It's me, mike hillebrecht

Rectify – to correct a matter which only you can solve.

Rom 3:20-24 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be rectified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. (21) But now the rectification of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; (22) Even the rectification of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: (23) For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; (24) Being rectified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

In the past we’ve been instructed from this passage that righteousness/justification is the appropriate response from the position of God towards us. The danger in this thought is that all righteousness/justification concepts come from our knowledge of good and evil. Jesus claims quite frankly that God is not “good” defeating the basis of being righteous. So what then does Paul mean?

Consider the more appropriate term “rectify.” The work God accomplished in Christ could only be done by Him as the creator. The problem, the issue of mankind’s faults could only be corrected by the one who created the being, not the one who created problem.

We appear to be righteous, as well as justified in our own righteousness within the arena of our human problem. However, we are never righteous if God is the standard, or metric, of our goodness, and hence never justified in our actions. We after all crucified Jesus.

Yet, we are rectified by this crucifixion. Humanity has been set right or corrected by the unexplainable action of killing God. The message of grace is that there is no difference in any of us either as those who have fallen from the glory of God and those who have received the gift of rectification. The gift is for all who believe in the faith of Jesus.

We don’t believe “in Jesus” or “on Jesus” as being God. We believe the faith Jesus had to place himself as the rectifying agent of God for all humanity. It is his belief to endure the cross that enables all of us to be declared sons of God and sit at the right hand of the Father. It is his belief that we do not know what we are doing that offers us his Spirit to show us all things. We are rectified by the belief, the faith of Jesus, never by anything we can do or any rules that we follow which declare us to be on the right path.

Some gifts we receive are accepted with gracious resolve toward our betterment in life. Other gifts, they confound us simply by the unfathomable ability of it to penetrate our paradigms. The rectifying event of Christ, the incarnation, passion, death, resurrection and ascension is a gift in a class all by itself. It confounds while it resolves. The more you look into it the more dumbfounded you become, but, the more grateful too.

Quit looking on the surface for answers that doctrines supply and plunge into the depths of God by the Spirit which resides within you. Only there will you come to understand those things which eyes have not seen and ears have not heard. Only there will you lose your righteousness to the marvels of grace.

Warning! Adult themes follow.

Recent developments on our social dynamic have produced a rabid fascination with sexual improprieties. These revelations about the past dealings from a number of people begs a serious response apparently from all sides. Being a grace guy, I believe that I’m only qualified to speak from that vantage point, which regrettably, will fall, for the most part, on deaf ears. Why say anything then?

This issue has deep-reaching tentacles which almost all agree springs from a lack of a moral imperative within our social system. The difficulty which arises in matters like many of these allegations present is the social mores of the times when these infractions allegedly occurred. Honestly, these issues are occurring in a generation which ushered in the sexual revolution, championed abortion, sex education and free condoms in schools, and a host of other issues which proponents of traditional moral values railed against claiming the demise of the nation would soon be at hand.

Laws do not create a moral climate, they simply delineate what is prohibited social behavior. The laws we have today may not have been around when many of these alleged infractions transpired, or the public awareness, which is rampant today, hadn’t started yet. I won’t begin to address the reasons why these types of things might even be suppressed.

In our culture morals have been relegated to the domain of religious institutions, gray-haired grandmothers and lonesome cowboys. The standards of how one should and needs to act in life situations are therefore in the hands of people no one truly cares to listen to. This makes everyone a fair target to any cultural message being pitched across a multitude of advertising and educational mediums. Today, the nature of being “right” comes down to what clothes you wear, what music you listen to, which candidates you elect, what causes you support and a host of other delineation which divide and conquer society.

Sex sells. No question about it, it is the tool of our age. Images flaunt cleavage, male and female alike, for every type of good or service available. Sales for a particular product down? Change its color to red, add a young blonde with voluptuous lips and wind-blown garments and watch revenues shoot through the roof. Sexist. You’re damn right, on both of the aisles. We’ve allowed it, fostered it and promoted it. Now the cost is beginning to be “exposed” like the ounce of flesh we flippantly drooled over.

All of this, and a whole lot more, begs the question no one wants to hear from a grace guy. So what? Someone got caught copping a feel. So what? Someone made advances, multiple times, to multiple people of the opposite, or same gender. So what? Someone refused advancement until personal gratification was consummated. So what?

This is the one item people of all sorts hate about the nature of grace. It’s the ugly under-belly of the grace message which no one in their right mind wants to proclaim: IT applies across the board for all people, in all circumstances, or it doesn’t apply at all. “So what?” merely exposes our hidden agenda to be self-righteous. Retribution. My pound of flesh. Punishment. Eye for an eye. Violence.

Understand me correctly here. I am not supporting the perpetrators of these acts. If people were hurt physically and/or emotionally, redress needs to be made. I am not siding with the victims in propelling a mob-inducing witch hunt either. Victims have lived in shame far too long in these matters, but while the scales of justice are blind, they are never balanced in this blindness either. Recompense is never enough, ever. Someone, hell everyone, is hurt, battered and bleeding from these issues. Nothing changes. So what?

Each of us, victim and perpetrators alike, haven’t fallen from grace; we all fail for grace. We don’t deserve it, never will. This is why it is a gift to us. It is the only thing that can change people, transform us into better example of who we’ve always been. Grace demands from us the recognition that because of who we are and what we’ve accomplished under the standard of our false identity, we are forgiven. Laws will not do this; rehab and therapy programs will not work either. They all function from the premise of retribution, not transformation leading to restitution.

Do things need to change? In case you haven’t noticed, change is going on right now all around us. Dominate hierarchies are being forced to examine their founding principles in the arena of public spectacle. Quick reprisal is not a principle, but we’re already seeing it be employed to maintain the status quo, if not market share in various industries. Prepare for backlash and conflict to intensify as public announcements convict more people rather than proper judicial channels.

A call for civility and adherence to the golden rule has begun to rise up. It will increase as a means to justify the ends and act as a governor to limit discourse where it is needed the most. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Recognize that both sides believe God will bless them in the death of their enemy. Golden rule always works; eye for an eye; screw me, I’ll screw you; embarrass me…you know the drill. Gamesmanship with the golden rule is working its magic right now.

When I say, “So what?” to these matters, I am not being flippant. It is a very serious response. It requires you to evaluate your present situation, your angst, your disgust, your standard of right/wrong and compare it to a gift that was given to you by an innocent man convicted to die from the torturous death assigned to godless men; a human who had his skin mercilessly whipped from his body; his face pummeled beyond recognition by 100 of the strongest men of the region; his naked body ruthlessly impaled to rough-hewn timbers crafted for a different criminal who the people pardoned hours before; raised into the sky for all the world to see what happens to anyone who attempts to defy the laws of the kingdom; mocked and jeered, spat upon and cursed for 6 horrific hours by those who just days before had been cheering enthusiastically at his arrival. Look diligently at this panorama of man’s evil inclination and self-righteous indignation and catch the gift of grace to all humanity coming from parched lips gasping, “Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do.”

So what?

We are sorely mistaken to think we can do better in our suffering if we can’t even do this act of forgiveness to the least of His sheep. We can be surprised, shocked and appalled to the point of being numb by all those who have been charged with committing these acts. So what? Didn’t they receive a gift they didn’t deserve just like you? It might be time to truly consider what it cost and whether its value still holds true. Retribution or forgiveness. Our choice or His. So what?

Regrets, I’ve had a few
But then again, too few to mention
I did what I had to do, I saw it through without exemption.
Lyrics from, “My Way”

Arm-chair quarterbacking your life is quite common the older you get. You see your life at its present state and begin to wonder, “If I had to do it all over again, would I, could I, should I…(fill in the blank).” Rarely do people take the time to consider this: Who freaking cares except you?

Yeah, I know this is harsh. But you need to snap out of it. Life, all of life, is about how we faced the circumstances of choice. You are today the product of your choices. Anything that you might have done differently then would not be reflected in who you are now.

Consider this one paradox: What if you had in your past made that different choice at some critical moment, it would have led your life on a completely different trajectory. Today, on that different trajectory, would you now be thinking about what your life would have been like had you made the decision you actually made? Would you long for an opportunity to change a life to resemble where you’re truly at today? If you can long for a change in your present condition, you can surely do it in a different condition.

A lot of people live with regrets. Their present mental state is reliving the past. They are on an endless re-run of their past life, ignoring what is going on right in front of them. The moment, the now isn’t today, it’s yesterday, yesteryear. The life they’re living is simply a life they lived.

Trauma, I recognize, can force a person into this cycle. (Been there, done that and even own the T-shirt concession for it.) These moments and ordeals invade lives like a Mongrel horde and leave in their wake desolation and shattered people. It takes time to rebuild and recover all the while realizing that life will never be the same again, ever. Some things, like your innocence, you lose for good no matter how much you long for its return. Trying to rationalize regrets within the context of times like these is pointless. You’re doing your best with what you know in the moment just trying to keep your head above the water line of tears which are crashing in around you.

It’s the other minor moments in life where most get stuck. They’re only minor in the sense that they don’t break your bones or poke out an eye. Moments where a comment was made, a look was given, a gesture was acknowledged that later clouded a thought or belief. These are moments that initiated mixed emotions, a duality of personal intentions for a response, which was never fully realized or appropriated in the end. These moments, left to simmer in a stew pot of reflection cast a bitter aroma which often rips out your heart when the lid of bygones is lifted.

People don’t need excuses for being who they are, they need them for not being who others expect them to be. Regrets often play on not living up to the expectations of others. Many will deny that they place any criteria on how you should live your life, but come on, we know this isn’t factual. We all seem to be able to handle the demands that our employers place on us to perform in some capacity. Yet it’s those who allow us to be ourselves that create such difficulty. The reason is simply because we don’t know who we are. We don’t know how we should respond or react when given the freedom to be truly us.

Let me ask you a few questions. Do you feel comfortable around someone who is crying? Are you able to be at peace when another is angrily yelling profanities at you? Are you content to be next to someone without speaking? Can you graciously smile at strangers while they unravel the mess of their life before you?

Most people would look at these questions with disdain because they believe that they are required to respond in some manner. However, I placed no expectation there. I simply asked the questions, they supplied the metric of action. Being is not about actions, actions are a result of being you in the moment. I didn’t ask you to do something I wanted to know if you can be someone.

Would-a, could-a, should-a is another metric of performance lost. Once a decision is made and a response is generated the entire field of potential possibilities collapses no longer able to influence the course made by the response. The journey is afoot. A second guess merely delays the voyage at the start, but later, well it’s like wondering if you’re going to fall off the edge of the world simply because the daily view is the same. It’s the “sameness” of being that is driving you to boredom. No one likes to realize that they have been cast adrift in life by their decisions to respond in the moment, particularly if their decision of being was influenced by an outside force. Most don’t mind the boat of their choosing, it other’s we have issues with.

Meaning, purpose, reason. Each pulls at us as we bob around the seas of life asking – no, crying out, “why me?” or “what does this all mean?” At these moments we find little comfort in passages which claim that we were created for good works, or that God is able to make all things work out for those who love him and are called for his purposes. There is no solace in the mind-numbing sameness of today, so we search for it from where we’ve been. We prefer to see the shoals of lost potentials rather than the hope-filled possibilities of new shores.

This moment belongs to you and no one else. Your past is just that, past. Holding on to it is like trying to hold water in your hand, you constantly have to keep filling it from what is lost. You are right now, everything you have ever needed to be. What lies ahead is prepared for who you are now, not what you might have been. Your past has been the tempering furnace required to strengthen you for the contest ahead. It’s time to quench all your doubts and see the edge you have been given for today. Be sharp and not dull of hearing.

Troubled times call for a voice of reason. Someone to stop and make the conflicting parties acknowledge the issues which each rightfully feels warrant their position and then work towards an accord for all to be satisfied and accepted. Yet, what is there is no reason? I don’t mean the catalyst which began the escalation, I mean the ability to decipher and answer the questions, why, what, when, where and how.

What if you don’t know the reason well enough to be reasonable, to act reasonable, to seem reasonable so much so that all your thoughts and their resulting actions appear to everyone as unreasonable. Is it possible to have a reason that is so selfish that it is unreasonable to everyone else but you and you’re perfectly willing to live with the results of that?

What if the reason for every conflict was simply because no one wanted to accept the reasonable response from someone everyone thought to be unreasonable? What if this response of reason was so perfect in its capability to nullify all conflict that people found it to be unreasonable? What if this reasonable response forced everyone to accept an unreasonable action and its result to eliminate the conflict and all conflicts to come? What if unreasonable parties refused to accept the reasoned action unable to recognize its long-term consequences, but the action was carried out anyway? Would these parties be required to formally accept the reasonable act before their peers in order to receive all benefits from it or would they be able to continue living in their unreasonable circumstances while permitting the benefits of the reasonable action to continue working around them?

How would we recognize that a reasonable action has been already conducted which addresses all conflicts? Is there a means of reason which will distinguish this action particularly if the action at the time it was conducted was deemed to be unreasonable? If unreasonable parties found a reasonable action to be unreasonable at the time of its accomplishment, would not all reasonable results from this action to date be viewed under the specter of unreasonableness and prevent even reasonable people from recognizing the reason for the action?

What if the reason for all the conflicts about gender roles, marriage partners, political affiliations, lifestyle choices, race relations, debt obligations, misconduct in the workplace and home, plus any of a number of reasons to be mad at some else, were addressed by, and completed in, a reasonable action deemed to be unreasonable by unreasonable people? Can unreasonable people be expected to understand, let communicate to future generations, a truly reasonable action which addresses all conflict heretofore deemed unreasonable?

Is it truly unreasonable to expect unreasonable parties to come and reason together if they are unwilling to accept a prior reasonable act designed for their discord? Is it proper to dismiss the reasons for their actions as being unreasonable if they haven’t accepted a prior action, and the benefits it has afforded them, during the course of their lives, up to, and including, their most recent conflict?

Can we all agree that the singular characteristic of the voice of reason is found in a word? Why do we find it so unreasonable to accept the grace, for it is grace we seek in every conflict, offered from this word? Is it ever reasonable to find grace unreasonable if its purpose has always been to promote accord?

What reason could be more vital to our well-being as a people than trying to understand the unreasonable act of God becoming a human of reason, in an unreasonable social structure, betrayed, judged and sentenced to death, brutally beaten, crucified, buried, resurrected, and ascended as the reasonable action of love of the Creator for His creation? What if we are never able to find reason in these actions? Would it then seem reasonable to dismiss them even though others refuse to? How is it possible that we believe our reasons for every conflict outweigh the reasonable actions of love taken by our Creator to secure our ability to not only reach, but live in, accord with one another?

Reasons, anyone? I’m open to any reasonable response. Can the same be said for you?

At this time of year, after all the fields have been harvested, the orchards have been picked over, the vines have been stripped of their fruit, humanity looks across the bounty to offer thanks. Granted, this is a picturesque description designed to cause reflection for many; others will scratch their head wondering how in a world of silicon and plastic any of these depictions offers them a sense of thankfulness. These fine individuals have succumbed to the onslaught of appointments, agendas, deadlines and gamesmanship in the age of immediacy.

But you’re breathing. A feat that many are not capable of performing for themselves without some assistance. Are you grateful for this?

You’re able to move. This too is a wonder in the midst of so many debilitating ailments which multitudes, young and old alike, find increasingly difficult to overcome. Are you grateful for this?

You’re able to eat. Consider the vast number of people who, for reasons beyond their control are unable to put food in their mouth, chew it and swallow. There are even those who once it has been swallowed are incapable to digest it or even keep it in their bodies for any period of time. Are you grateful for this?

Often gratitude is not for what we have but what we aren’t like. We examine others and breathe a thankful sigh of relief that we’re not like them simply because we don’t want something they have. The trouble is that we all do it, so in practice, we’re very much alike.

No one is grateful for tragedy. A loss, pain and suffering are not the realm for gratitude, particularly when you’re going through it. However, I’ve heard numerous accounts from people who are grateful after a divorce, a financial collapse, or a death of a spouse or loved one. Without this kind of change to their life they recognize that they would not be who they are today.

What are you grateful for? What do you want to recognize as being the cornerstone to who you are today? Can you seriously feel grateful for a mobile phone or laptop computer? Can 5,000 friends on social media be a basis of gratitude? Can thousands of dollars of debt be cause for celebration at this time of year?

Stop for a moment. Don’t follow the knee-jerk reaction so many of us fall into and offer gratitude for all that we have, or what we don’t want, or who we’re with so we don’t offend them, or any of a number of other socially acceptable practices. Just pause, close your eyes, breathe in deeply and clear your thoughts. Then ask yourself, “What am I grateful for right now?”

Whatever image, word, or sound you receive in response to the question is the true form of grace to you at this moment. Take time to honestly acknowledge your answer, to offer heart-felt gratitude. You don’t have to get emotional if you don’t want to; just be sincere. Don’t feel compelled to be all religious either, quoting whatever doctrinal blessing you’ve grown up with. Be true to the moment, directly from your heart.

I am grateful for each of you who have spent your precious time observing my meanderings on this platform. I am humbled how my words can offer you a respite from your daily routine or revitalize your purpose in living the life of grace you portray to so many. Thank you for your understanding and patience when I rant. May you enter into greater truths in the days, weeks and months ahead that open broader vistas with sharper clarity. Thanks, and as always, grace, lovingkindness and peace to you.

It’s cold and flu season, again! At least that is what the advertisers want me to believe. In my household, with a respirator-dependent child, we tighten our daily regime of preventive maintenance (i.e. vitamin C & D, olive leaf extract, oregano oil, hand sanitizers) to keep any unwanted virus from infecting our lives. We all know that once a virus lands, antibiotics are the only means to rid it from our system, and that is a result we don’t enjoy one bit.

Many don’t know that there is a difference between bacteria and a virus. They both may produce similar results in our bodies but there is a vast and amazing difference between them. Give me a moment to explain as best a layman can and you’ll begin to see how grace fits into this.

Bacteria (the plural of bacterium) live all around us and within us. These are single-cell creatures doing their singular-little part of living-the-life thing. Some of these wee-little ones live inside of us doing the down and dirty job of breaking apart the food which we’ve consumed so that our body can properly use the nutrients from it. There are other bacteria which offer the flavorful aroma to various cheeses, bouquets to sumptuous wines, arresting fragrances to delectable meats, and a whole host of aromatics to our diets and this planet. Our world is a symbiotic relationship we share with bacteria.

A virus is best pictured as a zombie, the living dead. It is microscopic in size too but, and this is a big but, it isn’t alive like a single-cell bacterium. It doesn’t have the ability to live on its own, it requires a host agent to carry it around. Once it finds an agent it will burrow itself into the agent and release its DNA or RNA code into the agent in order to create a susceptible environment for it to grow. The agent may be carrying the virus for a long period of time before it “awaken” and begins the infection transfer. Unlike bacteria which can be killed, a virus can only be treated with antibodies which are designed to control the virus’ activities. Our bodies can often deal with this process but sometimes we need the assistance from an outside source found in certain medications. Some viruses are antibiotic-intolerant which can cause wide-spread epidemics if not contained and treated properly. Oh, yeah, almost all viruses are transmitted in the air. This makes them buggers of a thing to isolate.

“And Jesus breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Ghost.’”

Grace infected humanity. It lays dormant waiting for the host to activate it so that the spiritual DNA contained within it can be released and transform our body into an environment rich for its growth. Grace is not like yeast which puffs up from its own life’s work but is transforming in its co-mingling and co-dependence. Religions always try to control and kill it. But you can’t kill an eternal pathogen. Its purpose is always to transform; its work is not outward but inward. It does not live alone found in every nook and corner of the my-ways, byways and highways of life. It spreads soul-ly by word of mouth.

Yup, it’s Kingdom virus season out there, all around you. And there is not a thing you can do to stop it. You’re already infested with a death-defying, DNA transforming, eternal pathogen. Time to get some rest.

Being divine creatures is pretty heady stuff. There are a number of religious strains out there which promote the human species as the pinnacle of all creation and employing the “…image and likeness…” trademark, even go so far as to brand humanity as co-creators with God. I’ve participated in the grandeur of this thought, swept up in the cavalcade of pompous utterings and baseless declarations cherry-picked from biblical sources, so before you dismiss this writing, please indulge one with an inside view about what is truly happening.

A creator is one who forms and fashions a new object never seen before. Is that you? You and I are new creations, never witnessed on the face of the earth or within the entirety of a 132 billion-year-old universe. Did our parents create this new being? No, the universal triune God did. Before you skip out here let me explain the difference.

God, the Lord Almighty, creates heaven and earth by some means associated with the power of a spoken word. Consider that a word is a container of a thought, a means to portray an intention, a desire, a final outcome. There wasn’t anything like a heaven or an earth prior to this event. Try wrapping your head around the thought of not being. Pretty hard from the position of being, right? Kinda like swiss cheese. You can’t take out the holes and make the cheese whole because the holes are a part of the whole cheese known as swiss. That is food for another thought though.

The biblical record states that we, you and me, were in Christ before the foundation of the world, and that all things were made for Him and by Him and there wasn’t anything made which wasn’t made by Him. To claim that we are co-creators would put us, the entire world, as co-architects of our entire universe.

Let me see if I can simplify this. My children were in me before they were born. My wife and I are co-creators of them. My children are not co-creators with me or my wife. My children are not new creations either. They are made in the manner and likeness according to the power of the divine union shared by me and my wife. We, and the world, haven’t seen the likes of them, however they resemble the multitude of our human species. And yet, my children, were, are and forever remain in Christ, recognized as new creatures in this universe.

Let me back up a moment. My faith buddies need to be massaged here. Faith did not create my children, no matter how “now” I wanted it. An act which went beyond a spoken word did. That act was the “Christ” event to my wife and I, the power to create. We may have hoped for children, we could’ve talked about it until the cows came home and we were blue in the face, but the introduction of “Christ” secured our desire. (You all know what I’m talking about here. There just happen to be children in the room.)

Are we co-creators with God? That is possibly one of the most egoic claims we can make. Thank God for grace! In my humble opinion I believe that we are co-participants in the creation of God. It is His ballpark; His bases, balls and bats. All of us play by His rules, no exceptions. We may kick at the dirt, pick at the grass, scratch at the mound, but He is sitting in the stands waiting for us to play so He can tag a runner with applause.

I recognize that some of you will take exception to my claim here still holding onto your co-creatorship. However, I would ask for you to let me know when you’ve created a new world from the space in the swiss cheese or better yet, staying more biblically oriented, created a new, heretofore never been seen “seed.” I will at that time hail you as a co-creator. Until then, I will accept you as I am accepted in Him.

The religious world would have us believe that the “world” is comprised entirely of lost souls. The mission is to win these souls to Christ. Winning and losing. Duality. Either/or. But who said they were lost? Why is it even a contest, or a choice?

When my boys were small, we would go into a large store and I’d instruct them if they ever got lost, they needed to head to the front of the store and tell someone that they can’t find their parents. On a few occasions I would separate myself from them and then secretly follow behind to see how they would conduct themselves. I don’t recall a time when either of the boys got “lost” and I had fun surprising them when I popped into the aisle.

Notice that in this scenario, which we repeated on several occasions, the child made the sole determination of whether they were lost or not. Also note that lost simply meant not being able to find a parent.

If you’re a person who enjoys camping in the wilderness, one of the first things that you’re instructed in is what to do should you become “lost.” Experts far and wide tell you that you need to stay right where you’re at and prepare for a long wait for help to arrive. Again, it is at the sole discretion of the camper to determine whether they are lost or not. I’ve heard stories of people “lost” in the woods for extended periods of time and how a multitude of rescuers were dispatched to “save” them, yet, after many unfruitful days of trying to locate the “lost” person, this individual walks out to the surprise that people were looking for him. It never occurred to him that he was lost the entire time he had been gone.

In the book of Ephesians, we are told that everyone was in Christ before the foundation of the world, chosen and predestined for good works per the will of the Father. Nothing lost there; all recognized and accounted for. Somewhere, mankind had a self-conscious moment recognizing that they aren’t where they thought they were. The Father comes up behind them and asks, “…Who said you were…”

Is the “world” really lost if they’ve been in Christ from before the foundation of the world? Or is it possible the religious community doesn’t want to remind them of their inclusion until they repent of their “sins?” Doesn’t this make the religious community “rescue workers” looking for someone who never thought they were lost?

2 Cor 4:3-5 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: (4) In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. (5) For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake.

It would seem to me that in this passage Paul is clearly indicating that a lost person is someone who has made the conscious choice to become lost through unbelief. That’s the god of this world, our own choice. It would also appear that their unbelief is a result not of the gospel of Christ, but Paul claims, “…For we preach not ourselves…”

How much of the preaching to the “world” is about ourselves, our testimony as it were? “I was lost but now I have been found…” Do we truly believe that God didn’t know where we were along? He may have asked Adam that question, but, come on, who was the response truly intended for? How naïve do you think God is about you also?

Now I understand many may claim that Jesus said he came to find the lost sheep, which is true, however, he was dealing with the lost sheep of Israel, not what would be called “the world.” Paul, on the other hand, is the apostle to the Gentile, “the world” according to Israel, and he is making a case here in a letter to the Gentile church of Corinth, so the way that I’m reading this looks like if you don’t believe, you’re lost; not if you don’t know.

I bring this out here because a lot of people know about Jesus and believe that he is a good person. Many of these fine people don’t attend a religious institution or even want to be affiliated with one and in extreme cases, do everything in their power to stay as far away from anything or anyone associated with one. Doesn’t sound like the actions of a “lost” person, more like the actions of a person not interested in the pomp, ceremony and segregation called “church.” However, the church would claim that these people are lost basing their belief on the premise this if you don’t congregate with me, you’re lost in the world. I’m beginning to wonder if the church isn’t so lost in the traditions they’ve crafted that they can’t really see the forest of humanity or the tree Christ hung upon.

I’m stepping on a lot of toes here on purpose. The finished work is just that, finished. A sweeping pre-creation declaration surpasses any of the theories we’ve invented to attempt to justify the mystery of all mysteries. Maybe it’s time for the eternal assurances to be stressed beyond what we think we know and thereby welcome an entire planet into the act which completed things we still can’t comprehend.

I still can’t believe that God would allow himself to be killed by his own creation. According to Paul in this passage, my unbelief would make me “lost” and a surprisingly large number of people too. This is the foolishness of the cross which every single one of us still can’t believe except through the faith of Jesus. However, knowing grace the way I do, I’ve never felt lost. So why are all of you looking for me? The Father knows right where I’m at and He is darn proud of me. He even surprises me on occasions. How about you?