Paul Cherry

Think about it! What if you're stuck in a life situation with little or no hope for anything different? You have a nagging fear that you have never been really good enough to win God's smile. «There is nothing I could ever do to make you love me more, and there is nothing I could ever do to make you love me less.» What if it's true regarding our relationship to God? What if that is also true in our grace-based relationships with each other? What if in denouncing the tensions and hypocrisy of religion, you have isolated yourself from those hidden pockets of a loving community in our world and in your community? What if the best witness for Jesus is a loving presence and gentle conversation that flows naturally from your blessed heart rather than from a pressurized obligation in which we leave the unchurched hurt and angry with our presumptive pride. What if the worship described in heaven by the apostle is wilder and crazier than anything you have experienced in your church? What if complaining is a huge waste of time and denies the confidence and joy that is on the glory road with Jesus? What if the end of everything we cherish is always the beginning of something better?

It sounds a bit preposterous, doesn't it? Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe we could get a lot closer to the beauty and glory of it all if we just knew and were willing to take the next step that God wants us to take. The vision of this writing is to help us see through the fog of evangelical complacency and recapture the spiritual pizzazz of New Testament-Christianity. Thank you for reading this far. I welcome you to continue as the spirit leads.