Let me restate it as briefly as I can. God wants to heal us by setting us free from sin and evil so that we can love and be loved. Read that one more time. It's important that we understand it.
You see, we believe sin separates us from God and from one another. Evil, the evil done to us and the evil we embrace, does the same thing; it weakens the intimacy we can enjoy with God and with others. If this is true, then salvation is being reconciled to God as well as to one another.
Luke's gospel points us in this direction. In Luke's gospel we discover that salvation is holistic. The word saved is often translated as made whole or made well (cf. Luke 8.48). Furthermore, we discover that many people that are healed and made whole again are set free for community life--the leper (Lk. 5), the woman with blood disorder (Lk. 8) and the woman bent over by evil (Lk. 18).
I believe we can relate to this. Our sin makes us like lepers, it keeps us from others. The evil in our lives does the same. Does it shock us then that God wants to set us free so that we can do what we really want to do, love others in joy and freedom? It doesn't shock me at all. God's mission is one of healing--the healing of the world and the healing of our lives.
I believe this is the movement we find in The Shack as well. Mack needs to be set free from his pain, evil, and his idolatry (the ways he's made God in his own image). In meeting God, the real God he is now free for love.
We need to pursue the same movement in our own life. We need to pursue health. You can't be too passionate about your own health. So here's my challenge. I want you to think about the things that keep you from others. What keeps you from loving? Shame? Guilt? Poor self-image? Pride? Arrogance? Fear? Work on these sins as the Spirit leads and transforms. Peace.
2 comments:
I just listened to the sermon online from 9/27. It bothered me until you diferentiated roles vs. hierarchy. I do believe we are all given talents and serve different roles. This is also, in my estimation shown in the trinity with the "Father" and "Son" figure (the Holy Spirit is not so clear). Anyway to show all aspects of the trinity working together as equals with different roles is something I can grasp.
Gal 4:12 Brethren, I beseech you, be as I [am]; for I [am] as ye [are]: ye have not injured me at all.
Gal 4:13 Ye know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first.
Gal 4:14 And my temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected; but received me as an angel of God, [even] as Christ Jesus.
Gal 4:15 Where is then the blessedness ye spake of? for I bear you record, that, if [it had been] possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me.
2Cr 12:6 For though I would desire to glory, I shall not be a fool; for I will say the truth: but [now] I forbear, lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth me [to be], or [that] he heareth of me.
2Cr 12:7 ¶ And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.
2Cr 12:8 For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.
2Cr 12:9 And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
2Cr 12:10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.
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