A Rambling Follow Up To My Sermon

As a follow up to my sermon...

Here are the latest sticking point I'm dealing with in my quest to find salvation for those not yet affiliated with Christianity. I think my quest comes out of a personal perspective that goes something like this... I know a lot of people that are excellent loving human beings - many of whom, quite frankly, that put most Christians to shame with their acts of goodness - but that wouldn't touch Christianity with a ten foot pole while wearing gloves and a full body suit. It's not that they don't know Christ. The problem is that these people know "Christ" all too well. The branding of our religion has been so horribly mismanaged that these people think they know Jesus and the Jesus they think they know is not a dude they want to associate with. So these loving people go on loving other people and being good people while throwing up barriers to the TRUE gospel because of the false gospel they have heard. Are they doomed because of the evangelical missteps of others?

I admit that the sticking point in my thinking is that I believe Jesus when he says that he is the way and the truth and the life. I have found nothing else in all my travels that comes even close to Jesus as the way to live. Nothing. Even those many misguided individuals who think that they can be "spiritual" or perfectly good people without religion, no matter what they do are never going to reach their goal without finding Jesus. I believe this like I believe a boat without a rudder either crashes into rocks or goes in circles. No matter what your best intentions, without Jesus, you will fail to reach your goal of salvation.

But I define salvation a little bit differently than most. I don't see it as a place with pearly gates and unlimited non-fattening ice cream. I see salvation as a place where you are once and for all truly at peace with yourself and with each other - a place that is completely absent of all evil, where only love can reign. And really, can that be any place but in the presence of the one who made love, the one who is love? So salvation and Jesus line up perfectly with each other in a way that no other religion can offer - not Buddha, not Mohammed, nobody else.

So that's the sticking point. These people through no fault of their own are rejecting the one thing they truly want and need because flawed people have been representing Jesus to be something that He is not (and perhaps I am doing the same thing as well).

If Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, and if we can not possibly convey that concept to others except through our limited human flawed perspective, then how does anyone ever get to know the real Jesus? I've always been taught that Jesus calls people to him. We don't save anyone ourselves, we only facilitate God in his work. Therefore, the only one that can truly present Jesus to other people is Jesus Himself. And I'm thinking that if that's the case, Jesus can take any form He wishes and follow any set of rules He wants in order to bring people to Him.


I think labels are man made constructs. I think God sees humans far differently than we see ourselves. I think He divides us into three groups - saved, not yet saved, and not willing to be saved. I think the first group is very small - maybe less than 1 person in a million. I think the second group is almost everyone else. And I think the last group is also very small - because to belong to the last group, you have to know Christ and reject him anyway. And I don't just mean that you heard about him on some TV talk show, but REALLY know him.

So the vast majority of us are wandering around in various places on our own spiritual quests - some near the end, some having just begun, most probably somewhere in the middle - and God is leading us at our best pace towards true wisdom and understanding. Fortunately, God grades on a curve and each student has his own curve - that is what true forgiveness is all about. One day we will all stand before him and we will know instantly whether we passed or failed - because the scales will fall from our eyes and we will see ourselves as God sees us and we will know whether we have pleased him or whether we have rejected him.

Anyway, that's where I'm at... it's not a complete theology... and some of it might be fancy wish fulfillment with scripture quoted conveniently to back it up. I don't know. I don't speak for God. I'm also not at the end of my spiritual journey and I still have a great deal to learn.