Daily Liturgy and Scripture

Once again we’re talking spiritual things. Not only are we secure in Christ, but John says if we have Christ, we have life. But didn’t we already? Weren’t we breathing and walking around and holding down jobs? Certainly, but that isn’t the life God has given us. That life is eternal, starting now, and leads us to obedience. If we are obedient and follow the way Christ set forth, that life will be come full and meaningful.

To say that God is love really isn’t enough. God is love embodied, and the love that he shares should be shared by those who live as Jesus did. John makes a good point: how can we love God who we can’t see, if we don’t love the neighbor we can see? It’s easy to love an idea, because ideas aren’t generally hard to live with. Sometimes God is just an idea, we make him safer than he really is. The intricacies of loving people in their messy complications are a great primer for loving an infinite God.

Life in the Spirit REALLY is life in the Spirit. Perhaps sometimes we really don't believe that fully, because it is rather odd. Not only is there a different Spirit living in us, but it drives us to be different. Not because we have been made into some fantastic creature, but because the author of life lives and moves with us. To be in contact with that Spirit is truly to be transformed.

As Christians, we should be excited about the idea of seeing Jesus. We should also realize that the people with whom we are in community, the people with whom we will spend eternity, will see him too. Do you you want to spend eternity with someone you despise? That may be a bit of an overstatement, but it’s a command of Jesus to love one another, and love as Jesus loved. That sometimes includes some pretty inconvenient people.

Eternal life isn’t only something that begins when we die, it begins when we start following Jesus. Eternal-style life is not just for spiritual giants, it’s extended to both the mature and the young, who share the Spirit equally.

It’s really amazing, the way the Spirit passes among the church and gives the body of Christ its life. In this book, John (the same one who wrote the Gospel) opens by observing that passing. The purpose of those who follow Jesus is to walk in such away that when others follow, they are following Jesus and not us. This walking together gives us belonging in a community formed in our Savior.

The book of Jude is thought by some scholars to have been written by a brother of Jesus. Regardless of its author, there is some good instruction here for dealing with false teachers. It's also a caution against letting pagan culture become part of the life of a Christian. Followers of Jesus should be different, and that difference should be obvious.

All this talk of destroying the earth by fire certainly does make it seem like God is out to get us. Why else would this happen? But destruction isn’t God’s final plan. The new Heaven and New Earth are. Creation is still God’s, and was made to worship and serve God. When sin and death are burned away, this new experience will become what God always intended our world to be.

In this passage from 2 Peter, we have a pretty clear picture of what a false prophet looks like. Smooth words and persuasive language are not the only thing that those who claim to speak in God’s name need to deliver. An interior life formed in the Spirit should follow with words of the Spirit, not selfish ambition. God takes this very seriously, because the body of Christ is the recipient of God’s own work.

There’s a neat little formula of spiritual life in this passage from 2 Peter. Faith > moral excellence > knowledge > self-control > endurance > godliness > brotherly affection > love. This isn’t the only way, of course. And some of us will struggle with some of those. It’s also not our ticket to Heaven. God gives us our citizenship in the Kingdom of Jesus as a gift of grace. What it is, is the way we learn to LIVE as citizens of that Kingdom. Since that isn’t our nature, the Spirit brings it about. It proves to ourselves and to others what Kingdom citizenship looks like.