Thanks for the Gift. Now What?

First Paul tells me that I cannot save myself. I cannot give myself a gift that has already been given to me. My salvation has already happened through the Grace of God and my own faith. Tucked away. Got that. In the next breath, Paul tells me that I am saved to do good things, to act in a way a Christian should act, to respond to this gift in the way God created me to respond, to become all that I was created to be. See Ephesians chapters 4 through 6. I'll wait.

Good works are not prescriptive behavior. I know that I did not become a Christian by acting the way Christians should act. None of us did. I became a Christian by accepting a free gift. But then what? Am I supposed to jump around saying "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" for the rest of my life? Should I just sit here and wait for heaven to come?

What difference does it make how I act? I mean, really. In the grand God-scheme of things does it really matter how often I obey the only two laws I am bound to follow? So what if I love-obey God only some of the time and once in a great while love my neighbor? What's my occasional unloving stingy judgmental critical divisive you're-not-like-me-so-I-don't-like-you attitude got to do with Iraq or Somalia or global warming?

Earth, if I remember correctly, once was part of heaven. It was because of our rebellion that we were thrown out of the garden. Now God has, through his Son, reclaimed the earth and Jesus' meek people will one day inherit it (Matthew 5:5). What does this mean? How is this going to happen? Is this all tied together somehow? Abba, where are you taking me with this?

Wait a minute. What if — what if I already live in heaven? Don't leave! Stay with me here. What if heaven is already on earth but it is spread out so thinly that we can't see it? Sure there are a lot of Christians in the world, and we are not all that far apart. But how many of us live out the New Covenant the way God would like us to? I know I don't.

What would it take for me to accept and live out the two laws in our Covenant with God and start working to bring heaven to earth — at least a whole lot more often than I do now? And as God's people around me live out their faith, loving God and loving our neighbors, the more heaven seeps into the unheavenly places between us. What if heaven on earth simply means a time when enough of us are listening for God and choosing to obey Him that everyone else can see heaven without searching very far?

If we are the salt of the earth (Matthew 5:13), then I am but a single small crystal. Hardly visible really. But my actions, my saltiness, or lack of it, can be tasted by hundreds of people I brush elbows with each week. When I let Christ Jesus do his good works through me, I may not be as small and invisible as I think. Hmmm.

Paul was telling a young church then, and me now, that this process has already begun to happen. It has been happening, albeit painfully slowly, for the last two thousand years. Praise God for his patience. Praise our garden Earth for its patience as well. For something deep within me, down in the clay from which I was formed, feels the groaning and grief of Creation itself. For it, too, has long awaited the coming of heaven to earth. It too, awaits the day when we enslave ourselves to Jesus and do His will on earth — as it is in heaven.

I can hardly imagine what society will be like when enough of us become all that God created us to be. Somehow on that day, I have a feeling that all of Creation — every plant, every animal, and all the streams which connect them — will find a way to praise God that we humans have returned to the path God intended for us from the beginning — that we have brought the garden to the city — that we have brought Genesis to Revelation — to the revealing of Jesus in all His glory on earth. That is the day of redemption. That is the goal of the redemptive history we are all a part of.

And it all hinges on a response. It hinges on my response to a gift I already have. Pause here for a second. Think about this, Jim. The prayer I am about to pray I do not take lightly, and neither does God. In the presence of over a hundred witnesses, and standing up to my ankles in a puddle of tears of joy and thanksgiving to God, I pray the following ...

Lord, I am finally ready. Thank you for your unending patience with me spanning five decades. I praise you and thank you for the gift of Salvation. I am prepared for you to show me the way of life you have prepared for me from the beginning. Enslave me. Teach me to be your servant in everything I do and say. And thanks for asking. Yes, I'd love to have this dance. Amen! Amen! And Amen!