Skip to main content

Jesus

                Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 1:9-11)

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6)

I’m sure I’ve written about this more than once, but Biblegateway.com chose the verses from Philippians, and these are thoughts those verses bring to mind. The first deals with other religions. Some claim that all religions are the same, so on one hand it doesn’t matter which you pick, and on the other hand, if one is admitted or proven to be wrong or ridiculous, they all are. These verses and others in the Bible (including the Old Testament) proclaim that Judaism and Christianity are not like other religions. They aren’t about how by performing certain ceremonies or even keeping certain rules we can earn our way to heaven. They aren’t about our figuring out how to remind or manipulate some god(s) into doing something. All roads don’t lead to heaven. Jesus said that only Jesus does that.

            This brings us to the second challenge of the Philippians passage. It’s about bowing to Jesus as Lord and glorifying the Father. I suspect that sometimes we’re tempted to think that those bad folks in Hell and the good folks in Heaven are going to spend eternity on their knees, repeating “Jesus is Lord” every three seconds. That reminds me of a scene in the movie Harvey in which the psychiatrist character explains to Elwood P. Dowd (Jimmie Stewart) how he wants some woman to sit by him and respond to everything he says by patting him on the shoulder and saying, “There…there.” Elwood reckons that would be rather boring for all concerned. There are other ways to acknowledge that Jesus is Lord that are more in keeping with what God has revealed about Himself: loving God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strengths, obeying Him, and loving our neighbor as ourselves, for example.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Think About These Things

                 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. (Philippians 4:8) This passage is a major challenge for me. Like everyone else, I struggle to keep my thoughts from wandering off into the weeds, then wondering what possible benefits those weeds might have… Sigh. But as a writer, I have to delve at least a little into the ignoble, wrong, impure, unlovely, and debased. After all, there’s no story if everything’s just as it should be and everyone’s happy. As Christians, there are times when we need to deal with all the negatives, but that makes it even more important that we practice turning our minds by force of attention to what is noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy. It’s just too easy to get stuck in a swamp. With my...
1 comment
Read more

Higher Thoughts

  “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the  Lord . “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)           The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments,   for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord      so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (I Corinthians 2:15-16) If you read about the ancient gods of the various peoples, you’ll find that they think just like people. In fact, they think just like the sort of people we really wouldn’t want to be around. They think like the most corrupt Hollywood producer or, like hormone overloaded teens with no upbringing.   It’s embarrassing to read. I have a friend who argues that because God is not just like us, He is so vastly dif...
2 comments
Read more

Pure...

            The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. (I Timothy 1:5)   I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. (Revelation 3:15-16) I’m probably cheating - or mishandling the Bible, but earlier I was thinking about love being pure and purifying. And hatred being pure and purifying. And anger…joy…patience… fear… jealousy… courage…lust… and other strongly felt feelings, attitudes, and beliefs. Today’s verse brings purity and love together, so it’s the verse of the day, but it’s not really the focus. That means my motive for sharing it with you probably isn’t pure. As you read through my list, you   probably thought, “Yeah” about some, and “What’s she on?” about others. But consider how much hatred, a...
Post a Comment
Read more