I have had a few game changers in my life: a beautiful new daughter; a new Ph.D.; a new job; getting fired; and a few more that shall go unnamed in this note. It has not always been events that did it, more often it was something I read or heard that challenged me to think in new ways. And that, my friends, is the hardest of all, to change your mind. If it was easy, there would be no addicts after the first rehab treatment. There would be no broken relationships. Frankly, a lot fewer people would give up, if they could just change their minds!
Jesus was the real game changer. No, not what you might think, not by dying or rising again, although those events are important. Jesus came to challenge us to think differently about God and about each other and about ourselves. Now this is where I am going to push you a little, to do what I do in my classrooms each day, I am going to push you to think in new ways about old ideas.
God has loved us from the beginning. Jesus was going to come from the very beginning. Sin did not cause Him to come and it didn’t cause him to die. I know, now you are ready to quit reading, but stay with me a bit longer. Try thinking in a new way. What if Jesus came to change our view of God, how we think of God and not to change God’s view of us. It is Jesus’ life and words that are game changers. He came to show us how God feels about us. That God would let his Son die to prove that he loves us eternally, and always has.
If you were to dare to think in this new way, would it change the game for you? Could you see yourself as beloved? Could you see everyone as beloved? Could yo see the world as a beautiful and wonderful place? Most of all, would that help you see that the Eternal is right where the Eternal has always been, in you. In me. In us all, forever and always. It could change the game for you and all the world.
TMM