Mike Paschall . com

If we want to go to the mature, mystical, and non-dual levels of spirituality, we must first deal with the often faulty, inadequate, and even toxic images of God that most people are dealing with before they have authentic God experience. Both God as Trinity and Jesus as the image of the invisible God reveal a God quite different—and much better—than the Santa Claus god who is “making a list, checking it twice, who’s going to find out who’s naughty or nice” or an “I will torture you if you do not love me” god (worse than your worst enemy, I would think). We must be honest and admit that these are the versions of “god” that most people are still praying to. Such images are an unworkable basis for any real spirituality.

Trinity reveals that God is the Divine Flow under, around, and through all things—much more a verb than a noun, relationship itself rather than an old man sitting on a throne. Jesus tells us that God is like a loving parent who runs toward us while we are “still a longways off” (Luke 15:20), then clasps and kisses us. Until this is personally experienced, most of Christianity does not work. This theme moves us quickly into practice-based religion (orthopraxy) over mere word and ideas (orthodoxy).

—From YES, AND…, pp. 65-67

“If we want to go to the mature, mystical, and non-dual levels of spirituality, we must first deal with the often faulty, inadequate, and even toxic images of God that most people are dealing with before they have authentic God experience.”

Regardless, if we want to grow up in our spirituality or not, our image of God “makes us.” In other words, how we see God “affects” and “infects” how we live. The entire notion of a “Christian witness” is null and void if it is not a true representation of the nature, character, and loving responses of God [see the life of Jesus: Colossians 1:15]. We need the Spirit’s discernment to see this. We need the Spirit’s influence to bolster and shape our will to reflect God’s true image. Some of what we see in God’s people is anti-Christ. People who are looking for reasons to throw rocks at the Christian mission and message have no trouble finding targets because of our blatant hypocrisy.

I recently watched a short video where the commentators were discussing the fallout and steady decline of church attendance within our culture. The “good-old-days” are long gone, and modern culture (particularly millennials) are “checked-out” and mostly dismissive of traditional worship settings across the board (not always, but mostly). The simple reason for this isn’t about logistics or their “other” interest. The explanation had everything to do with the incongruence of Gospel evidence regarding how Jesus lived, loved, and preferred others—in comparison to the normal inconsistency of “identifying Christians” who look, act, think about, or relate toward others nothing like Jesus would. In other words—there is a massive disparity between the love of Jesus—and how “Church” people respond to the real-time events and people around them in their daily lives. That’s a brutally painful thing to hear, but we need to hear it and be motivated to re-evaluate and live better. This thing about “following” Jesus isn’t satisfied just by our attending church or religious functions. —MDP

LIVE YOUR LOVE.

IT REALLY MATTERS.