Western and Eastern View of Humanity in the Image of God

I. Introduction

Christians affirm that humanity was created “in the image of God”[1], but what exactly this means has been debated. The debate could go in many directions, but a helpful starting point is to consider the fundamental differences between the Western and Eastern perspectives of the early church on humanity as created in the image of God.  To bring this to light and life, the author will compare Augustine of Hippo for the West and Irenaeus of Lyons for the East.  By means of this comparison the reader will hopefully be more informed in their understanding of the fundamental differences of the Western and Eastern views of humanity as created in the image of God, sin, and vocation.

In some way or another, St. Augustine (A.D. 354 – 430) and Irenaeus (A.D. 120 – 203) views of humanity as created in the image of God have since shaped the Western and Eastern Church’s perspective on the subject until this very day.  Augustine’s writings, such as Confessions, City of God, the Free Choice of the Will, and The Trinity have shaped Western Christianity and philosophy in insurmountable ways, still being commonly read in classrooms and sold in bookstores today. Irenaeus is considered one of the most creative, formative, and diverse thinkers of early Christianity, even the “first catholic theologian, in the sense that his teachings were accepted by the then Universal Church, in both the Greek East and the Latin West.”[2]

II. Augustine’s view of the Imago Dei, Sin, and Vocation

Augustine, creating the Western the doctrine of the Trinity, in basic terms first asserted the oneness or unity of God as located in his essence or “the totality of all of God’s characteristics or attributes”[3] and then asserted the threeness of God. Patristic scholar Donald Fairbairn explains the Western conception of God, “in th[ier] understanding of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit are clearly all one God because they possess a single essence, an identical set of attributes.”[4]

Scholar Colin Gunton suggests that it is important to read and interpret Augustine in the Neo-plationic context that he lived in.  In his book, “The One, the Three, and the Many: God, Creation, and the Culture,” he argues that the Neo-Platonic concept of the One (Eternal and Changeless) and the Many (Corruptible and Changeable) is the philosophical backdrop to properly understand Augustine’s thinking.  When formulating his doctrine of the Trinity in a culture dominated by Greek philosophy, Gunton argues that Augustine overemphasized the oneness of God over the Many or God’s creation, including humanity. His concern was to fit the Christian God into the categories of the God of the philosophers who understood the divine to be supremely rational, “an intelligence containing ideas.”[5] Gunton explains that this was the case because,

“the Pre-Socratics were concerned to seek the reason for the overall unity of the way the world was. For them the concept of the divine had a rational and moral function: it provided the basis for both thought and behavior. It made sense of the world as a unity and the human place within that world.” [6]

Augustine thus linked the image of God in humanity to their possession of rationality and morality in resemblance to the Greek concept of the divine.  In contemporary theology, his view of the “imago dei” became known as the “structural view:” meaning that “being a formal structure of the person, …the divine image is something we ‘possess’, and it constitutes the properties that constitute us as human beings [mainly rationality and morality].”[7]

Augustine’s creation story goes as follows, Adam and Eve were created in an original state of perfection in a perfect fellowship with God in Paradise, but when they chose to sin by their own choice, they lost their fellowship with God becoming alienated from themselves and each other.  The consequences of Adam’s Fall were severe, including a significant loss of their original perfected likeness to God while yet still retaining God’s image.  Scholar James Purves explains,

“the residual image of God in man, reflective of God in that man, retains the capacity of rational thought, and the free exercise of his will came to be seen as somehow incomplete and less than the whole capacity of human nature which God intended for Adam and his heirs.”[8]

Augustine also considered that all of humanity participated in Adam’s sin and were co-responsible for his sin, and thus after the Fall all of humanity was guilty before God from birth.  He formed his doctrine of original sin capitalizing on the twelfth verse of Romans 5, which says, “… sin came into the world through one man…in whom all have sinned.”[9]

For Augustine, the restoration of the image of God that humanity lost at the Fall—the limitation and darkening of their soul (i.e. rationality, will and emotions)—became the project of God’s salvation, which intimately tied into the human vocation. It was this together with his enjoyment of contemplative reason inherited from Plato and Plotinus that led him to understand that the human vocation was to achieve the contemplative beatific vision.  In this experience, believers in Christ sought to cooperate with the Holy Spirit’s desire to restore their lost capability to see and experience God in perfect fellowship. God had originally given Adam and Eve the task “to remain in and enjoy a perfect universe, to maintain an-already perfect fellowship with God,” but since their Fall, their task took the shape of a journey of struggling to maintain their fellowship with God in a fallen universe of decaying particulars; a fellowship that ultimately would only be restored in Paradise.[10] He further expounds on what this vocation looks like in daily life, as the believer make progress by taking small steps on this lifelong return journey by the power of the Spirit he,

transfers his love from temporal things to eternal, from visible to intelligible, from carnal to spiritual things; he is industriously applying himself to checking and lessening his greed for the one sort and binding himself to charity to the other…When the last day of his life overtakes someone who has kept faith in the mediator, making steady progress of this sort, he will be received by the holy angels to be led into the presence of the God he has worshiped and to be perfected by him and so get his body back at the end of the world, not for punishment, but for glory.  For only when it comes to the perfect vision of God will this image bear God’s perfect likeness.[11]

III. Irenaeus of Lyons view of the Imago Dei, Sin, and Vocation

Irenaeus was a forerunner to the Eastern formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity that comes to peak in the third century writings of the Cappadocian Fathers.  In his foremost work, Against Heresies, he reacts against the external philosophies of Marcion and second-century gnostics, but while doing he laid the groundwork for the Eastern view of the Trinity. He will differ from Augustine in that in his understanding of the Trinity he emphasizes, as will the Cappadocian Fathers, first the threeness and diversity of God and then asserts the oneness of God.

In Against Heresies, Irenaeus sought to defend human freedom against the Gnostic idea that “humans were born into three distinct classes and that only those of the highest class could be saved” and argued “humanity was originally created in an unstable, immature condition and was called to progress to maturity.”[12] He taught that In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were not created in an immature infantile state in which God: destined them for perfection, but also allowed humanity the freedom to choose to follow the path of perfection or union with God.  Rather then coercing humanity to be in relationship with him, God gave humanity the capability to follow or diverge from the path towards union with God. This reveals something about Irenaeus conception of God: a Trinity or three persons whose self-giving relationships to one another caused the one God to create out of love rather then out of manipulative need.

For Irenaeus Adam and Eve’s sin was a turning away from the path of perfection and union with God that he had intended for them. From their divergence from the path to perfection, sin entered the world and became an ongoing obstruction from humanity’s potential and goal to become like God. Fairbairn notes,

“in a certain sense communion with God was not simply given to them at the beginning, but was set before them as something to be obtained.  Humanity’s calling, then, was to acquire the divine likeness, to aspire to union with God.”[13]

He understood humanity’s vocation in the broad sense of the whole persons deification—or sharing in the life of the Trinity—in the same way that he understood that Christ would save all of reality, including the whole person in the eschaton.  In Irenaeus’ own words,

Now God shall be glorified in his handiwork, fitting it so as to be conformable to, and modeled after, His own Son.  For by the hands of the Father, that is, by the Son and the Holy Spirit, man, and not [merely] a part of man, was made in the likeness of God…And for this cause does the apostle, explaining himself, that the saved man is a complete man as well as a spiritual man; saying thus in the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, “Now may the God of peace sanctify you perfect; and may your spirit, and soul, and body be preserved whole without complaint to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.”  Now what was his object in praying that these three—that is soul, body, and spirit—might be preserved to the coming of the Lord, unless he was aware of the [future] reintegration and union of the three, and they should be heirs of one and the same salvation?[14]

III. Fundamental Distinctions of Western & Eastern Views of the Imago Dei, Sin, and Vocation

Comparing and contrasting Augustine and Irenaeus one can perceive the fundamental distinctions between the Western and Eastern views of humanity, vocation, and sin.  In the West humanity’s original state prior to the Fall was already-perfected fellowship with God and each other, while as in the East humanity’s original state was an unstable immature condition in which they given the calling to mature to perfection with God.  It follows that the Western view of sin is “a drastic fall from of a state blessedness, [which] is absent from Eastern thought because Orthodox theologians do not believe humanity was yet in such a perfected state.”[15] In the East the effects of sin are less dire, in that in the West sin significantly damages humanity’s God-like image, whereas in the East sin merely becomes a temporary malady or disease.  In both cases Adam’s sin will affect all of humanity and render them in a desperate need of salvation that can only come from God. In the West, salvation is God’s restoration of humanity’s original perfected fellowship with God and each other in Paradise, whereas in the East salvation is an elevation to the new life of being perfected and sharing in the life of the Trinity.

In the East vocation takes the precedence over sin—in that it is not an integral act in the story of redemption—but rather emphasizes that humanity was created with potential for union with God and then calls them to look forward and progress towards perfection with God.  Whereas in the West, sin takes the precedence over vocation—in that an integral act in the story is humanity’s fall from an already-perfected state of fellowship—which causes them to understand their vocation as a looking back and returning to their original perfected fellowship with God in Paradise.

IV. Conclusion

The positive and negative implications of the Western and Eastern views of humanity as created imago dei are beyond this present work, but for now one significant implication from both views will be teased out.  Drawing from scholar John Ziesler’s thesis that Paul and the NT is silent on the original condition of man prior to sin is entirely concerned with “a view of man is directed so firmly to the Last Adam and to the goal of man…[so] that…the more circumspect notions of a fall and a restoration perform no function in his theology”.[16] On the first note, it seems that both the Western and Eastern views can be said to be merely speculating on the issue, and that Paul is asking a fundamentally different question: he is not asking what the condition of humanity in the beginning prior to sin, rather he is “concerned with the fact that since Adam there is disobedience, sin, and death, which together constitute a universal predicament…the only question of interest is how to deal with the matter.”[17] Paul finds his answer not by looking backwards to causes, but rather by looking forward to Christ as the new Adam—“the true definition of humanity.”[18] True humanity or the true imago dei “lies not in the past, not even in a renewal of the past by God’s eschatological action in Christ, but rather in the present and the future exclusively.  If Ziesler is correct then it might be appropriate to conclude that Paul and the NT have more in common with the Irenaean view of humanity then with the Augustinian.

The Western and Eastern understandings of humanity as created in the image of God are fundamentally distinct, but yet in some sense, they agree on humanity’s desperate need for salvation that can come only from God.  If rightly understood, they can be corrective and supplemental to each other.  A Western understanding of the imago dei can help the believer understand that his condition before God has changed in Christ—in that he is legally righteous and whose sins are forgiven—but the Eastern understanding of the imago dei can help believer understand salvation “in the broader sense of deification—our sharing in the divine life.”[19]

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[1] Gen 1:26-27

[2] Demetrios J. Constantelos, “Irenaeos of Lyons and His Central Views on Human Nature,” St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 33 (January 1, 1989): pg. 352.

[3] Donald Fairbairn, Eastern Orthodoxy through Western Eyes (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), pg. 56.

[4] Ibid., pg. 56.

[5] Vladimir Lossky, Orthodox Theology: an Introduction (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1978), pg. 57.

[6] Colin E. Gunton, The One, the Three, and the Many: God, Creation, and the Culture of Modernity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pg. 23.

[7] Stanley J. Grenz, Theology for the Community of God (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 2000), pg. 169.

[8] James G. Purves, “The Spirit and the Imago Dei: Reviewing the Anthropology of Irenaeus of Lyons,” Evangelical Quarterly 68 (April 1996): pg. 99.

[9] Philip Schaff and Aurelius Augustinus, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), pg. 123.

[10] Augustine, Edmund Hill, and John E. Rotelle, The Trinity (Brooklyn, NY: New City Press, 1991), pg. 330.

[11]Ibid., pg. 389-90.

[12] Donald Fairbairn, Eastern Orthodoxy through Western Eyes (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), pg. 65. This view of humanity was not the only view espoused in the East, nor even the only way Irenaeus wrote on the subject, but it would become the general way the East would come to view humanity, sin, and vocation.

[13] Donald Fairbairn, Eastern Orthodoxy through Western Eyes (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), pg. 68.

[14] Of Lyons Irenaeus, Against the Heresies (Lexington, KY: Ex Fontibus Company, 2010), pg. 566-67.

[15] Donald Fairbairn, Eastern Orthodoxy through Western Eyes (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), pg. 74.

[16] J. A. Ziesler, “Anthropology of Hope,” The Expository Times 90, no. 4 (1979): pg. 105, doi:10.1177/001452467909000403.

[17] Ibid., pg. 106.

[18] Ibid., pg. 106. See Romans 5 and I Cor 15.

[19] Stanley J. Grenz, Theology for the Community of God (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 2000), pg. 69.

Vindicating the Life of Simeon – Lk 2:25-35

Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. And he came in the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the Law, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said,

“Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace,
according to your word;
for my eyes have seen your salvation
that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and for glory to your people Israel.”

And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him.  And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed  (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”

How noble the life of Simeon!  How beautiful his heart!  Righteous and devout – he longed for the consolation of Israel.  His heart was connected to the plan of God to be fulfilled in a baby, whom we know today as our Saviour Jesus.  Luke takes the space to write 198 words concerning him.  His life was hidden and relatively obscure in his day, he is not mentioned in the author of Hebrews “Hall of Faith” (Heb 13), and yay he has not been greatly considered throughout church history.  Yet, this day, in this hour between the two great advents we honor him and desire to be taught by him.

Oh, Lord, hear our prayer. We desire to serve you in your temple, to live a consecrated life, to search the Scriptures concerning your appearing, to receive your Word and promises, to long all our days for the consolation of Israel and the Church, to not rest or hold our peace until he comes, to rejoice and bless you when he does. Reveal to us what you revealed to him. Amen

Greetings from Haiti!

I’ve been in Haiti for a month now and I’ve really settled in here and I’ve become quite comfortable (We have running water now, a generator, fans, and internet access at the guest house).   My first few weeks were honestly very scary and lonely for me, but this forced me to trust in God in ways that I hadn’t before.  I also was uncertain of my role here with the Apparent Project for a bit, which made me anxious, but this was eventually clarified to me.  I’m helping some Haitian teens that hang around Corrigan and Shelly’s house and make jewelry in the jewelry program make a rap album.  I also pray in the mornings from 8 – 12ish, which is mostly personal time in meditation and reading the Bible, but I also set apart time to pray in a focused way for the Apparent Project.  The teens all really love rap music, want to be rappers, and are in need to be discipled in their faith, and the Apparent Project is currently in need of much prayer so this is really a great fit for me down here.

My heart comes alive when I can spend at least four hours in prayer daily and I so enjoy it.  Although, I don’t believe everyone is called to be an intercessor like Anna in the Gospel, I do believe everybody is called to the heights of holiness and a deep prayer life.  I’m learning this in the book I’m reading this summer, Fire Within by Thomas Dubay.  It’s glorious!  I took six pages of notes in a Word document on the first chapter and I can already confidently say that this is the one book I recommend everybody reads!

I have a lot of thoughts about Haiti going through my mind, but for now I’ll simply say that I’ve realized that people in Haiti are simply people.  Corrigan said something that struck me once, he said there’s only one world, which is very simply but it says a lot to me.   I have spent considerable time mourning over  the poverty and post-earthquake effects and rubble in Haiti, but recently I’ve been given grace to look beyond the pain for a moment, pause, and see beauty in the Haitian people.  In my perceptions, they are a beautiful people who live in the context of oppression and inhumane poverty, and yet possess a unique freedom, strength, and joy that is an indictment on the epidemic heights of depression, grumbling, and complaint in America.  This is not to say that they are not sinful like all of humanity, but it is to say that there is something unique and beautiful about them that is difficult to put into words.

I plan on writing on here more consistently to keep people updated on my life in Haiti until I come home in seven and half weeks. I know it might sound strange to say it that specifically, but it helps me keeps things in perspective and reality.  I don’t want to waste this summer.  Just about five weeks have already come and gone in no time!

Please pray…

• That I don’t waste the rest of my time here.
• For inspiration, creativity, and skill to make this rap album with the Haitian teens (for me and them).
• For the Lord to deliver me from fear  (I’ve been waging war against this sin in my life).  Ask the Lord to give me courage to be myself, to speak up and voice my opinions.
• For progress in my relationships with the teens, Shelly and Corrigan, visitors, etc.  I want to grow in my relational skills.
• For wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God (Eph 1)
• For my attentiveness the Holy Spirit and the needs around me.  Specifically, I want to see the Lord do amazing and miraculous things like heal the sick and save the lost!

Thanks and Blessings in Christ,

Luis

The Request for Shorter Sermons in Church is a Result of our Boredom with the Bible

I wrote this for a class and thought I should post it.  Let me know your thoughts friends…

It is my personal opinion that 50 minutes is not too long to keep the attention span of a group of volunteers seeking to understand night and day prayer.  It was said of Jonathan Edwards in Volume 1 of The Works of Johnathan Edwards that

“The first sermon, which he preached at Princeton, was on the Unchangeableness of Christ, in Vol. II. p.949.  It was upwards of two hours in the delivery; but is said to have been listened to with such profound attention and deep interest by the audience that they were unconscious of the lapse of time and surprised that it closed so soon.”

People pay attention to the things they are hungry to understand, they enjoy deeply, and are passionately committed to.  It should be treated as a very serious problem in the church when the multitudes are bored with the Bible and there are no anointed preachers in the land.  I fear that many in the church are asking for shorter sermons and entertaining performances at church at the expense of the anointed preaching of the Word of God.  In a review of T. David Gordon’s book Why Johnny Can’t Preach Kevin DeYoung wrote the following words that summarize and crown my argument:

“We have been trained by a image-based, sound bite, attention span deficient culture to skim books and fly past arguments. In other words, we don’t read carefully. We don’t read literature. And we surely don’t read poetry. We aren’t used to thinking deliberately, meditatively about texts. So preachers come to the text each week with general ideas about what the Bible says and then once they find those same ideas again, they preach on the same thing again. We are not learning, growing, or being changed by the text. Preachers are simply coming to have their banal assumptions and cliche-level understanding confirmed for yet another week.

And preachers can’t write. We don’t write letters anymore. We talk on the cell. We IM. We write a quick note on somebody’s Facebook wall (about something really important, like the kind of oatmeal we just ate or our favorite Smurf). And when we write at all, it’s in an email, where we ignore punctuation and rely on emoticons to do the hard work of telling people how we feel.

All of this makes preachers and preaching disorganized, sloppy, and trivial.

Ministers [in our culture] are not at home with what is significant; ministers whose attention span is less than that of a four-year-old in the 1940s, who race around like the rest of us, constantly distracted by sounds and images of inconsequential trivialities, and out of touch with what is weighty. It is not surprising that their sermons, and the alleged worship that surrounds them, are often trifling, thoughtless, uninspiring, and mundane…The great seriousness of the reality of being human, the dreadful seriousness of the coming judgment of God, the sheer insignificance of the present in light of eternity–realities that once were the subtext of virtually every sermon–have now disappeared, and have been replaced by one triviality after another.”

I do not think that the appropriate response to this problem in our culture is to stop preaching the Word of God for long periods of time and starting to use different learning methods to try and capture the attention of the masses.  Using a variety of learning methods may be practical and helpful, but it neglects the reality of the true problem at hand.  I also have spoken to a friend about this very issue and his testimony is that he is not an auditory learner like myself, but his attention is held by mere hunger for understanding the Word of God during long sermons.  Although, as of now he is my only witness, I’m certain he is not alone in his testimony because I know of many church’s that hold similar opinions to me about preserving traditional preaching methods and who have large flocks of people of a great variety of learning styles attending their services every Sunday.

Blessings,

Luis

Psalm 19: The Knowledge of God through the Lens of Creation – Part 1

The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
 Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
 There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
 Their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.
In them he has set a tent for the sun,
 which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,
and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy.
 Its rising is from the end of the heavens,
and its circuit to the end of them,
and there is nothing hidden from its heat. (Ps 19:1-6)

Although I haven’t studied it personally I have heard others say that Psalm 19 was written by David when he was a teenager out in the fields tending to flocks of sheep, doing mundane farming responsibilities, killing lions and bears and the like.  It was on an ordinary afternoon when he was plowing the fields that he got lost  in the beauty of  God as the sun set in the sky in front of him.  It’s what inspired him to write Psalm 19, a psalm that guides the human heart to three holy and sure paths to the knowledge of God: created things, the written word of God, and the internal ministry of  the Holy Spirit.

I am so glad we have finally passed through the dry, bitter, and cold winter and have made it safely to the fresh breezes, bird singing filled mornings, and warm days of spring.  I think spring is my favorite season of the year, it reminds me that all things have been made new, and it’s just nice to be able to walk across campus slowly, rather than hurried by freezing cold winds brushing against my face.

One of my favorite things to do is to take a walk with the Lord in a forest preserve, it’s so sweet and intimate.  I can usually escape the worries and pressures of life pretty quickly when I’m out in nature. When I see the vast array of colors in trees and the impeccable details of a flower the revelation of a God more beautiful than anything I could ever imagine pierces through all my unbelief and dullness and declares, “God is real!  He’s so lovable!  And he wanted to be in relationship with you!”

I wasn’t always like this though.  I used to be the guy that wasn’t very fond of nature and didn’t really like the outdoors at all.  I was scared of mosquitos and those little creeping things on the ground God created in Genesis.   I used to wonder what my friends saw when they looked out at a sunset and were deeply moved by it.  I just didn’t get it.

I don’t know when it happened, but the more I read the Bible, and the more I matured in love (obedience) for Jesus I slowly started getting it.  Very slowly, no exaggerations.  Yeah, I was that dull.  Maybe you never had this struggle and I think it’s kind of strange, but maybe there’s someone out there like me that this will give hope to.

I think I can remember two things besides growing in the Word and holiness that helped me with this.

1. I started getting into contemplative prayer, which awakened an overall attitude of attentiveness to the Lord in all of my  life.  I started taking life slowly, looking around more, giving myself enough time to be moved by the beauty of God in creation, etc.
2. The Lord set me free from the lie that I could only get revelation from the Bible, and that getting revelation from nature was somehow wrong.  That’s just legalism.  I remembering feeling weird when I contemplated nature because I thought I was compromising my faith and doing something a person in a new age religion would do.  I was scared God was thinking I was worshipping the creating things or that I would become an environmentalist.  While it is true that is right and good  to get revelation from nature, I do think it should be a secondary source of  revelation.  If you are not moved by the Word of God, and you are only moved to love God by creation then something is deeply wrong and you may be in danger of having a view of God that is not Biblical.

As we see in v. 1 ( “The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.”), getting revelation from nature is clearly Biblical.  In fact Romans even says that God’s

[I]nvisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. (Rom 1:20)

Well, I’m sorry if this is a bad ending, but I wrote more than I thought I would and I still have more to say so until part 2 you’ll have to stay in suspense.

In the love of Christ,

Luis

In Love with Jesus, Friends, the Bible, and Prayer

I haven’t posted in a while so I post something real quick. I’m in love with Jesus! My love is weak, but it’s real. Especially, when I look at the lives of the saints of old and the apostles in the Bible. Im thankful for my friends! I love Josh so much. I have never met anyone like him. He’s one in a million! Being around him for a week for Onething and a week or so after Onething was so encouraging. I learn best by talking and listening, and that is usually talking and listening to Josh. We talked about the reality of love being obedience, and if that’s true then most of what I call love for Jesus is mostly emotion and sentiment if I were really honest. We talked about how being real and our true personality is true humility. We are maturing in love, slowly but surely, learning how to love God and be ourselves and love one another in the rough dynamics of human relationships. Honesty, repentance, openness, forgiveness, in human relationships and it all comes back to love! It all comes down to love!

I’m encouraged.  I feel more dependent on the grace of God to obey God then I have ever been in my life. I’m learning how to be a man and that I am a man, and wild at heart. I signed back up for the sacred charge, but with less zeal then I had last year.  I’d be deceived if I didn’t. I’m gaining courage to face my shame and believe I’m loved in my weakness every day. I love the Bible. I love prayer. And I love Jesus. I love school too! Love the people there! Though at times I”d rather be at IHOP in Kansas City, Mo with my closest friends. Even so, I really like my classes. They really challenge me a lot. I am right where I am supposed to be. I’m thankful, though I don’t feel gratitude overflowing from my heart. I’m going for it though! I’m not giving up!

At Onething, the Lord spoke to me so profoundly. His voice broke into my mind with power telling me to get back up! To fight the good fight! Telling me that I am victorious! Telling me that he saw me, even if no one else does. He sees the warrior that no else does. Telling me that Satan is a liar. It was the voice that break cedars. It was the urgent voice of the Lion of Judah! It made me come alive.

Blessings

Luis

Quoting A Beautiful Word Picture For the Spiritual Life

I’ve been reading Henri Nouwen’s “The Inner Voice of Love” sporadically the past three weeks or so…I have found so much comfort and hope from his words that counsel me in the contemplative life—helping me to befriend my emotions (Not pushing them to the side in the name of “moving on” or “getting over it”, like so many people do and counsel others to do so as well as if our emotions are not important),  and be honest, still, and open before the Lord. Here’s a small quote from this little book of words of comfort, truth, and life:

You can look at your life as large cone that becomes narrower the deeper you go.  There are many doors in the cones that give you chances to leave the journey.  But you have been closing these doors one after the other, making yourself go deeper and deeper into your center.  You know that Jesus is waiting for you at the end, just as you know that he is guiding you as you move in that direction.  Every time you close another door—be it the door of immediate satisfaction, the door of distracting entertainment, the door of busyness, the door of guilt and worry, or the door of self-rejection—you commit yourself to go deeper and deeper into your heart and thus deeper into the heart of God.

In the love of the Father,

Luis

My Hope is in Mercy on the Journey and I Will Forever Sing

I am so prone to guilt, condemnation, and shame especially when I sin so often, but every now and then the Holy Spirit inspires me to believe one more time, I take courage and trust in the blood of Jesus to wash me white as snow! This is my only hope because if God was an angry God who was limited in the number of times he gave me mercy then I would not stand a chance in a relationship with God.

After trusting in the blood of Jesus and feeling clean again sometimes I find my soul insecure–being so grateful for his loving-kindness yet never wanting to sin against this beautiful man again, but the sad truth is that I will sin against him again many times and in horrible ways. So here I am, enjoying feeling forgiven, but feeling kind of hopeless against my sinful nature.

In this tension I am reminded that the Holy Spirit will never leave me, that he will always walk with me as my friend and a kind and gentle servant counseling me on how to grow in mature love for Jesus. Every time I fall he will be there to pick me up again, while I fit and pout turning my head away from him in shame, he will zealously pursue me with a huge smile on his face, tender eyes, an outstretched hand, and  words of life saying, “Come on, let’s go Luis, let’s give it another try! I still love you.”

This gives me so much hope.  Were on a journey, were in for the long-haul, were on a marathon and I don’t want to draw back from wholeheartedly pursuing God in ungodly fear of God and shame for a moment of the race.  Until he returns or calls me home, I want to be running with full zeal and making the maximum amount of impact I possibly could have on this earth. So until I meet the Lover of my soul I am leaning on grace and mercy. And every time I fall, my confidence in my flesh is diminished a little bit more, I learn to trust in mercy a little bit more, and Im a little bit more closer to seeing his beautiful face, kissing him, looking him in the eyes, smiling and saying a gentle, “Thank you.”

1 I will sing of the mercies of the LORD forever;
With my mouth will I make known Your faithfulness to all generations.
2 For I have said, “Mercy shall be built up forever;
Your faithfulness You shall establish in the very heavens.”

5 And the heavens will praise Your wonders, O LORD;
Your faithfulness also in the assembly of the saints. (Ps 89:1-2, 5)

In the love of Christ,

Luis

Seduced by the King on a Beautiful Dark Night

Here I am again Lord, my one true Love… I am an everlasting thirst, yet I ever seek to fill this divinely induced void with other lovers. Oh what a wonderful gift of God it is to thirst, to crave, to wait in the pain of longing, never being satisfied with lesser things. And how ungrateful I am, ungrateful to not recognize and esteem your movements towards me in erupting passion over this little soul. This is the purpose of seasons of aridity, to destroy all my vain thoughts, ambitions and hopes for you alone are worthy of all my worship; to exult your royal love that burns so fresh and pure, fervent and true– you cause me to tremble and feel so uncomfortable.  You demand everything I have to give–every little nook and cranny of my soul, and you will not relent until I am conquered, won over and smitten with love! I shall love you with no reservation and total abandon, whispering sweet gushy I love you’s underneath my breath where only you and I can hear. You have commanded it to be so.  I bless and thank you my King, for seducing me on this beautiful dark night.

“O, Lord, you have seduced me, and I have been seduced.” (Jer. 20:7)

In the center of his flame,

Luis

The Practicality of Theology

This is the introduction to my theology section in my ministry manual slightly adapted for WordPress:

Many dismiss themselves from theology (the study of God) believing it is only for the scholar with the idea that it is merely an abstract study that does not affect our daily lives.  If these were to simply take a few moments and ask themselves “Would studying God affect my daily life?” they would see how false this idea truly is.  Of course studying God will affect our daily lives!  Theologian Stuart Greaves says that “[t]heology forms the ideas that come into our minds and ideas have consequences,” meaning every idea you have about God, yourself, and the world will affect the decisions you make every day, and whether we’ve given much thought to it or not we are all theologians in a certain sense—because we all have ideas that we believe about God, ourselves, and the world.  And for this reason it is important that our theology is right, and in order to ensure this our theology must be deeply rooted in the Bible.

In the love of Christ,

Luis