We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
God’s Goal for the World
Helga Weber via Compfight
In a world that is all about doom and gloom…
In a time when we never seem to have enough…
In the midst of messages that tell us that we don’t measure up…
In an age when we are more interested in whether or not we can own automatic weapons than we are in how we can serve the poor…
And even in a church that finds itself embattled, argumentative, and wounded by “friendly fire”…
In the midst of all this, God is moving. There is an underground stream of hope drawing all of creation toward redemption. In the midst of the sensationalist barbs, attacks, reports of war, a most life-filled truth flows in history, one that we must not ignore or our souls will suffer. Here is a brief excerpt from Greg’s Repenting of Religion which calls the church into this truth.
The goal of creation is succinctly summed up in a profound prayer Jesus said just prior to his crucifixion:
For [the disciples’] sake I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth. I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you sent me. —John 17:19-21, emphasis added.
Let’s examine this carefully. Jesus prayed that his disciples would be one just as he and the Father are one. The loving oneness of the church is to reflect the loving oneness of the Trinity. Indeed, the loving oneness of the church is to participate in the loving oneness of the Trinity: “As you … are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us.” As we participate in God’s loving oneness, we replicate this loving oneness among ourselves. And as we replicate this loving oneness, the world sees and believes that Jesus Christ is sent from the Father. The world knows the reality of the triune God because they encounter the love of the triune God in us.
This prayer expressed not only God’s goal for the church but the goal of all creation. Indeed, Jesus prayed that his church would be “sanctified in the truth” (John 17:19)—the truth that they are called to be one in the Father and Son—so that the world would believe in him and thus become part of the church. The church is to be set apart (sanctified) not by possessing a special religious piety but by participating in and manifesting the perfect eternal love of God. As Bonhoeffer said, “Jesus calls men, not to a new religion, but to life.” This participation in God’s life distinguishes disciples from others only so disciples can invite all others to share in it. …
God’s goal is that humans, when filled with God’s unsurpassable love and eternal life, would replicate God on an individual level and overflow with love back to God, to themselves, and to their neighbors. As God gives his life to us, we manifest the fullness of his life in ascribing infinite worth to God as our source (worship); we affirm the infinite worth we ourselves have because of what God has done for us in Christ (self-love); and we affirm the infinite worth others have because of what Christ as done for them (neighbor-love). (Repenting of Religion, 28,30)
Category: General
Tags: Kingdom Living, Love, Repenting of Religion, Unity
Related Reading
Warfare and Sickness
Is sickness something we should come against as spiritual warfare or is sickness just something that is part of our life until the Kingdom of God comes? Greg deals with the answer to this question.
The Revelation of God in the Cross
The cross cannot be understood apart from the resurrection, just as the resurrection can never be understood apart from the cross. They are two sides of the same coin. If you consider the cross apart from the resurrection, then the crucified Christ becomes nothing more than one of the many thousands of people who were…
Sermon: Reframing the Sun
In our clip from this weeks sermon, Greg Boyd talks about how we respond to misfortunes and tragedies depends on how we frame them. In Colossians 3, Paul writes that Christ is all and is in all. When we frame our life within this understanding, we begin to see how we can live through misfortunes…
Beyond Theoretical Salvation
Profession of Christ’s lordship in our lives isn’t a magical formula. It’s more than a theory about how we can get saved if we confess the right doctrines. The confession has meaning only when it’s understood to be a genuine pledge to surrender one’s life to Christ. (See yesterday’s post.) But I want us to…
If you really want to defend the poor from Caesar, shouldn’t we use the political means that exist? It’s easy to make your argument when you are in a position of privilege.
Question: I’ve been reading your blogs for a while. I’ve read multiple texts written by you and it’s difficult to listen much longer as someone in poverty. It’s easy to make your argument when you are in a position of privilege. The Church doesn’t have the power and resources to help the poor everywhere. Christians…
Why God Made You
The life God has for each one of us is a life of perfect love, one that eternally unites us with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is why God made us. It’s what we long for, to love and be loved. However, things like the love of the Trinity are not part of…