Finding Christ?

       Through my recent endeavor to tackle the book of Romans and immerse myself in Paul's most theologically dense gospel, I suppose I'll have quite a few "revelations".  God is always faithful to reveal himself to us, so I know there is an infinite amount of knowledge to gain.  Here's today's feeble attempt to articulate what God has revealed to me.

       In Paul's introduction of his letter to the Romans he states that the readers (Gentiles and Jews alike), are "...called of Jesus Christ; to all who are beloved of God in Rome, called as saints..." (v. 6-7).  Called here is the greek word "klētos". Defined as follows...

1) called, invited (to a banquet)
         a) invited (by God in the proclamation of the Gospel) to obtain eternal salvation in the kingdom   through Christ

       This word is repeated 10 times in the Greek concordance of the New Testament (Matt 22:14, Rom 1:1, 1:6, and 1:7, Rom 8:28, 1 Cor 1:1, 1:2, and 1:24, Jude 1:1, and Rev 17:14). Each time its use indicates God's invitation/calling to his servants (that's us). It is a call to the faith which produces obedience to Christ.  As Paul states in Romans 1:4-5, "...Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we [the apostles] have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles [applicable to us] for His name's sake..."

       My point is this.  We do not have an active part in seeking out the gift of God and eternal salvation.  To say that we have "found" Christ is analogous to nothing more than a game of hide and seek with a 6-month-old baby.  We have but to remove the scales from our eyes and hearts to find the gift of eternal salvation.  If God were to be hidden, because of his infinitude, he would never be found.  Certainly no one could be better at a game of hide and seek than the Creator himself.  But because of his infinite grace and mercy, He sought us out!  He sent His son to pay the ultimate price for us to have continual communion with him.  Praise God that he reveals himself to us!  Finding Christ is simple (we make it hard).  Following Christ demands your life, but is infinitely and eternally rewarding.

Checklist

Understand life's deepest meaning 
Ponder infinitude, infinitely
Command thoughts of omnipotence
Know omniscience
Grasp grace
Be wholly holy

...and when all else fails, surrender to the invisible, perfect, unadulterated, overwhelming existence of the one true God.

Think deeply
Worship deeper
Be free

The Next Chapter

Boy, have I missed the mark on blogging for the last year or so!  There's a lot happening lately in the life of my wife and I.  Of most excitement is my acceptance into the University of Dayton for their Doctor of Physical Therapy degree.  I'm stoked!

Marriage is awesome!  It's crazy to start to see some of my friends getting married now too.  I'm getting an idea of how they felt when Whit and I tied the knot.

It's hard occasionally to be so far away from my closest friends that I consider brothers, but I'm excited for what God is doing in their lives!

Hopefully I can start to use this blog to challenge me to think deeper about different issues of faith and to continue to grow in wisdom from above.  That's the real reason for this post ;) 

-Jord