Back on track

According to the word that I covenanted with you

                 when ye came out of Egypt,

so my spirit remaineth among you:

                 fear ye not.   Haggai 2:5

There is a strange idea among many Christians that is based on "worm theology."  Worm theology is derived from the augustinian/calvinist idea that original sin (eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden) made/makes humans automatically as worthless as worms.  The idea is expressed often by such statements as, "God doesn't owe us anything," or "the sum total of our worth to God adds up to zero."  Worthless as worms!  The calvinist solution to this worthlessness is to imagine that they are not REALLY worthless but were (wink, wink) preselected by God to appear like everyone else (the real worms = reprobates) while the spark of spirituality remained in them all along.  So calvinism is gnosticism...

Haggai reminds the Israelites that God made a contract with them when He opened the Red Sea and marched them out of Egypt.  God doesn't make contracts with vermin (original word for "worm") nor does he make deals with trash and filth.  Humans have to be equipped with the capacity to understand and accept His terms in order for Him to enforce them...or for them to know why they cannot keep them and need a Savior.  God is not the absolute sovereign that the calvinists make up, He is the Righteous Lord that gives His word and then keeps it; not changing it just because He has the power to do so.

God is the God of relationship.  He relates to Himself in the mystery of the Trinity.  He relates to that which He has made that is other than Himself but is capable of understanding and loving and relating to Him.  Suppose God conceives of a vehicle and pre-destines it to work on earth by rolling along 2 parallel rails made of steel.  Suppose further that God finishes the train and sets it on the track but begins to blame it for not rolling, even though He made it with no wheels (calvinist notion of reprobates).  The train would have a rightful argument that it was not properly equipped to roll until God gave it wheels.  The calvinist "theologian" would say that the train without wheels has no right to answer God who can do anything He wants to do.  Anyone who has a grain of real sense would say that God owes the train some wheels if He expects the train to roll down the tracks.

Humans are very much like trains without wheels but not because God did not equip them with such.  We have kicked off the wheels and demanded that God make the universe so that we can fly instead of roll.  We want magic instead of miracle...the miracle that He has made us and has contracted with us to put us back on track.  Jesus came to suffer and die and claim the capacity to give us a hook up; drawing us along the track of His design.  Jesus came and gave us the ability to have real relationships again: first with Him and then with the Father and, finally, with each other.  Wheels back on by the power of the Holy Spirit, we can claim our proper place on the track.

Suppose God has designed you as a human and pre-destined you to be eternally related to Him through the blood of Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1:4-14).  That blood became available in time (not before) and on a specific day, Jesus shed His blood for the salvation of humans...all of them.  Now that it is available, what will you do about it?

Come to Jesus.

Come to the Cross.