Where Am I Coming From? I Want You to Know

Where am I coming from?  Where am I coming from when I rant and rave in this blog about the way things are?  I want you to know. 

“Religion (the Christian religion),” wrote Elton Trueblood, “is not the acceptance of conventional standards of behavior and it is not primarily an effort to save our own puny souls; it is the exciting venture of faith in that we bet that God really is, that this is His world, and that He is like Jesus Christ.”  It is believing that God has a purpose for the world and is actively seeking throughout history to bring that purpose (God’s Dream) to fruition.  A religious person’s greatest desire is to learn what that purpose is and to carry it forward.

Mere belief is never enough.  Many say they believe in God.  What really matters is that we become engaged in God’s purpose, that we become committed to the dream.  As Trueblood wrote, “A Christian is committed to the conviction that God really is, that He is wholly personal, that He is like Jesus Christ, and that God has a particular interest in each individual of the human race.” “This,” Trueblood wrote, “is what Christianity is.”

“The way we have organized our society is fundamentally different from the way in which God conceives it, and the way in which God’s own being longs for it to be ordered,” said Gordon Cosby.  It is therefore the task of every Christian (both individually and corporately) to “overthrow the existing order,” ridding it of every prejudice, every injustice, every social arrangement not in consonance with the nature of God’s eternal love.

What, then, is God’s conception for the ordering of our society?  A good place to start is to get hold of the fact that God has a particular interest in each individual of the human race.  If that is true, and I believe it to be,  then we also must have a particular interest in each individual of the human race—no matter the color, the creed, the wealth or poverty, the nationality, or gender of that individual. Jesus came to enhance human life.  This is also our task, while it is day.  This is where I’m coming from.