Ivan you once asked me my views on being born again, so as we haven't been able to meet for coffee, these are my thoughts: After thinking about being saved or born again, about salvation and our relationship with God this is what I came up with.
Our relationship with God is amazingly similar with the relationship we have with our spouse, and I think God designed it so that we have an everyday reminder on how we should live and behave. Like when you read the Old Testament, there are so many parts that though they where written literally, we can take them spiritually, and take examples and guidance from them.
So here we go: Once we reach a certain age, we are drawn to the opposite sex, and we start looking for a mate. After we get a little older we start looking a little more seriously and earnestly for that one soul-mate. And once we spy that certain special someone, we try to woo him/her
and if it's the right one, things click, if not- keep on looking. And after a certain period of time and courtship , if we fall in love with our future spouse, then we marry. Marriage is like a contract, vows-where we promise to be faithful and love each other when the going gets rough and never forsake till death do us part. And once we are married then the work begins, it's never all roses (as we all know) there are ups and downs, but we have to work them out, we can't just quit and leave. And it seems it's those tough and hard times that strenghtens our love.
So how are we drawn to God? It seems that when all is well we do not yearn for a God. It is when we go through our darkest hour and toughest trials and tribulations, when we see that we are nothing and powerless is that we look skyward. When unexplained tragedies hit, or death of loved ones. And hence the aphorism: "There are no atheists in foxholes".
So what has all that got to do with being born again? Let me explain. Being born again is like the falling in love part. There are many ways to fall in love; There is the love at first sight that hits you like a ton of bricks that you can physically feel (that is the born again moment that some people can name a certain day and hour), or there is the high school sweetheart love where you've known each other for a number of years and have fallen in love in stages, or the girl next door love where you've known each other all your life and all of a sudden realize you've been in love all along, you just can't define one moment. Thats what I think most Hutterites can relate to as they've known Jesus from kindergarten on and are exposed to His teachings almost daily for all of their life. Or there is the arranged marriage love where the marriage is arranged and you work on the love later (for example in the Old Testament Isaac and Rebekah).
Then comes the marriage part which would be baptism, where you vow and promise yourself to God.
Then comes the being married part which is then the hardest part and is the rest of our life. We all know that we just can't fall in love, get married and live happily ever after, that only works in fairy tales, not in real life. It is through the rough patches in marriage that we have to work through that increases our love and respect for our spouse. It's about keeping our promise to love, honor, and obey. Through good times and bad, never to forsake...We all know how it is when we withhold secrets and wrongdoings from our spouse, there is tension in the air till we come clean, and if (forbid) we have an argument how uneasy both partners are till that gets reconciled and forgiven. And we won't even talk about breaking our marriage vows and being unfaithful.....
So in thinking about our salvation this way, the whole concept about faith and works and grace gets a lot clearer. Grace being our spouses love, faith being the belief in our love and marriage, and works being whatever we have to do to initially earn and then keep our spouses love and respect.
And lets be clear here, we can never earn true love. But we have do our part or we will never find that true love. And once we have that true love, we have to work to keep and grow that love.......
Over to you Ivan, 'wow' I've talked so long my coffees gone cold, better get me a fresh one...
No comments:
Post a Comment