As a result of what Jesus showed us, we see a new reality that we never saw before. He showed us that we no longer have to live in life-sapping shame because we are in union with this God. We have a new sort of law, and it has nothing to do with a bunch of rules written in stone. It has to do with the Divine breath that exists right within our very beings. It's a law in itself - guiding and directing our thoughts and behaviors. We're no longer bound to that old set of laws that only led to mass shame and confusion. The Torah had no power to change the human heart, and that's exactly what humanity needed most.
And Jesus presented the most powerful message we'd ever heard - that this God didn't need a bunch of laws change the human heart. He told us that we already had all we needed - God's spirit - dwelling inside of us and leading us to changed lives. All we needed to do was open our eyes and ears and pay attention.
Jesus showed us that this God doesn't look at us through the lens of how bad we are, but looks at us as children made in God's own image. In this way, we see that the Torah (or, the old set of laws we and our ancestors all were slaves to) is now fulfilled through that spirit - or, that still small voice inside us - that's guiding and directing our thoughts and actions. If you want to stay in tune with this new understanding, you've gotta listen to your spirit and see what it's saying.
But, if you find that you keep wanting to adhere to the old laws, you're gonna find that same old dead-end way of living. Sooner or later, the spirit inside you is gonna win out. It's just a matter of how long it takes until you can't handle that old way of living anymore.
But we belong to God, and are spearheads of the movement that Jesus so beautifully started - this Spirit movement. We have the opportunity to replace the old with the new. The more we pay attention and press into this spirit inside of us, the more we find that it gives us the lives we want. Although our bodies are sick, and we're still dealing with the human condition, we always have God's spirit inside to rely on.
Now that that's all out of the way, I need to say this. We owe nothing to the old set of laws. They had their time. So for those of you who are still carrying around this guilty conscience about not living by the book, you're probably experiencing exactly what that law always led to - emotional and spiritual misery. If we want to experience fuller lives, we've got to keep slaughtering those old desires to earn our way into God's good graces.
Since we all have God's spirit dwelling within us, we are sort of like God's children. We aren't paralyzed by fear anymore about appeasing the gods, but now we're gently guided by God's spirit and we can rely on God for whatever we need - much like a parent and child relationship.
And since we belong to the presence of God, we are recipients of all the benefits that come from God - things like peace and joy. Some of you are thinking as you read this, "How the hell am I supposed to wrap my mind around all this mushy-gushy God stuff when my life is an endless cycle of suffering?"
Here's my answer. When we suffer, we're experiencing the lengths that Jesus went through to jumpstart this movement. We're reminded that when our heads hit the pillow at night, we can rest assured that the days of banging our heads against the wall trying to figure out how to get the gods to like us are over! We have a God who is with us amidst the suffering and the joy, the pain and the celebration. Not only is this God with us, but this God wants to experience what we experience! And so, the suffering that we are experiencing currently are no match for the abundant life that we're receiving one day at a time. It only gets better!
Every living creature has to experience some amount of suffering. But, at the same time, it's like all of creation knows in the core of its being that something good is coming. There is this deep seeded knowledge that things may look dim right now, but as a whole all of creation is being restored - one plant, one bird, one baby, one person at a time - all across the globe, across borders, across generational lines, and across eons of time. There will be a day when decay and death no longer have the final say, but life and freedom will fill the earth, infiltrating space and time and matter.
And so, we move forward with the reality that we are groaning for things to get better. But at the same time, we have this hope and also this reality that things are getting better. We and all the rest of creation are being made whole - restored by this God who we believe restores all things. Hope is a funny thing because if we can see the results, it's not hope but trust. And so, the reason I say so much about hope is, we can't see the results most of the time. Yet, it's this hope that sort pushes us to press more into this God, believing that the best is yet to come. This is how we take on characteristics like perseverance.
If you're like me, you suck at praying. That's okay, because even when we don't know what the hell we're doing, trying to communicate with this God that we can't experience with our senses, the spirit inside of us helps us get stronger. Since God's presence dwells within, all of our wants and needs are known. We don't have to worry about how good or bad we communicate with this God, because remember, this God's not concerned about how ritualistic and disciplined we are.
When we tap into the power that's right inside our cores, we realize that everything is gonna work out. We're able to take a step back from the chaos and whisper, "Everything's gonna be just fine." And since we're all bearing the characteristics of this God in some form or fashion, we're all being called in our own unique ways to grow deeper in our spiritual journeys. We've all been hard-wired to experience our own journeys with this God, and no two journeys are gonna look exactly alike.
To wrap things up, the question I want to leave with you is this: If God is for you, then why are you so worried about who's against you? Jesus taught us a breakthrough concept about a God who was willing to go to any length to rescue humanity from her troubles, and through his death, he wanted us to know that this God would even be willing to sacrifice itself for us. He wanted everything he did or said to point us toward this God, and he did a breathtaking job of it. It was offensive enough to the powers of this world that it got him killed. But Jesus was willing to die on a Roman cross to get the point across that God loves us with reckless abandon!
So, whatever suffering we're experiencing right now has no power to separate us from this God's love. Is somebody trying to make life miserable for you? It's not enough to separate you from God's love. Are you wondering if and when you'll eat next? It's not enough to separate you from God's love. Is your life in danger? It's not enough. Is your country at war? Are you fighting in a war? Are you at war with yourself? It's not enough to separate us. One of our other pieces of literature says, "We're facing death every day and all day, and we're considered by those who hate us as sheep to be slaughtered."
No matter what kind of suffering we're experiencing right now, it's not enough to overcome the power we get to tap into - the power of God's essence that lives within us. Death can't shake it, and neither can the curve balls that life throws at us. Nothing in the universe can shake us from the love of this God. And for that, we have something to motivate us to keep pressing, pushing, walking, crawling, and trudging on with the hope that right now, the process of restoration is happening all around us and in us.
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