The strange distortions of secular ideology: My best possible life!(Part 2)

The strange distortions of secular ideology: My best possible life!

Part 2: The assurance of God’s love enables us to accept the truth

The religious attitude is completely different. Life is understood as a journey with God as our companion. For Christians, this is understood in threefold form. The love of the Father over-shadows and surrounds us; everything we do and are is under his fatherly care and enfolded in his loving presence. The risen Lord Jesus is gloriously present in resurrection life, the promise to us that the powers of sin, evil and death have already been fundamentally defeated, and this victory will one day be complete. The Holy Spirit, mysterious advocate and comforter, our strength and guide, is within us and beside us. Thus, we are surrounded by the presence of God. We know ourselves to be utterly loved, with an everlasting, invincible love. God will never forsake us. Nothing can challenge him. He is Lord. He is perfect love. He is with us, now and forever. Such unconditional, never-ending love constantly reassures us that we have access to his presence where we will find forgiveness, peace, new life, reconciliation, hope and guidance, all tied together into a sense of coherent wholeness as we take our place as followers of Christ, and so have a share in the glorious mission of God, expressed in his universal, worldwide Church, to make the world into the kingdom of his Son. Within this over-arching mission, each individual Christian can discover their own sense of mission as they discern how they can express their gifts and goals within the larger mission of God’s kingdom.

As we pursue our personal journey through life – in company with God – we have a wise self-awareness of reality. Firstly, we know ourselves to be seriously flawed: we are sinners! But this is never cause for despair, because we are forgiven and redeemed sinners. This enables us to accept that there is a lot about ourselves that needs to be changed – without ever doubting that we are loved, that we have the supreme dignity of being children of God. Thus, we are completely free to accept that, of course, we are far, far from being the people we could, and indeed should, be, but this does not in any way detract from our sense of being completely whole. In common parlance, we have not the slightest doubt that “we are worthy”. However, I hesitated and would choose not to say this, for the whole point is that we are not worthy – we receive God’s love as a gift; we don’t need to be worthy in order to rejoice in the freedom of the children of God; we simply need to come to our senses and realise the truth about ourselves. So, of course, in worldly terms we have no doubt that we are worthy, but in our understanding of God’s grace we do not claim or assert “our rights” to be recognised as worthy. Instead, we humbly and joyfully accept the freely-given gifts of God’s grace.