Thank you, so much, my dear Mary!! You have warmed my heart. :)

Jim

Hello, my dear cp! I’ve been wondering where you’ve been, so it warms my heart to hear from you. :)

You had written:

I love to read Jim’s answers to the many people emailing with questions. I understand the people’s questions much better than Jim’s answers…

Sometimes when re-reading certain Q&A entries I, like you, understand their questions better than my own responses. Yeah, really! :) Although you may assume that my past experiences must be essentially different than yours, I can assure you, they are not. I used to search out and feed on the same kind of Biblically-centered and doctrinally-sound foundations you refer to. Week after week, for many years, I drove quite a few miles in my quest to become grounded in the faith.

If you ever get the idea that I regret what I’ve gone through, please know that I do not. For I value all of what God has brought me through — even the structures and doctrinal positions I so often assumed were necessary for my well-being in Christ. I no longer look back on my life in the same way I used to, for I would make conclusions about my spirituality based upon my own experiences. For example, I can remember having often shuddered at the thought that if my parents hadn’t decided to move to Florida I would not have heard the “clear gospel” and may have ended up in hell. The same goes for my fluctuating perceptions of being grounded in the truth and how that related to overcoming my own past and moving forward.

Please know that I do feel where you are coming from, and I do understand the sense of security that can be found in a listing or a doctrinal breakdown of certain aspects of what it means to be a Christian (identity, forgiveness, purpose, etc). In fact, I wrote and published two such listings in 1999: What if it is really finished? and What if God was really in us?.

Obviously, articles like those are exceptions to the rule on theShovel website, and I suspect that unless I had highlighted them from time to time very few people would have found them. For a long time, I had planned on writing a series of articles of that nature, but for one reason or another I never got around to it. Maybe I eventually will. But then again, anyone could search through my writings and compile a more understandable framework such as what you and I have desired. After all, don’t we all want to overcome the confusion of our blurred journeys?

Many as I need to be grounded in real life.

But what is real life? Haven’t your own perceptions of real life fluctuated over the years as mine have? You see, my own experiences have slowly adjusted and redefined the very basis of what I think real life actually is. Some of those adjustments were so slow in the coming that I didn’t notice how much my views had changed, while some have been triggered by traumatic events that made the adjustments absolutely necessary. The only thing that has delivered me through it all is the very life of Christ within me. Whether I speak of it as being his love or his grace or his faithfulness or his truth, it’s all the same. I don’t really need a special study on any given subject or virtue to bring it about, for I can see it in the midst of any and every truth. And I’ve come to realize that God could have taught me of his amazing love and grace through many different means, just as he obviously has in so many others.

What I have witnessed regarding many of the past insights that came to me through various doctrinal views and systematic structures of theology is that I too often came to assume that the more I got a handle on it the better I’d understand the truth. And too often just the opposite occurred, for I’d get lost in the system that was supposed to make it all clearer. That’s why I think so many people speak of being too heavenly minded to be of any earthy good, or why so many refer to having too much grace.

The same natural mind that perpetuates those past scars and wounds also promotes the perception that claims through knowledge comes power. But does it? It used to confuse me even more that the Bible spoke not only of seeking knowledge, but also that knowledge puffs up (while love builds up). Wow, what was that fine line I was missing? LOL! :) I took me years to realize that I may have been seeking grace and truth to empower me in the same way those in the world were seeking truth to empower them in their fleshly pursuits. That’s a real shock to the system, I tell you!

I could write much more, but the day slips quickly past, and I have things I must attend to, so I’ll cut this off with this last thought:
You could gather a whole list of grace teachings with Biblical references regarding your identity in Christ, and yet find that confidence still eludes you. You might assume that you just need that one missing ingredient, and so you persevere in search of it. But then, in the midst of your disappointment, you sense that something remains. For in Christ, something has always remained that is connected to everything you’ve sifted through and overlooked and may have even discarded in your quest for the secret to Christ. There is a reason that you will be captivated by one simple truth, which is the truth that smashes that doubt and confusion to pieces, and that reason is Christ. As you are in him, he is in you, and he goes with you wherever you go and in everything that you do. You will see him in the truth of God’s love and in the truth of God’s grace and in the truth of God’s truth and in the truth of what you experience and what you hear and what you say and what you think and how you talk and how you hear … you get the picture. But there is nothing more real or more grounded or more necessary.

Jim