What
did your father do for a living? What impact did that have on your
development? (Serendipity Bible 10th Anniversary Edition, page
1274).
My
father was a Methodist minister and pastor. I ask myself what would
daddy want me to say here – what would he most like for me to say
regarding his impact on my life? I think he would like for me to say
that I was blessed with a head start on the path of life. This head
start was purposively set by my father to include training in and
cultivation of appreciation for the truth and power of Scripture. He
presented me with a New Testament in 1961 with the following
inscription:
I
think he also would like to me to say that I had a model in him and
mother of people who genuinely believed in the efficaciousness of
God’s love within and among the lives of people. That is, my father
would insist that I focus not only on him and his occupation, but on
the impact of being persistently exposed over a period of development
and growth to a community of believers. If I ever wanted to
understand where my father was “at” I only had to look at those
who he regularly fellowship with in the congregation of believers.
And finally all rested ultimately in faithful allegiance to Jesus
Christ.
In
last Sunday’s sermon pastor David Miller referred to a challenging
question:
This
last week as I was reading Peter Rollin’s book – How Not to Speak
of God! In it he asks – would we follow Jesus if there was no
eternal life? He acknowledges that it’s not a very good question
because we know that Jesus did rise again. But all the same, if
there were no heaven after death – would we follow him? He says we
are always rushing from the cross to the empty tomb. But sometimes
we need to slow down and reflect on the motivation of our faith.
That is, do we believe because of what we will receive? Do we follow
Jesus because of the reward of eternal life? I would like to say
that I would follow Christ even if there were no heaven. Because
following Christ means peace beyond this world and power that is
greater and freedom from sin. But even those are things I receive in
response to my faith.
(http://pastordavidmiller.wordpress.com/2013/07/07/galatians-3-sermon/)
Would
I believe in Jesus Christ even if belief did not promise to secure
eternal life? Would I believe in Jesus anyway?” My answer to this
arises with total confidence and complete conviction—the value of
Christ’s life of earth quite apart from any “eternal reward”
considerations is self-sufficient and self-validating. It represents
a naked (in this sense indefensible) conviction something like that
attested to in the Declaration of Independence—some things, we must
aver in the end, are self-evident truths. In regards to my father,
even if Christianity is a story woven by dreamers, the expression of
faith found realized in his daily life evoked clarion chords that are
not contained by time or death. The validity of my father as a role
model for abundant life is self-evident.
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