What Happened at the Cross?

In my Integrated Theology class, we've been studying Soteriology the past couple of classes. Last Thursday we were talking about Atonement theories - what happened when Christ died for us - looking at how it works. Our main textbook is called The Mosaic of Christian Belief by Rogers Olson. He discuses four main theories which he says fall within the realm of orthodox Christianity. They are listed below.

1. Ransom/Satisfaction - Christ's death 'paid Satan off' to some extent so that we were freed from bondage to him. Mark 10:45, 1 Tim. 2:6, Heb. 9:15
2. Christ the Victor - At the cross, Christ forever defeated Satan, sin, and death. Rom. 8:2, 1 John 2:1
3. Substitution - Christ took the punishment that we deserved because of our sin. Gal. 3:10, 13, John 15:13, 2 Cor. 5:21, 1 Pet. 3:18
4. Moral Influence - Through His life, Christ became our model of how to return to a right relationship with God. Phil. 2:5, Rom. 7:4-6, Gal. 2:20

Now, I personally think that #4 is getting closer to the edge of what I would typically consider solid theology, but that may be because I don't entirely understand it.

One of the things that was mentioned in class was the question of "why does this really matter?" Although Christ's death on the cross is clearly one of the most important doctrines of Christianity, does it really matter how God accomplished our salvation through Christ's work?

While this was still somewhat in the back of my mind, that Sunday in church we sang a song by the Gettys called "Power of the Cross." {Can I just add that I appreciate their lyrics a lot?} As we were singing it, I couldn't help but compare it with the various theories we had talked about. I think this particular song lines up mostly with the Substitution theory, although it does refer some to a couple of the others.

In the end, the important thing to remember about Christ's death is what it accomplished, not necessarily how it was accomplished. At the same time, as we were encouraged in class, it is important to ask the how and why questions. Through searching for the answers to those deeper questions, we can come to know God's heart and His workings more fully.

So...I don't have any deep insight here to share with you, but I did just want to encourage you not to be afraid to search out why you believe what you believe. When approached from the understanding that God and His Word have the correct answers and are the final authority, I think it would be hard to go wrong on that quest.

Do I really mean it?

This morning we sang this song in church. The lyrics are below.

As we were singing it, I couldn't help but wonder how much I really meant what I was singing. This evening as I was journaling I reflected on it some more.....here's some of what I wrote.

Christ wants me to be holy and broken and faithful. But do I really want to be broken? Am I really willing to do what it takes to be holy? Am I ready to sacrifice my will for the sake of being faithful to the One who owns me?

Even when my heart's cry wants to say yes, my flesh wants to run the other way. I do want to be all Christ's. I know that's the only way to truly live with any real meaning. And yet, so often I still want to do my own thing, be my own person, go my own direction. It's moment-by-moment relying on God and dying to myself. Dying is hard---but I must in order to LIVE in the resurrection power of my Savior!

On that glorious day when I bow before His throne, I certainly won't look back and wish I had done more things that only brought earthly pleasure. On the contrary, I will wish I had been a better steward of the talents with which my Lord has entrusted me. If only I could always live with that end in mind!

Holiness:

Holiness, holiness is what I long for.

Holiness is what I need.

Holiness, holiness is what You

want from me.

Holiness, holiness is what I long for.

Holiness is what I need.

Holiness, holiness is what You

want from me.

So, take my heart and form it.

Take my mind and transform it.

Take my will and conform it.

To Yours, to Yours, oh, Lord.

Faithfulness, faithfulness is what I

long for.

Faithfulness is what I need.

Faithfulness, faithfulness is what.

You want from me.

Brokenness, brokenness is what I

long for.

Brokenness is what I need.

Brokenness, brokenness is what

You want from me.

Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsmania.com/holiness_lyrics_sonicflood.html

{interestingly, one version I looked at substituted "righteousness" instead of "brokenness" in the verse.}

Philippians 3 Revisited

A little over three years ago, I started this blog. My first post was mainly an essay that was part of the application process to JBU. You can read it here if you want. I had originally written that essay on September 19^th of 2008. I was just starting my senior year of high school. My, but that does seem like a long time ago!

What I didn’t say then because I wasn’t really willing to admit it is that I had tried to write the essay the night before. I clearly remember sitting there reflecting on what a relationship with God should look like and realizing that mine did not at all look like I wanted it to. This was one of the nights I talked about in a recent post. But that time I turned to Philippians, with 3:10 ringing in my ears. Reading through it that night framed my essay the next day.

Back to the present – God’s brought me a long way since that night, and JBU has definitely been a piece of that transformation. This month I’ve been chewing through Philippians again, in small bite-sized chunks. I’ve decided Philippians 3 is probably my favorite chapter in the whole Bible (although I like John 17 a lot too!), and I think 3:10 and the section around it is basically my life verse/s. So tonight I just wanted to share some of what I wrote down the other morning as I was reading Philippians 3 after spending a few days in it.

“This chapter is like a definition of the Christian life,” I wrote.

• · Don’t strive for fleshly/earthly things
• · Count all earthly stuff a loss for Christ
• · Seek to grow in Christ’s righteousness, not your own
• · Most important of all is knowing Christ!
• · Keep pressing on toward Christ! In a way, forget everything that it past – failures and accomplishments
• · We do NOT do this {life} alone – we are to do it with other like-minded people
• · We are citizens of heaven, not of earth. We await the coming of our Savior and the renewal of our bodies.

Hmm….looking at that list it almost looks like it forms a chiasm of sorts. Haha, Dr. Blankenship would be proud of me ;-)

But seriously – if you haven’t read Philippians recently I would definitely suggest chapter 3. Don’t you think it sums everything up pretty well? I’d also certainly advise taking little bits at a time rather than trying to gulp it down. I don’t think reading through the Bible in a year is a bad thing (I just did it in 2011!), but I personally think it’s better to take more time to look into passages more deeply. I know that I “get” a lot more out of my Bible reading time when I do smaller sections rather than a large chunk.

Called to Love

Well, break is over and I'm back at school. It was good to have a time without studying. I still worked a good bit, but I also had time to just relax and to reflect. God is continuing to remind me of things. One of the things in the past month has been what His call on the lives of His people is.

I've been spending time in Philippians for a little over a week now. The last couple days I've been in chapter 2, and God used it to remind me that each of us is called to love others sacrificially, as Christ loved us.

God's love for us is SO amazing and SO unconditional. But we should not keep that love for ourselves. He loves us so that we can in turn pour out love onto others. We are not here in this world for us. We are here to bring glory to God and to shine as His lights (Phil. 2:15).

Just today I was reading a chapel talk that Chip Pollard, the president of JBU, gave a while ago and put into his book May It Always Be True. This particular one was focusing on kindness, based on Mark 12:28-31 about the greatest commandment being to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves.

In the section about loving God, President Pollard writes:

"We should love the Lord our God with all aspects of our being. Our love for God should move us emotionally...tax us intellectually...stretch us physically...shape our spiritual character...define the inner core of our personality. There is no part of our being that should not respond to God's character. Moreover, to love God with all [of your being]...means being willing to surrender [all of your being]...to His calling." pg. 46

As often happens, God has been using multiple sources to remind me of His truth on this issue. Love is a powerful force. It can change the world - turn it upside down. And we have been given this "secret weapon" if you will. The devil doesn't understand love. How could he? It's antithetical to him and who he is. If Christians would only be willing to sacrifice our own self-pleasure enough to unleash the full power of God's love through us, we could be His tools to transform this globe.

Something else God reminded me of as I was out walking this afternoon is that it isn't enough for me to think about these things, or to write about them. I must act. So, you are more than welcome to keep me accountable on this. When you see me, you could ask me "what have you done to love someone else?" Thanks :)

God's Puzzle: Afterward

{Forgot to post this last night - sorry! Have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day :) }

Honestly, I feel at the moment as though my future is a big question mark. God taught me at the beginning of this semester that I am to be in submission to His will for my life – that I am His, not mine. I don’t think living that out will always make sense to me or to those around me.

One may ask why I took all the time to write this all down tonight/this morning [Nov. 16/17] when I have papers I should probably be working on. Simply speaking, the answer is that I needed to. This is how I process stuff. I’ve been meaning to do it for months, as I said, and tonight I felt like it was the right time to sit down and actually do it.

Tonight (Wed. Nov. 16) didn’t go at all like I thought it would – just goes to show that God’s got plans for us we don’t always understand. But I don’t regret a moment of it, which is sadly pretty unusual for my life this semester.

If you’ve read all 3,400 words of this monologue, you most certainly deserve a medal. If you make proper application (involving applicable comments on each post), I will try to get you one ;-)

But really - please do let me know what you think.

God's Puzzle: Part 6

October and November have been tough months for me. I’ve allowed myself to stress about nearly everything. I’ve not done a couple of [small] homework assignments. Most papers have been done the night before or day that they are due. For a multiplicity of various reasons, I didn’t go to a single church service at my church here in Siloam Springs between Sept. 11 and Nov. 6. Most of those weekends I was out of town, but a couple of times I chose not to attend.

The lesson from these trying past couple of months—although I am only just now recognizing it—is that it is not enough to say “yes” when I hear the question “Do you trust Me?” or to say “I am Thine.” I must make the choice, through God’s strength, to live that out in my actions if I am to find the rest and the satisfaction in life that I learned last spring is possible.

The process of learning this hasn’t been easy…October’s musings filled 16 pages of my journal…but standing here I am thankful to be able to look back and finally see that there has been a lesson in all the hiccups I feel like I’ve been through. Again, I don’t feel like talking about it in detail here…it’s still too recent I guess. To some extent, God used spring semester to ground me in His love—the summer to teach me that He is trustworthy—September to show me what He calls me to—and October and November have been something of a test to see if I am ready to live it out.

And frankly, I’ve failed quite a few times. Because even with the past 11 months of learning, I still forget. The weekends of Oct. 9 and Nov. 5 were, honestly, horrible. Last weekend was amazing. This weekend may not be so great because I have one paper due Sunday night and two others due Monday. But I have the tools to succeed – well, one tool really: God’s strength. If I choose to trust Him and to work diligently, I can do well. I don’t have to be stressed. God is faithful – it is up to me to live in recognition of His faithfulness.

God's Puzzle: Part 5

While last spring was all about love and the summer was all about trust, this semester (when I’ve been paying attention) has been about surrender. I say “when I’ve been listening” because I haven’t been doing all that great a job at it. But God is STILL faithful, even then.

Spiritual Emphasis Week in chapel was what picked up from the ideas that had started in August and really brought home the idea that I am a slave to Christ. Singer Michael Card came and talked to us for three days – and I was very blessed by his ministry to us. I tried to write a post about it that I realized at the time didn’t nearly do it justice.

This semester I am learning the importance for me of making time to be still before God. To process and reflect on what is going on in my life. Frequently, those times happen when I escape my dorm room and go to one of my growing number of retreat areas. Being outside and in communion with God works within my soul at a deep level – and that’s important for me. I’ve also started occasionally picking up small objects as mementos – like the memorial altars the Israelites built.

Anyhow, that’s what I did a few days after the slavery blog post – spent time out at the Hundred Stairs praying through some things. I also rode my bike out to a state park in Oklahoma where I spent all day Saturday Sept. 24 enjoying being out in “the wild.” A lot of that time didn’t have anything particularly spiritual about it – but it was a relaxing and refreshing experience. The next day was my birthday – the big 21. I was blessed by the love of several friends that day, and the Gathering that night dove-tailed well with the lesson on surrender I had been learning.

On Sept. 28, I bought one of the necklaces made by women in Africa that were being sold to help them earn money. I didn't think of it at the moment I picked it out, but I soon felt nudged to use it as a daily reminder that I am not my own – I am God's. I have worn it most of the time since then, and often as I put it on I am thinking about the fact that I am a mere vessel in the use of my Master. "I am Thine" has been the recurring thought of my heart in the weeks since. Not that those weeks have been easy – they haven't.