A video to start the conversation The audio file
How many of us have faced this question? There is a parting of the ways. Choose this day whom you will serve. Are you in or out? Is your life saying YES to God?
Salvation and spiritual rebirth are two ways of naming a very important event, which is often misunderstood. The first misunderstanding rejects them as ideas that seem to fit only in a conservative Christian framework. The second misunderstanding embraces them as ideas that are understood too narrowly. Both of them have to do with entering the family of God.
Let’s be clear that salvation is not only about eternal life; it’s also about wholeness. A human life has its material and basic social aspects, and the powers of the mind can be all wrapped up in those things—but we don’t know the wholeness of life until we say yes to God. And if we don’t exercise our faith to begin receiving and living some of that wholeness in this life, we shouldn’t expect to be welcomed into the next life either.
Next, let’s avoid a stereotyped image of spiritual rebirth. Although being born of the spirit implies discontinuity—something new happens—and although for some people it is dramatic and sudden, for others it is gradual and unconscious. Some people never remember a time when they did not know God. They did not struggle and their birth had no complications. Nevertheless, in their natural and gradual process of growth they dealt with inner resistance, with material urges and selfish impulses, and with earthly obstacles. They might have asked at some point, “Am I going to go ahead with this?” And they said yes. There is a watershed, a second birthday, and it doesn’t matter if it was unconscious.
Think how important our parents are. They supply our genetic material; they typically have a lot to do with our early formative years; they matter to us later in life, too, and we have very important duties to our parents.
None of that is taken away by spiritual rebirth. Rather, it adds an even greater reality: being a child of God. The glory of God’s spirit within transcends anything earthly; and the potentials of the relationship with our heavenly Father can transform this life and open up unimagined wonders in the life to come. And some of us have seen that new life in the spirit in our own parents, watching them as they continued to grow as they became older, and blessing the family and extended family circles with a heightened quality of wisdom and love.
Next, because our paths to spiritual rebirth differ, the truths that we need to recognize and act on as we journey along that path are also different. At the same time, there are spiritual difficulties with which a whole generation are struggling, and so a common message can be shared, taught, preached, and put out on social media.
What is the universal message for our time, our generation or group of generations? The truth of the Fatherhood of God is liberating for all time, for everyone whose access to it is not blocked by horrible associations with the human father or confused by the diabolical sophistry that the Father concept of God is sexist. But since so many in our time do suffer from such associations and this confusion, it is all the more important for those of us who proclaim the Fatherhood of God to make it clear that the name we choose for God, once we have truly found his spirit within, matters little. What is essential is to know him and to aspire to be like him. The Fatherhood of God is bound up with the experiences of love and mercy, worship and service, the spirit within, and doing the will of God.
And above all, the primary consequence of the Fatherhood of God is the brotherhood of man—call it the siblinghood of humankind if you prefer. And today in our world, with social, economic, and political antagonisms, with growing nationalisms and their associated threat of nuclear war—we need to renew the spiritual vision that we are family. We may disagree deeply with others about this or that, but if we recognize them as personalities who are indwelt by the spirit of God just as we are, then we can find paths to work together at least on aspects of the very ecological, social, economic, and political problems—not to mention philosophical and religious antagonisms—that stress the fabric of humanity.
The message of the family of God—when it is sincerely, wholeheartedly, and persistently received—brings salvation and spiritual rebirth. It opens a gateway to every other aspect of the many-sided truth that enables us to enter and stay with the family of God.
Many people do not realize that the family of God is a moving target. Salvation and spiritual rebirth are easy of access when the person has become ready to make the key commitment. Entrance into the family is free. But entrance launches growth, doing the will of God, becoming like God, learning to love and serve. And if someone falls asleep at the wheel, becomes a spiritual couch potato, and falsely believes that the human mind can pick a scripture and say the right words and thereby seal his eternal salvation—no matter what we do with the rest of our life—God is not fooled.
We can fall out of the family of God and need to re-enter. And even if we are still in, how important it is to stay in touch, get in touch, refresh our connection, sustain it, even upgrade it day by day!
Nothing but the TRUTH! Thanks, Jeff!
Amen, sister. Every year, you live the truth more–and you are, increasingly, the truth.