Accomplishment As Artwork

Missional living is definitely a buzz-phrase that is all over the place these days. the concept that we have to label places of worship, missional, has forever been a tiny bit different to me. please, shouldnt all bodies of Christ be missional in their very character? why cant a church, at its very essence, want to meet their culture and community with the story of Christ as a missionary would in a another country? Isnt what the places of worship is encouraged to do in the great commission in Matthew 28:19? Our own local area needs this type of church. Missional church in Austin is slowly transitioning to what our Creator instructed in Holy Word.

Christ gives the charge in Acts 1:8 saying, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Acts 1:8 exemplifies this subject as, right before Jesus Christ goes up to Heaven, He sends the disciples on a story that would begin right in their local community. He begins with their area of Jerusalem, and then expands the call to the uttermost parts of the globe.

As disciples of Jesus, we are not urged to privacy, but to be missional followers of Jesus who are anxiously going out and going to areas right where they are with the good news. We have noticed this throughout history: God sends Abraham on a mission to go out of his place of origin and his people and go to the place that God would show him (Gen. 12:1), God sends Moses on a journey to rescue an enslaved people and lead them to freedom (Exodus 3:8-10), God sends Jesus on a story to world to pull all things to Himself through the death of Jesus (Colossians 1:20). And now God is sending people on a story to engage areas, cities, tribes, and even nations with the message of Jesus (Matt. 28:19 Mark 6:7 Luke 10:1 John 20:21 Acts 1:8). If we abandon this motivation and continue to display the bodies of Christ like a members only country club ” urging that people clean up their act, pay their dues, and drive to our church God will continue His journey without us.

Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. Matthew 6:12.

The petition of our Lord’s Prayer at first glance seem to intimate that the pardoning of our sins is predicated on our pardoning those who have sinned against us. Yet, we have the uneasy feeling that this certainly cannot be so. It is inconceivable that God would have a need to bargain with us.

Rather, it is less problematic if we understood this passage to mean that our forgiveness is a necessary condition of our ability to receive God’s forgiveness. If we allow egotism to envelop our hearts and minds with prideful thoughts that focus on the sins of others (which is most often the case), we thereby render ourselves incapable of recognizing our own sins and hence, completely block the forgiving mercy of God. Jesus directs our attention first to our own sins. This order is significant. After all, the faults we see in others are also in us in one form or another. The main point is, if we are willing and able to pardon our offenders, then we will also be able to receive God’s pardon.

Robert Stein concurs that the “as” in the petition should not be misconstrued to mean that God forgives us to the same degree that we forgive others. He points out that no believer praying this prayer is sinned against by others as greatly as he sins against God. Certainly this is true, but Barclay advocates a more liberal view.

According to William Barclay, this petition to mean that our sins are forgiven in proportion as we forgive those who have sinned against us. He maintains that if we pray this prayer with an unsettled quarrel in our lives, we are virtually asking God to not forgive us. “To be forgiven,” Barclay claims, “We must forgive and that is a condition for forgiveness which only the power of Christ can enable us to fulfill.”

Karl Barth, on the other hand, is disposed to reject Barclay’s idea that human forgiveness is a condition of God’s forgiveness. He treats this petition as a criterion necessary for our comprehending God’s forgiveness. Insisting that God’s pardon has already been granted even before we ask, Barth points out that the “hope one entertains for oneself necessarily opens the hart, the feeling, and the judgment, in respect to others.

It seems that Barth’s interpretation is, in fact, the reverse of mine. Whereas I maintain that the believer must be free of the spirit of un-forgiveness in order to be open to receive God’s pardon, Barth contends that when the pardon of God is received by the believer, it enables us to forgive. I think Barth makes a good point too when he indicates that the “pardon of God is something that occurs at the divine level and a comparison cannot be drawn with what happens on the human level.”

I would be egregiously remiss if I failed to include Stein’s raising the question of which comes first: believers forgiving others and as a result, God forgives them; or God forgives believers and as a result, believers forgive others; or is our forgiving contemporaneous with God’s forgiveness? These are relevant and crucial questions that must be given careful contemplation and examination.

Though all of our (and others) interpretations differ at several points, we seem to generally agree that forgiveness and forgiving are intrinsically connected. Pardon is inevitably linked both to God and to one’s fellow sinner.

Rev. Saundra L. Washington, D.D., is an ordained clergywoman, veteran social worker, and Founder of AMEN Ministries. She is also the author of two coffee table books: Room Beneath the Snow: Poems that Preach and Negative Disturbances: Homilies that Teach which can be reviewed on her site. Her new book, Out of Deep Waters: My Grief Management Workbook, though delayed in publication, is expected to be available early 2006.

You have an open invitation to visit us at AMEN Ministries: Your Soul’s Service Station for reviewing spiritual services being offered, obtain spiritual refreshing and soul edification, get your daily dose of humor, browse our newly expanded Stop & Shop Store (which now include the “Lord’s Prayer” and other inspirational home decor) and to visit our prayer sanctum for quiet time with God.

Blessings to all!

If you bow down…

Terry Dashner (www.ffcba.com)

We in the west pride ourselves on being free. But are we free?
We might be free from the threat of tyrants, dictators, and
anarchists, but are we free from things that enslave our
passions and desires? For example, it has been said that
anything we bow to becomes our ruler–our god. Some are so
passionate about traveling that they bow to the god of
recreation. Others lust and bow to pornography. Whatever makes
us bow down becomes our ruler–our god.

Consider this. In the Philippines, monkeys are caught by
hollowing out coconuts and inserting sticky, aromatic candy to
attract the monkeys, who put in their hands to grab the candy
and can’t get their fist out. They won’t let go, even when their
captors approach, and they end up as monkey stew (Peter Kreeft,
Back to Virtue, Ignatius 1992, p.106).

Now you might be thinking, silly primates. But humans fair no
better on the sucker list. The first skeleton archeologists
uncovered from the volcanic ruins of ancient Pompeii was
grasping silver coins in its outstretched skeletal hand. The
coins rolled away as the skeleton was uncovered, with a mocking
clink (Ibid. p.112). I think you get the point. No one is exempt
from the possibility of being enslaved by vice.

Jesus wants to rule over our hearts, however, His rulership does
not enslave but emancipates. Jesus said that we could know the
truth and the truth would set us free. Jesus said, “Come unto me
all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.”
Remember, the Kingdom of God is upside down to the world’s
system and way of doing things. If Jesus becomes your Lord and
Master, He doesn’t enslave you like a world’s tyrant. He
liberates you from you sins and frees you to pursue life,
liberty, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Keep the faith. Stay the course. Jesus is coming soon.

Pastor T.