christopherhildreth

A key word in today’s message was the word “restoration”. In relation to the typical meaning of the Gospel, I love the way that “restoration” completes a largely incomplete thought which for years,the establishment church has asked us to accept.

Many people have gone to church this Sunday thinking that they have a “ticket to heaven” or a “get out of hell free card”. The problem with this mentality is that it negates the vastness of the purpose of Christ’s coming to Earth in the first place. To buy in to a quick fix religion may make you feel better, but it hardly exemplifies anything that would require giving my life for.

Let’s face it, most of what is served up as Christianity today is a mixture of some three or four word phrase taken out of context to drive home a point that is at best a diluted truth and at worst a man-made, man-created, man-centered doctrine. What are you willing to die for?

That is a question that ought to bring up family and proven core ideals. If your church or belief system isn’t among the list of “to die for” items, you need to reevaluate the substance of your beliefs. Only then will you be able to “know” what you believe.

Restoration is not just a onetime process either, if a home has survived hundreds of years, it has gone through many restorations. Time and use wear away and restoration lets us bring back the feeling of new while preserving the past. The same is true with the church and ourselves. Restoration continually brings back the “new” in our lives. Our appreciation and value of Christ increases and we again reconnect to the Source with renewed vigor, excitement and confidence.

This cycle of wear, restore, wear and restore brings us closer and closer to an unwavering realness in our journey with God. With each cycle His reality overtakes our notion of reality and He is made anew in our eyes.

Instead of struggling against this process, embrace it as a way to be drawn closer to a heart that is affectionate and fond of you.

This entry was posted on July 20, 2008 at 9:16 am and is filed under Awareness, Belief, Context, Cultural Ideas, Life, religion. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.