spirtuality

Finish! (Sermon June 28, 2015)

2 Corinthians 8:7–15 (NRSV)

⁷ Now as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness, and in our love for you—so we want you to excel also in this generous undertaking.

⁸ I do not say this as a command, but I am testing the genuineness of your love against the earnestness of others. ⁹ For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich. ¹⁰ And in this matter I am giving my advice: it is appropriate for you who began last year not only to do something but even to desire to do something— ¹¹ now finish doing it, so that your eagerness may be matched by completing it according to your means. ¹² For if the eagerness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has—not according to what one does not have. ¹³ I do not mean that there should be relief for others and pressure on you, but it is a question of a fair balance between ¹⁴ your present abundance and their need, so that their abundance may be for your need, in order that there may be a fair balance. ¹⁵ As it is written,

“The one who had much did not have too much,

and the one who had little did not have too little.”

Although I am sure everyone’s minds have pulled various directions this week due to the topics on the news, I would like us center down for a moment and focus on faith, truth, and the holy rhythm of life that Jesus taught us. I challenge each of us, including myself to center on this because if the holy lifestyle of Christ is not at the center of our lives every moment of every day we will look at current events, and every other aspect of life there skewed lenses of personal perception.

Paul wrote these words to a community that was saturated with icons of entertainment and luxury. A culture that was devoted to commerce, athletics, sensual pleasures, and religious devotion. I want us all to remember the last statement I mentioned the most. Corinth was a devout city. Their entire culture revolved around their religious devotion. It permiated every aspect of their lives and livelihoods. Their athletic games were religious celebrations, their commerce was a blessing of their deity, and they gained great pleasure at their places of worship. They in many ways were not unlike us. The main difference was the deity they honored.

They lived and breathed their faith, it was something that affected every aspect of their lives. And Paul visited them and shared the Gospel of Christ. When he spoke to them, he spoke to them in terms that they would understand. He likened the holy lifestyle of Christ to the training an athlete would engage in while preparing for the games, a life of discipline and devotion. Not one that is easy but requires sacrifice and work. He then went deeper letting them know that this holy lifestyle we know as being a disciple of Christ focuses on loving God, embracing the Spirit’s leading and gifts, and living the love of Christ with others. He begins to speak with a language that they understand and then he goes deeper and deeper until the rhythm of God has so saturated their being that it begins to flow out of them to others.

Our mission in this Meeting is similar to that of Jesus and Paul, of all the apostles and the Church throughout the world. Our mission is to completely saturate individuals in the love and devotion to Christ to the point that that love will ooze out of us and flow to others within our community. This is why we considered our mission statement with careful consideration and discernment. Our mission statement, the statement we declare each week is, that we are a people loving God, embracing the Holy Spirit, and living the love of Christ with others. It was not something that came out of worldly leadership manuals, but it emerged among us as a group through prayer, careful consideration, and discernment. And that mission is constantly being supported though scripture.

I declare to you that our mission has not changed, and it will not change. I will continue to encourage everyone I meet to love God, embrace the Holy Spirit, and to live the love of Christ with other where ever I am and with whomever I am with. It is a mission centered on building the relational kingdom community that Jesus began centuries ago and pass on to those that follow him, first in Jerusalem, then to Judea, and to the ends of the Earth.

I say that this is our mission statement, but it really is not ours alone. It is the vision of Christ, it was the mission of Christ, with the foundations that go down to the very beginning of time. It has always been God’s mission to bring mankind back into relationship with him, to restore and redeem the world that was once launched into chaos by our first parents, when they sought to be gods instead of living life with God.

I say all of this because Corinth was a devoted city. Paul introduced the gospel of Christ to them and many embraced the Holy lifestyle that Paul showed them through his life and ministry. Yet they veered off course. They allowed the things to distract them. They once lived with a holy rhythm but they allowed that rhythm to get out of sync, and the beatings of their hearts stopped mimicking that of Christ and began instead to reflect something else entirely. Their heart beat with rhythms of commerce, games, and pleasure once more yet they still held to religious devotion.

Paul tells them, “[You] excel in everything – in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness, and in our love for you – so we want you to excel also in this generous undertaking.” These people were amazing people. Ancient myths speak about great kings that could turn everything they touch into gold, well these people could do this. They excelled in everything. If they had a goal set before them they could make it happen. That is what built their city, and their culture, if they decided to do something they did not just do it, they did it in such a way that it was great! Paul tells them this because he knows and they know that it is true. But with that statement he challenges them too.” [We] want you to excel also in this generous undertaking.” The undertaking he is challenging them with is to devote all of that excellence into supporting the continued ministry of Christ.

In many ways Corinth pulled away from the larger church, they pulled away from engaging the culture in which they lived, and their message began to suffer because of it. They pulled away from the church because they had issues that they needed to deal with at home. In the first letter Paul sent to them he called them out on many areas of their individual and communal lives that had strayed from the rhythm of Christ. Because of this they tightened their belts and used their excellence to become a more devote church. They focused on making themselves better, exceling in speech, in knowledge and eagerness live correctly. Paul and the Church as a whole loved them for their devotion, but through this excellence they neglected a very important aspect of devotion to Christ, they neglected living the love of Christ with others. We might see that as being a minor thing. They had excellent worship services, they had excellent theology, excellent dedication to right living we might say they turned themselves into the model church after being the example of what not to do. But in all that excellence they dammed up the flow of grace to the world.

When we neglect living the love of Christ with others we cause the grace of God to become stagnat and the church fails. We fail because the church is not about perfect worship, it is not about perfect theology it is about His will being done on Earth as it is in Heaven. His will is to redeem and restore all of creation back to harmony with each other and with God once again, uniting Heaven and Earth through the hearts of mankind. Paul is saying to them join with us in this generous undertaking. Join with us as we allow the grace to flow to the people God loves and gave his Son to redeem.

As I reflect on this passage my mind wonders to the Gospel of John and the third time Jesus, well the third time John records Jesus meeting with the disciples. Peter and the other fishermen decided that they were done with waiting around in the upper room and return to their fishing boats. They labored all night with no return and in the morning Jesus calls out to them from the shore and tells them to throw the net over the right side.  They were each struck with a case of Déjà vu, and they come to the shore to eat with him. After the meal Jesus talks with Peter, asking if he loves him and peter answers three times that he does. With each answer Jesus encourages Peter to feed his lambs, tend His sheep, and to feed His sheep. This story is the very passage that God used to call me into the ministry I have pursued for the past thirteen years. And it is the passage that often Jesus brings me back to when He again reassures me that I need to continue down this path. But as I reflect this week I am drawn to the encouragement that Jesus gives to Peter, feed the lambs, tend the sheep, and feed the sheep. This is a call to get involved personally, and generously with the people. Feed, tend, and feed some more. This is a calling to live the love of Christ with others.

Paul, like Jesus to Peter, is challenging the people of Corinth with the question “Do you Love me?” He is not commanding that they participate in the outreach ministry of Apostles, but he is challenging them to consider their faith, devotion, and love for Christ. If you were to read the verses prior to this section you would find that Paul mentions the ministry of the churches in Macidonia and the way they had greatly advanced the kingdom even though they were impoverished, and Paul then asks the people of Corinth if their faith and love for Christ compares to theirs. They had and still have nothing yet they gave it all. Is your love any less?

“Do you love me?”  Jesus asks his disciple. “Do you love Him?”  Paul asks the people of Corinth. Do we love him, do we trust and believe to such a degree that we would be willing to not only love God and embrace the Holy Spirit, but to live the love of Christ with others? Do we not only love but do we trust Him? Do we entrust into his care our very lives and livelihoods? Will we be willing to give all that we have to excel in this generous undertaking?

All have sinned, all have been distracted from God, and all including each of us have allowed things both righteous and unrighteous to disrupt the holy rhythm of our lives with God. Yet while we were still and in some cases are still sinners Christ died for us. He left his lofty thrones in heaven to dwell among mankind on earth. He lived among us showing us what life with God looks like, and he did it while living in poverty. He grew up living and working with a handy man, he entered ministry after an entire career in that line of work, and he did it to show us how to live. And then he took on our sin, our guilt, and our shame hanging them on a cross and then burying them within a tomb. The wages of sin are death, but Christ came so that they may have life and have it abundantly. We are dead in sin but in Christ we are alive, made new, and have the hope of heaven even when we are on earth. Paul asks us, “do we love him, is our love for him any less than theirs?” Paul then encourages them to finish what they started. Finish strong like an athlete that has been well trained and disciplined for the race. Finish it. Do not let the world distract us from our vision and our mission. Let our vision be centered on Christ, and let our mission continue driving us to be a people loving God, embracing the Holy Spirit, and living the love of Christ with others. Let us finish what we started…what He started in us, let us join and finish with excellence the generous undertaking set before us, sacrificing everything so that the world might see life in Christ.

Open Wide Your Hearts (Sermon June 21, 2015)

2 Corinthians 6:1–13 (NRSV)

The Tempest Beckmann, Max, 1884-1950
Boston, MA

As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. ² For he says,

“At an acceptable time I have listened to you,

and on a day of salvation I have helped you.”

See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation! ³ We are putting no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, ⁴ but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, ⁵ beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; ⁶ by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, ⁷ truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; ⁸ in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; ⁹ as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see—we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; ¹⁰ as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

¹¹ We have spoken frankly to you Corinthians; our heart is wide open to you. ¹² There is no restriction in our affections, but only in yours. ¹³ In return—I speak as to children—open wide your hearts also.

What is faith in God? What does it mean to be a Friend of truth, of God, and of man? What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus? What is the purpose of the Church?  I hope that these questions have risen in your heart and your mind a few times as you have personally walked along the pathways of faith. I hope that you have questioned your faith for a reason. If we do not question our faith, if we do not challenge ourselves or our beliefs, do we actually believe anything?

Paul tells the people of Corinth not to accept the grace of God in vain. To me he is also challenging them to question or examine their faith. The term vain is an interesting word. It means without content, hollow, useless and careless. So when Paul speaks to these people he is challenging them to examine their lives of faith, to take a look inside themselves and their community, to investigate their actions and motives to see if they are hollow or filled.

This very idea probably scares many of us, frankly it scares me, because it requires that each of us must face the truth of ourselves and humbly walk before God. What if when we gaze into our lives of faith we find a void?  This prompts many of us to fear self-examination, to neglect it, and we begin to live a life of vanity. A hollow empty existence, where we have lied to ourselves about our faith and devotion of God, while in reality there is nothing there.

This is the very thing that the early Friends challenged their countrymen about when they began forming their religious society. I am reminded of George Fox’s testimony of his spiritual journey, he eagerly sought direction and encouragement from the religious leaders throughout his travels each gave advice to quiet his passions yet all left him empty and hungry for more. One advised him to find himself a wife to divert his attention and to fill the void he was feeling with the passions and responsibilities of a family. Another told him to seek mental care through the use of tobacco and bloodletting.  While the third flew into a fit of rage because George stepped off of the pathway in the garden and crushed a leaf of one of the precious plants the priest was tending. Each of these men were respected individual within the religious community, they were people that George himself thought would be the ones that could answer the questions he had about his spiritual life. Yet their spiritual direction was distractions. Make a family, do drugs, or find fulfillment in temporal and material pursuits.

I imagine that the young George Fox probably felt as if the whole idea of faith was empty if the best advice given by the spiritual leaders is the same advice he could have received from anyone on the street or in the pub. He took his Bible and he walked out into the fields, broken, searching, and wondering.

“At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you.” Paul reminds the faithful of the words that God spoke to the prophet Isiah centuries before. Centuries before even the life of Jesus. And yet those words speak not only to those faithful from the Hebrew believes but also to the gentiles among the community. Fox described this as a day of visitation. A moment in time where the spirits of man and God brush together, a crossroad at which those journeying must make a decision of which direction they will proceed. Paul tells the people of Corinth that they are at one of those crossroads in faith.

Our spiritual journeys are filled with several of these crossroads. At times it seems as if every moment of every day is yet another day of visitation challenging us to make some sort of decision. It should not surprise us that so many in the faith communities question, examine, and decide to either stay or leave communities of faith.

This is where the Church is important. Those days of visitation can be very difficult to endure. The Church as a whole is probably one of the greatest days of visitation it has ever faced. We as individuals and a communities are facing pressures from within and without the church demanding attention. Does this mean we need to withdraw and retreat? Not in the slightest. It means we need to examine ourselves and our church meetings to determine if maybe we are being vain or being honest. We need to come back to the center and focus again on the most important aspects of our faith traditions and stop trying to be things we are not.

Paul explains this as putting out no obstacles, this is a very confusing term because on the surface we would assume that these would be legalistic rules that keep people from finding acceptance within a community. Hoops of requirements that we require people to jump through before they are found acceptable. This might be the case, but it goes deeper than that. This term is one that is personal; causing one to stumble, causing spiritual hurt, or causing offense. Think about that for a moment. The obstacles that Paul is speaking of are relational or the lack there of. Some might consider this to be liberal in theology, watering down the truth or even succumbing to the world, but before you jump to that conclusion remember who these people were that were reading this letter.

The people of Corinth were fixated on the feeding of their own personal desires. They worship the goddess of love, the partied around athletic events, and their livelihoods depended on trade and the servicing of the traders. Yet Paul says to them do not become offensive when you participate in the ministry of God. The call of God and the call of the culture are on very different edges of the spectrum of life for these people, but do not be offensive do not cause pain, or someone to stumble. In my mind I cannot really grasp how Paul expects us and them to not provide an obstacle to these people. It is impossible to preach the gospel and not be offensive to the world, without relationship with God and humanity being the goal.

Paul is urging them to go out in ministry, go out living the love of Christ with other, build friendships with the people of the world and show them a different lifestyle. Friends would call this living a sacramental life, fully devoted to God. Speaking through our actions as well as with our words. If we fail to live the love of Christ with others we will always be an obstacle, our words will fall on deaf ears because we have not given them a reason to listen. Without building a relationship, an authentic relationship where we accept them for who they are first and then encourage them to walk with us as we follow Christ, we are empty of the truth and they will only see us a judgmental bigots.

Paul then provides a testimony as to how to live life with others; endure the hardships, face the riots, the beatings, go hungry so others might have something to eat. In essence he is saying sacrifice all your security, and all of your comfort so that you can speak the truth to those around you at their level. Siding with the exploited ones, demanding justice for those who have been wronged, giving to those who have need. Yes the ministry of the church is social justice. Our hearts should break whenever and where ever we see inequality, prejudices, and exploitation. I say this because this is the ministry that Jesus himself started. And when he taught his disciples to pray they were to pray that “thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven.” On Earth as it is in Heaven, quite literally means that we should be striving to make heaven on earth. What would that look like?

This is an extremely difficult passage to really grasp. It feels as if Paul is speaking in two different directions when we know we can only go in one. This is why the church is so extremely important. It is the community of faithful that come alongside those that are experiencing those days of visitation, to provide encouragement to the ones that are struggling. It is the community that will help us discern the various voices calling us to different paths in life. The church is the place and the community that supports our ministries. It is the church that encourages us to adopt the holy lifestyle that Christ taught us, the life of prayer, worship and ministry. Without the church there is not a community, there is not support, and we are left alone trying to make vain attempts to fill a relational void yet having nothing to fill it.

How are we doing as a church? Are we vain, empty of all that really matters or are we filed with the love and grace of God? Are we putting obstacles before people or are we helping them walk around the very things that cause them to fall? Are we living the love of Christ with others? Paul closes this section of scripture by telling the people of Corinth that his heart is open to them. That he loves and accepts them for who they are. They should know this because he had spent so much time with them prior to him writing these two letters to them. He endured so much with them and yet they hesitate. They look to him with some contempt because they had hardened their hearts, they had slid back into previous lifestyles and they are seeing Paul as judging them instead of loving them. It is not Paul who has changed but them. It is their hearts that have hardened and forgotten how to love. They are the ones that have engaged in the obstacles and cooled the devotion. So Paul says “Open wide your hearts.”

As we enter into this time of open worship I encourage each of us to Open wide our hearts, to examine our faith and allow the Spirit to examine us as well. Have we became vain? Have we emptied ourselves of God’s grace and become obstacles to those that are seeking the acceptance of God? Is there room for improvement? We are in a day of visitation, and our salvation is just before us. If we earnestly seek Him He will be our ever present teacher and guide, He will lead us down the right paths even if our wisdom fails. So as we examine let us also seek that direction, let us ask that that very spirit will fill the areas of emptiness with grace and let us be moved to encourage those people whom God leads us to encourage.

What is Our Salvation For? (Sermon May 17, 20150

1 John 5:9–13 (NRSV)

Sheets, Millard, 1907-1989 (painted 1964)
University of Notre Dame
South Bend, IN

⁹ If we receive human testimony, the testimony of God is greater; for this is the testimony of God that he has testified to his Son. ¹⁰ Those who believe in the Son of God have the testimony in their hearts. Those who do not believe in God have made him a liar by not believing in the testimony that God has given concerning his Son. ¹¹ And this is the testimony: God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. ¹² Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

Epilogue

¹³ I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.

What is salvation for? This question is the very question that we consider every Wednesday evening. I may sound like a pretty silly question but just consider it for a moment…What is our salvation for? Many answers may come to mind, but as those answers enter your mind again ask the question what is salvation for?

I ask this question because it is one that has been ricocheting around in my mind for several years in one form or another. The immediate response that comes to mind is, “so I can go to Heaven…” well actually that is probably a bit of a cleaned up super-spiritual answer because actually that answer really is, “so I don’t go to hell.” If we are honest with ourselves, this is the first answer that came to our minds. For many of us that very answer is the beginning point of our spiritual journey. But if that is all that salvation is for why exactly are we here?

If all salvation is for is to get us to heaven there were be very little reason for us to come every, or nearly every Sunday to worship. Yet here we are on yet another Sunday singing praises, reading scriptures, and centering down to listen to the spirit of God. Yet so often that is the message that the church pushes out to the world, have faith in God and avoid hell. Because of this over and over again we hear calls for people to come down to the altar to pray to receive Jesus as their savior. What then? We are saved but what good is it, is it just a life insurance policy that we purchase and wait for it to mature so we can collect the benefits later on?

No that is not salvation. That is sales and marketing. That is packaging up the gospel to make the consumer feel like they got a great deal for minimal cost. It is simple, concise, and a bargain. Yet often that is how we try to present the good news to the people of the world. The reality is that answer is not fully wrong, but it is not full either. It is a shell of the gospel, hollow and shallow.

What is salvation for, what is the Gospel for, for that matter what is the Gospel? Questions like this run through everyone’s minds at one point or another throughout their spiritual journeys, because questions like this arise out of a life lived. Every moment we live events occur that cause reactions, at times the reactions that we experience are very pleasant while at other moments these events break us down at the knees causing us to reconsider whatever we once thought we believed. What is salvation for?

Throughout John’s epistle he has had to deal with these sorts of questions. He is writing a letter to people that had a belief that God was going to establish a kingdom among them within their lifetime. That Jesus was ascended to heaven to prepare not just a place for them, but that he was going to prepare the armies of God to overthrow the powers of the world immediately and establish a new order and kingdom that would have no end. The problem was that the first disciples, the ones that witnessed Jesus and walked with him as he performed many amazing feats, were all slowly falling to various forms of persecution. So faith was being questioned, what is this thing we call faith for, if it was not what they first expected?

John tells us listen to the testimonies. Listen to the stories, the accounts of those around us. Listen and observe because in those words we will begin to see a glimpse of what God is doing and the beginning of the answers. The story of our lives are powerful because our story is one that no one can really question, it is simply what we experience and observed around us. We may not interpret the events the same way as the one speaking to us, but we cannot say that it is legend or tall tale because it is personal, and we were not there. But words of women and men can only go so far. Testimony is a court term, it brings to mind images of a court room where lawyers are coming forward asking questions and an individual is recounting observations as they remember them. Our story is powerful because it is what was seen, it can be used by other to assist them in making judgments, but testimonies can only go so far, because it is simply one piece of evidence. One piece of evidence does not make the case because the evidence only points to the truth. The truth lies deeper within.

John then says that God also give a testimony, and that testimony is even greater than all the testimonies of mankind. The testimony of God has been collected throughout the ages and continues to be presented for the ages to come. It is the testimony that dwell in the pages of scripture and in the hearts of humanity. Which leads us to something else. The heart. When the ancients spoke of the heart they did not have the same knowledge as we do today, to them the heart was an abstract concept they knew it was deep within, and that life was connected to it but they did not know that it was an organ made of muscle tissues that was used to circulate blood throughout the body to provide the various systems the nutrients and elements to live. To the ancients the heart was simply the essence of life. That part deep within that gave purpose and meaning, it was your truest self.

The testimony of God dwells in the truest self of humanity, the image of God. John says that if we do not believe we are calling God a liar, because we are rejecting that testimony. Which bring many more questions up, but continues to revolve around a central theme. What is salvation for and along with it what is life for.

Throughout the New Testament we hear eternal, everlasting, and abundant life spoken about. It is easy for us to get hung up on one particular meaning of those words. I would like us to consider a different meaning today vitality, or essence. “God gave us vitality, meaningful, essences of life, through his son.” He gives us true foundational, meaningful, actual life, life that endures through the trials, continues through every trial that can be thrown at us. Something that through the darkest or brightest situations life that can be filled with joy. This is a very different type of life than that life that the world has to offer. It is a life that goes beyond just what we experience today or even our life time but endures though ages and ages. It is humanity. It is creation singing the praises of its creator dancing with God through the symphony of life.

You see often we do not see the larger picture, we only see what is right us. That is how the world views life, just what is before us. This narrowed view of life damns so many things. When we fail to embrace the fullness of life with Christ we limit what God can do through us. We have limited resources, limited time, limited energy, limited everything we can only operate in a very small area because that is life according to the world. How can we minister within our limits? We cannot. We cannot bring a testimony of peace and nonviolence to the cities of America because the job is too large and we are too small. We cannot end the hideousness of human trafficking because we are just a small group and there are millions of people that are already in bondage. We cannot stop wars because we do not have enough time to negotiate peace. We cannot….

The limits we have are vast. We cannot do anything because we are trapped within a worldly view of life. Life that is only here now, life that is not enduring, that does not continue, that will end when we end. But John and the apostles were bearing witness and testifying to a life that was much different. Jesus came announcing that the kingdom of God was at hand. Immediately people began attach that statement to their worldly understanding of kingdoms and life. He said that within that generation he would usher in that kingdom riding upon the clouds, which brings many more ideas and understandings. John then writes his letter at the closing of that generation say it is true, the kingdom is here the only reason we do not see it is our eyes are not focused in the right places. We cannot see the vastness of the enduring and everlasting life because we are looking though eyes that are trapped in the bondages of the temporal world. But the kingdom is here, it is all around us.

That kingdom is right in front of us. God is calling us, writing his commands and desires on our hearts urging us to embrace the enduring life right here and right now. He is calling us to salvation through him so that we can bring that enduring life to the world that is stuck in its own limitations. What would happen if we did not live constrained by the limits of the world? What if we did not believe that time was a limiting factor? Would we pursue the things that God has written deep down in the core of our being? What if we believed that the resurrected Christ could build his kingdom where we are now and allow that work to endure throughout the ages? Would we allow the limits of this world to hinder us from living the enduring life that is found in Christ?

The reality is that life endures with or without us. It has endured for thousands if not millions of years. And it will continue well beyond what we perceive to be our life time. So why then are we focusing on the short term things instead of the things that endure? Jesus showed us how to focus on the enduring things. The things that matter are found in Prayer, worship and service to others. That rhythm of life, the lifestyle that Jesus lived while he walked the earth and called twelve men to participate in. Jesus did not see the limitation of these twelve men but he saw the eternal, enduring, abundant life that was living at the core. He showed them how to nourish that life, how to steadily pursue the goal and the task set before them, joyfully enduring whatever the world threw at them. And the kingdom has come. It begins when we enter into that lifestyle and start living with Christ and then sharing our lives with those around us. Letting the evidence of God’s testimony be expressed through our actions and words.

John then writes, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.” Everything we do endures, just as our spirit endures with Christ. The question remains what is our salvation for? It is for us to propel the kingdom of God into the ages that come after us. It is for us to live in lives with the endurance of Christ at the center of what we do. It is for us to boldly take on the various lifestyles of the world that are limiting humanity from experiencing the life that God has testified lives within the deepest recesses of our hearts. He wants us to live our lives totally for him. Taking for ourselves the lifestyle He showed us so that through us and the enduring lives that began centuries ago that continues through us we will see his kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. Our salvation is not for us, but it is for Him and for the world he created.