more thoughts on "The End of Religion" .

May 19, 2009

Over the past month or so, a friend has been sending emails of things he's been learning from the Word -- and today, I printed out the last 1/2 dozen or so, and went down to the beach (it' s such a beautiful day!) and sat on a bench, and read through them... and heard the voice of Father speaking through them, confirming so much He has been teaching me. They also related a LOT to the thoughts I've been having about the book The End of Religion ... and I would like to share some of what he said, because it really adds to and confirms what I wrote the other day. (If you haven't read the blog from May 14 "My thoughts about "The End of Religion" by B. Cavey" and May 17 "Thinking about your amazing love... and other discussions with Papa" you should probably read them first; then you'll see how these thoughts from my friend fit in!)

He wrote:

You are worthy. You're OK. The cross made you OK... 'Worthy, worthy in His sight, I cannot more worthy be, For in the Person of His Son, I am as worthy as He.' ... speak out what [you] know and believe...declaring all [you] know about that Cross. Out loud.... 'He bore it all.' .... 'The cross of Christ, the blood shed there continuously cleanses and frees us from all sin.'... the finished work of Christ implicit in those words, 'Father, forgive them' .... I [am] in fact, through His work, not mine, 'as worthy as He' .... If you are feeling unworthy and attacked...try believing by declaring anew the old, old story of the accomplishments of the cross. The grace and power of His magnificent love Who shed His blood from within its cruel grip will come through for you. You will be restored.

And....

... there is, in the universe, a Resurrection principle... [which], at work, means that 'God works all things for good to those who love him' .... in the affairs of men who will, against all odds, trust God and not give up on His plan. Or even if they do, the principle works because God, not man, controls our affairs ultimately.... the Resurrection changed everything. That event whose principle had been at work in the time of Jacob and Joseph resulted in Jesus walking out of the tomb alive. He killed death that day, giving us the hope that everything will come right in the end, however dreadful the mess we're in and how much it seems to be our own fault.... the Resurrection bypasses all considerations of fault and blame.... Our part is to believe.... Personally, I have seen the death principle savagely at work on many of my circumstances... It has reaped its grim harvest and done its worst.... But, only if we give in to it can it win today and, even then, it will only lose in the end because the Resurrection principle is higher than the laws of sin and death.... trust in and declare the Resurrection even when [you] do not understand [what is happening in your life]...

And ...

Ephesians 2:7... envisions the 'whole purpose of everything' in one verse: 'He did this that HE might clearly demonstrate through the ages to come the immesurable riches of His free grace in kindness and goodness of heart towards us..." ... God did what He did so that He could demonstrate GRACE throughout the ages to come.... grace is: an act of love for no other reason than that the one who gives it out likes you and wants to make you happy.... God's purpose is to demonstrate GRACE, not to flex His divine muscles, not to 'Lord it over' His creation but to permeate His creation with His grace... God made certain people alive by placing inside their spirits the Holy Spirit of God even when they were 'dead in sin.' Paul rewords it... 'He gave us the very life of Christ.... He did this in order that He might clearly demonstrate through the ages to come the immeasurable riches of His free grace (His unmerited favor) in His kindness and goodness toward us.' (Amp.)

[A comment of my own here: The more I consider the review of "The End of Religion" which I have already discussed a couple days previously, the more it seems to me that the writer of the review seems to have a different view of where mankind is, in the "ages" the Word of God speaks of, than I do. My friend has, from his own study of Scripture over many years, created a possible outline of these "ages" ... and I'd like to share it here. Of course others have also made their own outlines; this one I think is simple and pretty accurate. I believe we are in what he calls the "period of grace" ... that we are freed from the "period of ... God's law: God's character in a code" .... (and that, while we are already experiencing the kingdom of God, as believers, the fulfillment of it, the "Age of the Kingdom" as described below, is yet to come...) Anyway, I found this outline interesting... and the comments following the "Age of the Kingdom" definition....what do you think? As we are already under grace, what does this say to us as we ourselves live in the Kingdom, even if it isn't yet in its fullness? This does not seem to be a simplistic faith, but a great challenge to love and follow our Savior with all our hearts... and all aspects of our being!]

Anyway, he also wrote:

1. The Age Before Creation - God, who always was... fellowshipped with Himself...

2. The Age of Innocence - God lived in His creation with His children, walking with them 'in the cool of the day' before their terrible choice to go their own way without their creator... [making] themselves slaves of evil and participants in a fallen age that would fill the earth with violence and death.

3. The Age of Sin and Death - is the destructive age that came from the above choices...

a. Period of Human Government - leading to the catastrophe of the great flood and following it for some years.... We call it history - man's story of sin and death...

b. Period of Israel and God's law - a nation was ... given 'God's character in a code' .... They badly obeyed this holy law but still, it was a light of life for those who would choose it...

c. Period of Grace - God will use the witness of those who deliberately choose grace to spread, in the ages to come, that message of love to the race of man. Eph 1:10 says... 'He planned for the maturity of the times and the climax of the ages to unify all things and head them up and consummate them in Christ, both things in heaven and things in earth.'

4. The Age of the Kingdom - ... after 'certain adjustments' in history - perhaps the collapse of everything in which man has put his faith - the world will see the King and His Kingdom in full measure... the prayer Jesus said to pray - 'Thy Kingdom come' - .... It will be answered!

Those little glimpses we've seen... will be common practices of the ones whom God chooses to entrust with these powers in the Kingdom Age.... When they exercise those powers in love and grace, not as religion, not for profit and not for personal power, the world, by the millions, will turn to the truths of the Gospel. This message will not have any other agenda than grace, pure undeserved grace with no motives other than love, exactly as Jesus showed the world before it hung Him on a cross.... Can you try to imagine how long it would take [for people to] choose Jesus... if incorruptible servants of grace healed them, fed them... removed monstrous laws from their society.... What delight and what acceptance would all those stiff Christian religious people enjoy given true reality with the real facts to prove it. In the Kingdom Age, the Gospel will be preached in all its fullness... re-establishing order into the chaos of human affairs...

5. The Age of Judgment - time during which the wrongs of history are addressed, when justice is pronounced... justice will be understood to have already occurred on the cross when the payment of all sins was meted out in terrible fullness as He 'drank the cup' of sin.... When He cried, 'It is finished' or 'paid in full' He was pronouncing the full payment of the purchase price necessary to redeem man from the mess he had made and the slavery to sin he had accepted as 'normal life.' Legally, it was a 'done deal' although practically it will take the ages to unfold it all 'on the ground.' Nevertheless, within the justice of God and within the principle of restitution so clear in the code of the Hebrew laws, there will be an additional personal accounting.... the age of judgment will be in the good hands of those who have learned both of justice and mercy. In the end, it will have righted all the wrongs, established a true justice always tipping the the scales in favor of grace because that is the whole purpose of the ages.

6. The Eternal State - 'heaven'.... We know little about it but must believe that it is, in fact, beyond all dreams, wonderful and beautiful....

Finally, to conclude, the purpose of the ages - and you may understand them differently from me - is to demonstrate grace. When it is all over, when the ages have unfolded and the last case has been heard, it will be all about grace. I think I should make my life 'all about grace' as well. But how? And how about you?

[My comment: that last paragraph: what a challenge! ... and if you haven't read my blog from yesterday, "reaching out to people on the streets," you might enjoy seeing one way that some people are living grace...]