[THO] Personal Salvation

I think it is NT Wright that has me thinking in this direction, but I have been reflecting today on just how important my relationship with God is. I know I love to talk about the social implications of grace and some pretty heady theology, but there is something that to me is vital about my relationship with God. I don't pretend to think I have a market on it, or to understand God completely. God knows my views have shifted over the years. But I do know I have a real connection with God.

I was reflecting on some of the language around panentheism that I've been meditating on recently. I love that language but there is the possibility that the God of revelation gets lost in all that. I have been involved in quite a few different spiritualities before giving my heart to Christ and none of them really scratched that deeper itch. In fact none of them left me with a personal relationship like the encounter that left me on my face in New Brunswick so many years ago. That isn't a connection with an abstraction, but with a person.

I felt it would be good to lay those cards on the table. That is central to who I am. I love Jesus, about the simplist way to put it. I don't love the Christian faith or Christian Spirituality (well I do, but that I love it as an after thought not as a primary motivator) - I love the God who met me in that gymnasium and arrested me (I was going to walk away). I love it when I sense God's presence near me. I love it when I hear God's voice speak to me. Those things are core to who I am and why I am so passionate about theology and worship. Consider it my bias.

I am willing to talk abstractly about it, if you've been here a while you have probably seen that more than once. I am even willing to go for critical distance to try to understand my experience better. But, I always end up back here, at the feet of Jesus lost in worship.

I just thought you all should know that.