously refer to it as “cheap grace” or “fire insurance”… but to be quite frank, grace is cheap from the point of view of those who need it. That is why attacks on “cheap grace” never make much difference. To try to rule out unheroic Christianity by making grace expensive will only add to confusion about matters of vast importance. And if a fire is likely, it would not be a mark of wisdom to forgo insurance that really is available.

This was a beautifully made point. Those that recognize that there needs to be a change in a born again person can still be equally wrong on the other side of the spectrum. Dallas suggests that the problem with Christianity may be more of a systemic one – our view of what the gospel is – rather than an issue of how many hoops someone has to jump through upon accepting it.

No one need worry about our getting the best of God in some bargain with him, or that we might somehow succeed in using him for our purposes. Anyone who thinks this is a problem has seriously underestimated the intelligence and agility of our Father in the heavens. He will not be tricked or cheated. Any arrangement God has estabilished will be right for him and right for us. We can count on it.

It’s funny how we can entertain completely ridiculous thoughts when we don’t examine them. How patronizing must it be to God that we should ever feel the need to protect him from being taken advantage of!

The real question, I think, is whether God would establish a bar code type of arrangement at all. It is we who are in danger: in danger of missing the fullness of life offered to us.

This needs to be clear. If there is more available to being a Christian than going to heaven when you die, it is our loss if we fail to find it.

What must be emphasized in all of this is the difference between trusting Christ, the real person Jesus, with all that that naturally involves, versus trusting some arrangement for sin-remission set up through him – trusting only his role as guilt remover. To trust the real person Jesus is to have confidence in him in every dimension of our real life, to believe that he is right about and adequate to every thing.

This is also touching at the heart of the issue. When we say we trust God for our salvation, are we really trusting Jesus as the lord of our life or are we just trusting an abstract thought of Him saving us from our sins?

The gospel, or “good news,” on this [the Left] view, was that God himself stood behind liberation, equality, and community; that Jesus died to promote them, or at least for lack of them; and that he “lives on” in all efforts and tendencies favoring them. For the theological left, simply this became the message of Christ.

On the left side of the theological spectrum, we see a strong de-emphasis on the supernatural in favor of the practical. Jesus came to release the prisoner, but I believe He is far more interested in our character development than our earthly comfort (as Pastor noted today). He has compassion for those suffering on earth, but life is but a vapor in light of eternity.

The American dream is that “people can do or be what they want if they just go ahead and do it.” Desire becomes sacred, and whatever thwarts desire is evil or sin. We have from the Christian left, after all, just another gospel of sin management, but one whose substance is provided by Western (American) social and political ideals of human existence in a secular world.

This is one problem when fighting for liberation – it makes an idol out of the desire for freedom, even if what is desired is contrary to the ordinances of God. In the end, the left is also a gospel of sin management.

To reiterate, that irrelevance to life stems from the very content of those “gospels”: from what they state, what they are about. They concern sin guilt or structural evils (social sins) and what to do about them. That is all. That real life goes on without them is a natural consequence of this.

Willard begins to pose the question of whether the results we see in today’s Christianity are not in spite of our efforts, but precisely because of the gospel we are presenting. If you make the gospel just about getting to heaven, or for fighting for equality (without emphasis on a supernatural personal relationship with Jesus), it is simply logical that this gospel will have little effect on our everyday life.

Right at the heart of this alienation lies the absence of Jesus the teacher from our lives. Strangely, we seem prepared to learn how to live from almost anyone but him. [By listening to the voices of the world instead of Jesus] we lose any sense of the difference between information and wisdom, and act accordingly.

If we don’t think Jesus has the best wisdom for how to live, how could we possibly put our trust for our eternal destiny in such a person?

We do not seriously consider Jesus as our teacher on how to live, hence we cannot think of ourselves, in our moment-to-moment existence, as his students or disciples.

This is Willard’s conclusion of the discipleship problem: The gospel that is often shared has little relevance to our everyday life. Therefore, we don’t look to Jesus to be our teacher and so we do not become his disciple.

We are flooded with what I have called “gospels of sin management,” in one form or another, while Jesus’ invitation to eternal life now – right in the midst of work, business, and profession – remains for the most part ignored and unspoken.

There is more to life in Christ than just sin management. We can enter eternal abundant life right now.

A saying among management experts today is “Your system is perfectly designed to yield the result you are getting.”

Willard summarizes his point again by drawing on a popular saying. The gospel we present is perfectly designed to save the kind of converts we’re receiving.

Study Questions:

What is the gospel to you? Is it that Jesus died so that you can go to heaven? Is it that Jesus came to promote a new equality that we should fight for? Is it the new availability to enter the Kingdom of God?

How does your current view of the gospel compare to what was presented to you growing up?

The Invitation: Chapter 1, Part 2

People think they have heard the invitation. They think they have accepted it – or rejected it. But they have not. The difficulty today is to hear it at all.

Especially living in the Bible belt, you really see this a lot. There are those that self-identify as Christians, but with no real influence on the way they live. Religion has really done a disservice to Jesus. He will change your life – if you let him. Sometimes the hardest people to reach are the ones sitting in the pews.

God’s desire for us is that we should live in him.

This might be the best summary of the Divine Conspiracy in a single sentence. God wants us to live in Him. He wants us to enter the eternal kind of life now. Store this thought away, we will discuss it at length in chapters to come.

The “gospels” that predominate where he is most frequently invoked speak only of preparing to die or else correcting social practices and conditions.

Willard will devote a whole chapter to this, so I’ll just briefly comment here. The theological “right” tends to make getting into heaven the primary focus, while the theological “left” tends to make fighting social injustices the main thing.

Our usual “gospels” are, in their effects – dare we say it – nothing less than a standing invitation to omit God from the course of our daily existence.

The problem with these being the focus is that we omit God from our everyday existence. We are not living for Him, let alone in Him.

But just think how unlikely it would be that this great world-historical force, Jesus called “Christ,” could have left the depths of moment-to-moment human existence untouched while accomplishing what he has! More likely, we currently do not understand who he is and what he brings.

Willard notes the shear magnitude of the “footprint” that Christ has left on history. It doesn’t seem logical that someone of that kind of influence, who paid the price He paid, wouldn’t care about impacting our everyday lives. The conclusion is that we don’t understand Jesus like we should, nor do we comprehend the significance of the invitation He gives.

In other words, if he were to come today he could very well do what you do. He could very well live in your apartment or house, hold down your job, have your education and life prospects, and live within your family, surroundings, and time. None of this would be the least hindrance to the eternal kind of life that was his by nature and becomes available to us through him. Our human life, it turns out, is not destroyed by God’s life but is fulfilled in it and in it alone.

Willard makes an interesting note about Jesus. We often make excuses for our circumstances when we think of making a real impact on the world. The reality is that Jesus just have easily could have lived in my exact environment without thwarting His ability to change the world. The kind of life God wants to give enables us to live a fulfilled life, not hinders our happiness.

But they [the crowds who responded to Jesus] were only responding to the striking availability of God to meet present human need through the actions of Jesus. He simply was the good news about the kingdom. He still is.

Jesus is the gospel. His invitation to enter into his kingdom remains.

Now God’s own “kingdom,” or “rule,” is the range of his effective will, where what he wants done is done. The person of God himself and the action of his will are the organizing principles of his kingdom, but everything that obeys those principles, whether by nature or by choice, is within his kingdom.

This is a great explanation of the kingdom of God – a term that has been widely misunderstood. We enter the kingdom when God becomes the King of our lives.

If we attend to what he actually said, it becomes clear that his gospel concerned only the new accessibility of the kingdom to humanity through itself.

With our new understanding of what kingdom is, much confusion is cleared up as to when it will come. It’s always been, but with Jesus there is a new availability to enter it that was not present before.

The power [electricity to the rural community] that could make their lives far better was right near them where, by making relatively simple arrangements, they could utilize it. Strangely, a few did not accept it. They did not “enter the kingdom of electricity.” Some just didn’t want to change. Others could not afford it, or so they thought.

Dallas grew up in a rural community where electricity did not become available until he was a teenager. He draws an excellent illustration from his experience to explain the availability of the Kingdom of God.

We need not fly upside down. There is a right-side up, and we can find it. – But we don’t have to. We are free. For now.

We have to believe there is a right way to live and that we can discover what it is. This is the gospel – we can enter into the eternal kind of life with Jesus right now.

Flying Upside Down: Chapter 1, Part 1

Recently a pilot was practicing high-speed maneuvers in a jet fighter. She turned the controls for what she thought was a steep ascent – and flew straight into the ground. She was unaware that she had been flying upside down. This is a parable of human existence in our times… we live at high speed, and often with no clue to whether we are flying upside down or right-side up. Indeed, we are haunted by a suspicion that there may be no difference.

Willard uses this story as a metaphor to introduce the problem. The reading is heavy in the first few chapters, but stick with it – you’ll be glad you did. The problem is that our society is incredibly fast-paced, but its priorities and understanding of morality are upside down – to the point that many doubt whether there really is a right and wrong way to live.

“Secular humanism” is an idea movement, not the work of an individual, and before it, as a whole, individuals are little more than pawns. The seeming triviality and irrelevance of the “merely academic” is a major part of what misleads us about the power of ideas.

This point is the reason to stay engaged with this section of the book. Some of it abstract or “academic” in nature, but Willard’s point is that much of our societal views are the results of ideas from many years ago. The idea that the world is an accident – we accidentally came into existence through evolution – leads to the idea that life is absurd and we find happiness by striving for progress.

The peasants now watch TV and constantly consume media. There are no peasants now.

A writer, Tolstoy, struggling with the consequences of these ideas (life is an accident), noted that the peasants – who had no knowledge of these new ideas – remained very happy. The problem is that today there are no peasants. We are constantly being fed information by media that is likely detrimental to our happiness.

What is truly profound is thought to be stupid and trivial, or worse, boring, while what is actually stupid and trivial is thought to be profound. This is what it means to fly upside down.

Here, Willard pokes fun at some “wise” saying of the day such as “stand up for your rights” and “practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty”. A more useful saying, such as “stand up for your responsibilities” is thought to be boring and disregarded for sayings that don’t actually make sense.

In fact, the popular sayings attract only because people are haunted by the idea from the intellectual heights that life is, in reality, absurd. Thus the only acceptable relief is to be cute or clever.

Willard makes the connection of ideas from years ago trickling down into our popular culture. Ideas are important. This is all setting up the groundwork or us to evaluate a new idea – well, a 2000-year-old idea, actually. Life in the Kingdom of God is our rescue from all this nonsense. Prepare your mind to take a fresh look at Jesus and his message. We’ll cover the rest of Chapter 1 in the next few days.

As always, you’re welcome to comment on any part of the reading, not just the excerpts I pulled. In addition, I will present a study question with each post. I encourage you to post your answer in the comments. This study is open to the public, so feel free to share with any who may be interested.

Chapter 1, Part 1, Flying Upside Down Study Question:

What is a message from our culture that has impacted you that is contrary to the teachings of the Bible?

For me, the message that progress, or having more, is always better. When we seek the Kingdom first, all the other good things are added to us. When we seek only for progress and more stuff, we are only more unsatisfied.

Introduction

This week's reading is the introduction. Again, we are studying a phenomenal book, "The Divine Conspiracy" by Dallas Willard. The following excerpts from the introduction are in blue italics. My commentary is sandwiched between the excerpts. Please let me know your thoughts. 

My hope is to gain a fresh hearing for Jesus, especially among those who believe they already understand him.

I believe this is completely necessary in today’s world. It’s especially striking with the interaction of Christians in popular culture. On the one hand we have some not exactly behaving like Jesus and spouting condemnation at unbelievers. On the other, critics are quick to condemn Christians for not behaving like their picture of Jesus, accepting of all behavior as equally valid. It can be so helpful to return to the Bible and study Jesus and his message so that we can actually do what He said and work to become like Him.

Dogma is what you have to believe, whether you believe it or not. And law is what you must do, whether it is good for you or not… Jesus and his words never belonged to the categories of dogma or law, and to read them as if they did is simply to miss them… He himself described his words as “spirit and life” (John 6:63).

The words of Jesus are powerful. He is fully God and fully man. When dealing with the creator of the world, to view anything He has to say as irrelevant or as a mere obligation is to not understand whom we are dealing with.

Jesus and his early associates over-whelmed the ancient world because they brought into it a stream of life at its deepest, along with the best information possible on the most important matters… The people initially impacted by that message generally concluded that they would be fools to disregard it. That was the basis of their conversion.

For some, this is not a revelation. For others, this is quite a concept. If you really believe what you say you believe, then following Jesus is the best possible way to live your life.

You will find few scholars or leaders in Christian circles who deny we are supposed to make disciples or apprentices to Jesus and teach them to do all things that Jesus said… We just don’t do it.

Dallas has written a whole book on this topic called “The Great Omission”. We’re not called to make converts, but disciples. After we accept Jesus as our savior, we are to be on a mission to be like Him – not to just stop where He found us.

In fact, it [the reason we aren’t making disciples] lies much deeper than anything we might appropriately feel guilty about. For it is not, truly, a matter of anything we do or don’t do. It is a matter of how we cannot but think and act, given the context of our mental and spiritual formation. So any significant change can come only by breaking the stranglehold of the ideas and concepts that automatically shunt aside Jesus, “the Prince of Life,” when questions of concrete mastery of our life arise.

This is a central point to the book. We need to re-examine our beliefs – in practice. Often what we say we believe isn’t what we really believe. In other words, our actions don’t line up with what we say we believe. By re-examining our view of Jesus and His instructions for us, we can move towards the end goal of being a mature believer.

More than any other single things, in any case, the practical irrelevance of actual obedience to Christ accounts for the weakened effect of Christianity in the world today, with its increasing tendency to emphasize political and social action as the primary way to serve God. It also accounts for the practical irrelevance of Christian faith to individual character development and overall personal sanity and well-being.

Grace is more than a cover up for our shortcomings. It is an empowerment to overcome them. If we believe Jesus meant what He said, then we have to believe that He will empower us to do it.

How life-giving it would be if their [individual Christian’s] understanding of the gospel allowed them simply to reply, “I will do them [teachings of Jesus]! I will find out how. I will devote my life to it! This is the best life strategy I have ever heard of!” and then go off to their fellowship and its teachers, and into their daily life, to learn how to live in his kingdom as Jesus indicated was best.

If this isn’t already where you are, it is my hope that after this book you’ll get there. Following Jesus and entering an eternal kind of life – right now – is the best way to live.

So the message of and about him [Jesus] is specifically a gospel for our life now, not just for dying. It is about living now as his apprentice in kingdom living, not just as a consumer of his merits. Our future, however far we look, is a natural extension of our faith by which we live now and the life in which we now participate. Eternity is now in flight and we with it, like it or not.

This is another central theme of the book. We begin our eternal life now – on earth. We don’t need to wait for heaven to begin to live an eternal kind of life. 

Buckle your seat belts. This book can take you to another level in your walk with God. It’s mostly just an explanation and enlightenment of scripture. Understanding and applying the Word of God can transform us. This book is just a tool along the way.

 

Switching Gears

After a brief hiatus from blogging, I'm returning with a new project. I've recently read a book that impacted me deeply. It is "The Divine Conspiracy" by Dallas Willard. I'm embarking a journey to read it again - this time studying and interacting with the material.

As part of a small group, some have joined me in this journey. If you would like to join my online small group - commit to reading the book and posting weekly - we'd love to have you. If you want to simply comment every so often, that's great, too. For those that aren't avid readers, I'm structuring the study so that you can participate even if you don't have the book. Each week, I will pull out a few excerpts from the weekly reading and then make my personal comments. If you are chose to join in and comment, I will respond to them all. For the sake of clarity, all excerpts from the book will be in blue italics. I encourage you to get a copy of the book and participate. This week is the introduction.

An Experienced Teacher

At the conclusion of our look at the parable of the two builders, I posed the question, "what, exactly, are we supposed to apply?" We need to be doers of the Word, but what specifically does that mean. What should the priority be?

One of the letters in the New Testament was written to a church with a similar question. This church was sorting through what was important. There was information overload, with false teachers overemphasizing the wrong thing. There was confusion as to what should be done. They needed someone to bring them back to the basics. Does that sound like a lot of church situations today?

The writer of this letter was Peter, and it goes by the name 2 Peter. Is there a character in the Bible that had a bigger roller coaster of journey then he did? When we think of Peter, we often think about his loud mouth and brashness to be the first to do anything. He was the one to walk on water. He first acknowledged Jesus as the Christ. He was in Jesus' inner circle.

Peter was also the one to tell Jesus he would die for Him, and then denied Him three times (In Peter's defense, he did make good on his promise - in the garden he decided to take on the Roman army trying to arrest Jesus. He was swinging at the soldier's head when he missed and lopped off his ear). His whole world was shaken when the Messiah didn't fit his preconceived beliefs.

Peter, a fisherman, was called out of humble beginnings. He was at the top of the world in ministry - the right hand man of the Son of God, the Messiah come to earth. He lost everything when he denied Christ and returned to fishing. He was restored to leadership and lead many to the faith with powerful preaching through the anointing of the Holy Spirit. He was a man who hit rock bottom and reached the top of the world a couple times each. In other words, he is someone with a qualified perspective to help us in our walk with Christ.

Peter said many words while on earth... the letter known as 2 Peter were some of his last - it was written within a few years of his death. If we want an outline of how to grow in maturity, 2 Peter is a good place to look:

⁵ In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, ⁶ and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, ⁷ and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone. 2 Peter 1:5-7 NLT

We'll dive into this verse in context next post.