Author dan jenkins

What’s So Amazing About Grace by Philip Yancey

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  When the renowned theologian Karl Barth visited the University of Chicago,students and scholars crowded around him. At a press conference,one asked,”Dr. Barth,what is the most profound truth you have learned in your studies?” Without hesitation he replied,”Jesus loves me,this I know ,for the Bible tells me so.” I agree with Karl Barth.Why,then,do I so often act as if I am trying to earn that love? Why do I have such trouble accepting it?

    As Dr. Bob Smith and Bill  Wilson, the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous ,first devised their twelve-step program,they went to Bill D.,a prominent attorney who had flunked out of eight separate detox programs in six months. Strapped in a hospital bed as punishment for attacking two nurses,Bill D. had no choice but to listen to his visitors,who shared their own stories of addiction and the recent hope they had discovered through belief in a Higher Power.

   As soon as they mentioned their Higher Power,Bill D. shook his head sadly,”No,no,” he said,”It’s too late for me,I still believe in God all right,but I know mighty well that He doesn’t believe in me any more.”

   Bill D, expressed what many of us feel at times.Weighed down by repeated failure,lost hope,a sense of unworthiness,we pull around our selves a shell thatt makes us almost impervious to grace.Like foster children who choose again and again to return to abusive families,we trun stubbornly away from grace.

   I know how I respond to rejection letters from magazine editors and to critical letters from readers.I know how high my spirits soar when a larger than expected royalty check arrives,and how low they sink when the check is small.I know that my self-image at the  end of the day depends largely onlwhat kind of messages I have received from other people.Am I liked? Am I loved? I await the answers from my friends,my neighbors,my family–like a starving man,I await the answers. 

    Occasionally,all too occasionally,I sense the truth of grace. There are times when I study the parables and grasp that they are about me.I am the sheep the shepherd has left the flock to find,the prodigal for whom the father scans the horizon,the servant whose debt has been forgiven,I am the beloved of God. 

What would it mean,I ask myself,if I too came to the place where I saw my primary identity in life as “the one Jesus loves”? How differently would I view myself at the end of a day? 

    Sociologist have a theory of the looking-glass self; you become what the most important person in your life (wife,father,boss ,etc.) thinks you are.How would my life change if I truly believed the Bible’s astounding words about God’s love for me,if I looked in the mirror and saw what God sees?

   Brennan Manning tells the story of an Irish priest who ,on a walking tour of a rural parish,sees an old peasant kneeling by the side of the road,praying.Impressed,the priest says to the man,”You must be very close to God.” The peasant looks up from his prayers,thinks a moment,and then smiles,”Yes,he’s very fond of me.”

From “Divine Conspiracy” by Dallas Willard

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From “Divine Conspiracy” by Dallas Willard

“ I am a spiritual being who currently has a physical body.I occupy my body and its environs by my consciousness of it and by my capacity to will and to act with and through it. I occupy my body and its proximate space,but I am not localizable in it or around it.You cannot find me or any of my thoughts,feelings,or character traits in any part of my body. Even I cannot. If you wish  to find me,the last thing you should do is open my body to take a look–or even examine it closely with a microscope or other physical instruments……

   That very unity of experiences that constitutes a human self cannot be located at any point in or around this body through which we live,not even in the brain. Yet I am present as agent or causal influence with and about my body and its features and movements. In turn,what my body undergoes and provides influences my life as a personal being. And through my body,principally through my face and gestures,or “body language”,but also verbally,I can make myself present to others.

  The human face,and especially the eyes,are not just additional physical objects in space. We say that the eyes are the windows of the soul,and there is much truth to it. They and the face and hands are areas in space where the spiritual reality of the person becomes present to others. There the inmost being of the individual pours forth,though of course the person is no more literally identical with his or her face or eyes than with lungs or toenails or brain.

   Interestingly,”growing up “ is largely a matter of learning to hide our spirit behind our face,eyes,and language so that we can evade and  manage others to achieve what we want and avoid what we fear. By contrast,the child’s face is a constant epiphany because it doesn’t yet know how to do this.It cannot manage its face. This is also true of adults in moments of great feeling–which is one reason why feeling is both greatly treasured and greatly  feared. 

   Those who have attained considerable spiritual stature are frequently noted for their “childlikeness.” What this really means is that they do not use their face and body to hide their spiritual reality.In their body they are genunely present to those around them, That is a great spiritual attainment or gift.

    Now,roughly speaking God relates to space as we do to our body.He occupies and overflows it but cannot be localized in it, Every point in it is accessible to his consciousness and will,and his manifest presence can be focused in any location as he sees fit. In the incarnation he focused his reality in a special way in the body of Jesus. This was so that we might be “enlightened by the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor 4:6).

    The tradition Christian understanding every physical object and every natural law is a manifestation of God’s willing. This does not have to be taken in the sense that he is every second consciously choosing,for example,that this electron should be circling that neutron or that this pillar should be supporting that house.No doubt he could do that if he wished. But it is true in the same sense that the arrangement of the furniturre in your apattmnet is a manifestation of your will. It is as you have provided for and want it to be though you are not always thinking of that arrangement and “willing”it. It is also a continuing revelation of you to all who know you well.

    Similarly,God is,without special theophanies,seen everywhere by those who long have lived for him.No doubt God wants us to see him. That is a part of his nature as outpouring love.Love always wants to be known. Thus he seeks for those who could safely and rightly worship him.God wants to be present to our minds with all the force of objects given clearly to ordinary perception. …

  So we should assume that space is anything but empty.This is central to the understanding of Jesus because it is central to the understanding of the rule of God from the heavens.which is his kingdom among us. Traveling through space and not finding God does not mean that space is empty any more than traveling through my body and not finding me means that I am not here….

  In a striking comparison,Ole Hallesby points out that the air our body requires envelops us on every hand. To receive it we need only breath.Likewise,”The ‘air’ which our souls need also envelops all of us at all times and on all sides.God’s round about us in Christ on every hand,with his many-sided and all-sufficient grace. All we need to do is open our hearts,”