Keeping it personal

Lately I’ve been trying hard to keep life personal. I felt the Holy Spirit prompting me to relook at this area of my life. God is a personal God. Nothing about him is impersonal. He became very personal in the person of Jesus Christ, God’s ultimate self revelation. So I have very good reasons for wanting it to keep it personal. The only problem: the world I live in. I’m part of a big corportate company. They’re a huge multinational company, and I somehow I get the feeling I don’t belong. Not in the sense that I wish God would wisk me off to heaven so that I can be rid of work once and for all, however tempting that proposition might be at the present moment. Rather in the sense that I long to see it redeemed and functioning as it should. As crazy as it sounds, I actually want to work. I don’t want to kick out of life and retire at 30. If God has a plan to redeem all of creation, to put all things under Christ’s lordship and to make all things new, can that possibly include my workplace? Right now it’s taking a lot of immagination for me to even believe that. But inspite of all the evidence to the contrary I know that God has a plan.

Practice Resurrection – Eugene Peterson

Rating: 4 out 5

When it comes to his books, Peterson and I have a love hate relationship. I’ve read 4 out 5 in this series (Eat this book is one I haven’t got yet) and each time I find myself going through a similar wave of emotion. There are times when Peterson meanders and waffles on to the point where I am ready to close the book and throw it away. But when I hit that point Peterson brings everything he’s said to a sharp conclusion, and it all makes sense. I love his books and I hate them at the same time. But I have to say that this was his best effort since “Christ plays in 10,000 places”. The book is an informal commentary on Ephesians, which Peterson claims to have taught for many years to his congregations. Peterson is intent on seeing Christians grow to the full measure of stature in Christ. In other words Peterson wants us to become mature Christians, not tossed by every wind and doctrine. There is so much meat in this book that it’s hard to summarise it all. I really like his chapter on Grace and Works. All my life I had seen the two as almost antithetical to each other. At best they should be a sign of the grace already received from Christ. But Peterson took a different route. Grace always requires a form, a container, otherwise it becomes an impersonal and abstract doctrine. Good works are the containers for Grace to be taken out from the impersonal to the personal. God is intensely personal, nothing about the God we serve is impersonal. I had never thought of it from that angle. If you’ve got the time and patience, read this whole series from start to finish. Scott Mcknight is right, one does not skim Peterson, one ponders Peterson.