Reality Disjuncture

I
recently took the youth of my church to a large conference in our area where we
had lots of fun. The van ride was
killer, we made a Harlem Shake video, listened to our favorite tunes, discussed
the things of life, and made faces at the passers by. The conference was a ski retreat so we spent one day
skiing. It was the perfect ski
day, sun was out, temp was right, everybody had a great time, and nobody broke
a leg. And who can forget the time
in the hotel, joking, hanging out, laughing, and enjoying life together.
But
every evening we were faced with the reality of God’s word. We would saunter into the church, sing
praise tunes, and some of us would listen to the sermon. Why is it that sometimes the things of
God look so weak, so boring, so unreal compared to the vivid things of
life? As Christians we trumpet a
message of hope and life and yet many times people perceive it as death.
We
know that we serve and invisible God.
Paul witnesses to this fact in 1 Timothy 1:17 calling God “the King of
ages, immortal, invisible, the only God.”
Paul further testifies to the fact in Romans 1:20 that this invisible
God’s attributes can be known from what is made in the world. The Bible continually testifies to two
realms of reality, one known and perceived on a daily basis and another hinted
at by the world that surrounds us, a greater realm, a spiritual kingdom that
sits over, above, and in control of this world. And yet we are left to ponder the gap. When we are enjoying the good things of
this life the larger other reality seems to fad to the wayside, an afterthought,
which makes good late night pondering.
Sometimes this other reality forces it way into our average lives
through inexplicable events, or tragedies that make us consider our final
destination.
So
how can we bridge these seemingly disjointed realities together? How can we
perceive the reality of this life set within the backdrop of true reality that
includes the rule and authority of an invisible God? It is by faith in the person of Jesus Christ. In Colossians 1:15 Paul tells us that
Christ is the image of this invisible God. In the person of Christ the beauty of the Christian doctrine
of revelation shines forth. God came
from outside of what we know as reality to within our daily reality to make the
truth of His spiritual kingdom known.
Romans chapter 1:1-32 makes it very clear that it is possible for man to
perceive God, because God has made himself known to every man, yet we have
suppressed the truth about God and chose rather to indulge in and serve the
things we can see in this world, and the scary part to this equation is that God
has given us exactly what we wanted; a life apart from Him. When we feel the disparity between the
things of life and things of God, the Bible points to a problem in us that
suppresses the truth about what can be known about God. I would venture to guess many of us
have spent too much time in a pattern after the world and it has clouded our
vision of true reality.
But
God, through the revelation and appearing of Christ “has caused us to be born
again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead”
(1 Peter 1:3). The affect of this
revelation in our hearts is as Peter says, “though [we] have not seen Him, [we]
love Him. Though [we] do not now
see Him, [we] believe in Him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and
filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your
souls” (1 Peter 1:8-9). Because of
the appearing of Christ in the world and His work the truth about all things
has been revealed. God testifies
in our hearts through His spirit that Jesus is the Son of God and so we believe
in Him because of the gift of faith as described in Ephesians 2:8-9. We then like Moses in Hebrews 11:27 are
able to carry on daily life in faith “as seeing Him who is invisible.” We begin living under and in the true
reality of God’s kingdom.
And
so we suffer in this life facing a disjuncture that is only all too real. Because we have chosen to embrace the
revelation of God in Christ, we stand apart from the world that has decided to
suppress this same revelation. As
2 Corinthians 5:7 says, “we walk by faith and not sight.” In this way we suffer like Christ and
begin to live this life striving do the will of God over and above the will of
our flesh and amidst the debauchery of our culture (1 Peter 4:1-5).
Finally
let us look forward to the day when our faith and this perceived disjuncture
will once and for all be settled by the sight of our coming Lord and Savior. And in that day we will be like Him,
living in true reality (1 John 3:2).
This has and continues to be the hope of the saints in the face of our daily
reality.
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