How does faith function in your life? Is your faith primarily private or does your faith challenge you to open up to others and to the world around you? I was raised in an environment which stressed the depth of my sins and being born again. The real emphasis was on my own personal salvation. As the old saying goes, That will preach! And it should preach, for we are all sinners in need of Gods grace.
Over the years, as my faith was challenged, I came to realize this is a rather myopic view of faith. We are commanded to love God and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. My earlier view of faith primarily emphasized the personal benefits to be derived from committing my life to Christ my sins were forgiven, I was assured of eternal life, and of Gods presence when the going got tough. But what about truly loving God and my neighbor? Concerning my neighbor, doesnt Jesus call us to be salt and light?
One who truly loves God desires to become more like God; one strives to become recreated in the image of God to become the loving being God intended us to be. One can only do this with the help of Gods Spirit, the Holy Spirit. When we open to the fullness of faith, we come to recognize that we are born again, and again, and again. Is being born again a one-time event or a process of growth and development with some real insights and surprises along the way?
Will we settle for only the evacuation plan by which we escape this world and hell, or will we permit ourselves to be transformed into the image of God, and in being so transformed, will we then work for the coming of Gods kingdom and the renewal of creation? Which is the more abundant life?
I think this parallel struggle, in Catholicism and in Protestantism, in Buddhism and Christianity, is the struggle to have a faith that isnt an evacuation plan or an escape into private bliss, but a way of seeking to have a spiritual transformation in our own lives that will express itself in change and transformation in our world. Were on a quest to find out how to have an engaged expression of deep spiritual life that makes a difference in a world on fire.
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