“The One who wills the existence of conscious beings, eternal beings, is the same One who intends to spend eternity in freedom and welcome and communion with us.” May I diddle with this doozy? The One who wills the existence of conscious beings, eternal beings, is the same One who intends for us to spend eternity in the freedom, welcome, and communion of the One, as little friends of the One.
And regarding that function of the law of which you wrote, I was not won over by seeing, in and through the cross, all my sins forgiven. Rather, I was won over through being encountered by the prodigal love and tender care of the gloriously condescending Creator, as per the father depicted in the narrative prose poem of Jesus that’s commonly called the parable of the prodigal son. As for what to make of what God was doing in the grisly event of Jesus' death? That, for me, has come much later.
Thanks brother Bradsky. Your words smithing is welcomed! I steered clear of the whole soteriology debate on purpose. My focus is on freedom and the hospitality of God. But that hospitality was costly to God (from the Garden of Eden to the Suffering Servant prophesied in the Hebrew Scriptures. Costly, very costly… but not to us. “My yoke is easy and my burden is light…”
Best we can tell, the universe is 13.8 billion years old, and the observable universe is about 93 billion light years in diameter, and the number of galaxies in the universe is estimated to be between 6 and 20 trillion, and our galaxy holds perhaps as many solar systems as there are stars in it (so between 100 and 400 billion). Needless to say, my brain cannot contain these figures meaningfully, but one thing would seem apparent: God has been holding it all together, overseeing its development, and caring for any and all critters as may have ever existed anywhere throughout. Some estimate that homo sapiens arrived into the cosmos around 300,000 +/- years ago, with recorded history beginning only 6,000 years ago.
The cost to God of setting things to right here on postlapsarian earth required Creator’s personal intervention with the life and resurrection of Jesus, which was our first glimpse of our future transformation to become forever (with all things) as is his now-resurrected body. It was certainly costly for the incarnate Immanuel, a very strange act indeed on behalf of such apparently inconsequential critters as we and the planet we’ve corrupted. UNLESS we have no idea who we are in God’s creative heart and our true value to the creator. Again, my brain is close to exploding. But the singular strangeness of the incarnation testifies to our extraordinary value in Creator's eyes. (Note to self: suck on that, peabrain.)
“The One who wills the existence of conscious beings, eternal beings, is the same One who intends to spend eternity in freedom and welcome and communion with us.” May I diddle with this doozy? The One who wills the existence of conscious beings, eternal beings, is the same One who intends for us to spend eternity in the freedom, welcome, and communion of the One, as little friends of the One.
And regarding that function of the law of which you wrote, I was not won over by seeing, in and through the cross, all my sins forgiven. Rather, I was won over through being encountered by the prodigal love and tender care of the gloriously condescending Creator, as per the father depicted in the narrative prose poem of Jesus that’s commonly called the parable of the prodigal son. As for what to make of what God was doing in the grisly event of Jesus' death? That, for me, has come much later.
Thanks brother Bradsky. Your words smithing is welcomed! I steered clear of the whole soteriology debate on purpose. My focus is on freedom and the hospitality of God. But that hospitality was costly to God (from the Garden of Eden to the Suffering Servant prophesied in the Hebrew Scriptures. Costly, very costly… but not to us. “My yoke is easy and my burden is light…”
Best we can tell, the universe is 13.8 billion years old, and the observable universe is about 93 billion light years in diameter, and the number of galaxies in the universe is estimated to be between 6 and 20 trillion, and our galaxy holds perhaps as many solar systems as there are stars in it (so between 100 and 400 billion). Needless to say, my brain cannot contain these figures meaningfully, but one thing would seem apparent: God has been holding it all together, overseeing its development, and caring for any and all critters as may have ever existed anywhere throughout. Some estimate that homo sapiens arrived into the cosmos around 300,000 +/- years ago, with recorded history beginning only 6,000 years ago.
The cost to God of setting things to right here on postlapsarian earth required Creator’s personal intervention with the life and resurrection of Jesus, which was our first glimpse of our future transformation to become forever (with all things) as is his now-resurrected body. It was certainly costly for the incarnate Immanuel, a very strange act indeed on behalf of such apparently inconsequential critters as we and the planet we’ve corrupted. UNLESS we have no idea who we are in God’s creative heart and our true value to the creator. Again, my brain is close to exploding. But the singular strangeness of the incarnation testifies to our extraordinary value in Creator's eyes. (Note to self: suck on that, peabrain.)
I love the ideas expressed here, especially the idea that the Maker of the Glorious Cosmos wants to be Friends with what it has made.
And, of course, that still point of the dance! …and I love the painting your colleague made.