Even If You Don’t: Holding On To Hope In Dark Times

14 April, 201814 April, 2018Marissa

We know God can do anything. So how do you react when He doesn’t do something that you beg him to? When your loved one isn’t healed? When your heartbreak feels unbearable and then something else piles on top of that? When you just don’t know how to go on, yet you have to anyway?

I’ve been going through a rough patch emotionally, especially over the past few weeks but really for a few months now. And I feel like God has thrown me some songs as “lifelines” in this time. First it was “I Am Not Alone” by Kari Jobe and more recently it was “Even If” by MercyMe.

I know You’re able and I know You can
Save through the fire with Your mighty hand
But even if You don’t
My hope is You alone
I know the sorrow, and I know the hurt
Would all go away if You’d just say the word
But even if You don’t
My hope is You alone

I didn’t much want to sing this when it popped into my head. Actually, I couldn’t at first since all I remembered was the “But even if you don’t” line. But I looked the song up, grasping for some hope to anchor my soul, and after playing through it a few times I could breath and pray again. I’ll admit, though, that there was still a part of me crying out, “Why?” when I thought about Him choosing not to take away the sorrow and hurt. And it’s okay to do that. As my counselor said, God is big enough to handle it when His kids are frustrated with Him.

Hope is one of the key things that gets us through the times when we’re frustrated with God and don’t understand what He’s doing. And it’s something I don’t think we talk about enough. Paul tells us “faith, hope and love remain” (1 Cor. 13:13, WEB). They’re all three virtues that aren’t going away, but we talk about faith and love a whole lot more than hope. Which is a shame, because hope is something that’s very much needed in this world. Read more →

Which Criminal Are You?

24 June, 201720 March, 2018Marissa

When Jesus died, He hung on the cross between two criminals. In Greek, the word is kakourgos, a compound of evil+doer. This refers to someone who’s employment is practicing wrong things. While we might not have personally broken laws that would make us criminals in our societies, we have more in common with at least one of these two men than you might think.

Every human being has “sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23, KJV). Because “sin is the transgression of the law,” this also makes us all law breakers (1 John 3:4, KJV). Like these criminals, we have practiced things that were not right. And when we recognize that fact, we also realize that “the compensation due sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 6:23, LEB). Like the criminals, we’re facing death and Jesus is there. But how do we respond to Him?

Which Criminal Are You? | marissabaker.wordpress.com — Photo credit: Dennis Hill via Flickr, CC BY

Pride v. Humility

One of the criminals who was hanged insulted him, saying, “If you are the Christ, save yourself and us!” (Luke 23:39, WEB)

One criminal resented what was going on and attacked his fellow sufferer. Matthew Henry describes him as “hardened to the last.” Even his own agony “did not humble his proud spirit nor teach to give good language.”

In contrast, the other criminal was “softened at the last.” He acknowledges the justice of their punishment as “the due reward for our deeds” (Luke 32:41, WEB). He’s much more humble, willing to accept the consequences of his actions and admit their wrongness. This basic attitude difference sets the stage for other differences between these two men. Read more →

Rethinking Hell: A Clearer View of God’s Judgement

20 August, 201627 February, 2022Marissa

One of the most uncomfortable aspects of modern Christianity is the idea of hell. The common notion is that those who aren’t following God (including those who reject Him and those who never knew Him) miss-out on their chance at salvation and are tormented forever in a burning place. Few want to talk about it, many have rejected it, but most don’t agree on an alternative. It’s something Christianity has to address, though. What happens after death for the people who are not followers of Jesus?

click to read article, Rethinking Hell: A Clearer View of God's Judgement | marissabaker.wordpress.com — Albert V Bryan Federal District Courthouse by
Tim Evanson, CC BY-SA via Flickr

I’ll be honest with you, this is something I thought I “knew” the answer to because of the teachings I heard growing up. The more I studied it, though, the less positive I feel that I know exactly what’s going to happen. For believers, the questions “What happens when we die?” has some pretty clear answers in scripture. We’re not sure exactly what life in God’s family will be like, but we know that we’ll be resurrected and “we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” For other people, things are a bit more ambiguous.

My purpose today isn’t to give a definitive answer, but rather to look at some different readings of scriptures talking about eternal judgement. There are some things we can say with a fairly high degree of certainty, but there are others that I just don’t know the answers to (and I’d rather acknowledge that than take a stance I’m not reasonably confident lines up with God’s revealed word).

What is “hell”?

The word “hell” is used in the Bible, but not with the same connotation we have for it in English. Western ideas of hell come from Medieval imagery (think Dante’s Inferno). Most uses in the New Testament, though, are translated from the Greek word ghenna (G1067). When people of Jesus’ time heard this word they didn’t think of a burning place with a pitchfork-toting devil where eternal souls writhed in torment. They thought of Ghenna — a rubbish heap outside Jerusalem “where the filth and dead animals … were cast out and burned,” which Thayers’ dictionary notes is “a fit symbol of the wicked and their future destruction.” Read more →

Rethinking Heaven: Capturing A Vision Of The Resurrection

13 August, 201612 August, 2016Marissa

Christians and non-Christians alike typically assume that our religion teaches good Christians go to heaven when they die and bad people, or those who’ve never given their lives to Jesus, go to hell. As more and more Biblical scholars, Christian churches, and individual believers are realizing, though, this isn’t the most accurate picture of what the Bible teaches regarding life after death.

click to read article, Rethinking Heaven: Capturing A Vision Of The Resurrection | marissabaker.wordpress.com — photo credit: Maxime Bhm via StockSnap

For many years, the churches of God I’ve been part of taught we were the only people to whom God had revealed His Sabbaths and Holy Days, His plan for the world and humanity, and the truth about what happens after death. As I grew older, I realized we had much more in common with other groups than I’d thought — there are a plethora of groups keeping Sabbath, many Messianics observe the holy days, and bloggers with Focus on the Family were talking about God’s plan to bring children into His family. I hadn’t found any teaching the resurrection, though, so you can imagine my surprise when Catholic theologian James K.A. Smith footnoted a comment about Christians not really going to heaven when they die with three book suggestions for further reading (this was in Desiring The Kingdom). The book from this list that I found in the library was Surprised by Hope by Anglican bishop N.T. Wright.

Wright’s teachings surprised me even though I’d been taught the resurrection from my earliest memories. His powerful exegesis on the meaning of the resurrection is inspiring and some of the thoughtful, well-researched ways he diverged from my church’s traditional teachings made me realize there are alternative explanations for a few difficult scriptures that deserve a second look. I also admired his style. Instead of telling people “You’re wrong,” he says, “We’ve been misinformed, and here’s the more wonderful plan God has for us.” That’s what I want to focus on today. The deeper our understanding of what God is actually planning for us, the firmer our hope and faith.

What Happens When We Die?

The idea that human beings have immortal souls comes not from the Bible, but from Greek philosophy (specifically Plato). In Hebrew thought and New Testament theology, the soul refers “not to a disembodied entity hidden within the outer shell of a disposable body, but rather to what we would call the whole person or personality” (Wright, p. 28). It is naphesh (H5315), the animated life-force we have in common with animals (Strong’s and Thayer dictionaries).
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But What If God Scares Me?

18 June, 201630 August, 2016Marissa

So you’ve heard about the love and grace of Jesus and want to learn more. Maybe you even had another Christian lead you to Jesus and accepted Him as your savior. Then you sit down intending to read the Bible from start to finish and find something you weren’t quite expecting.

Genesis starts out with creation and the fall of man, then suddenly God’s wiping the whole earth out in a flood (Gen. 6:5-8). Next He’s scattering the people of Babel for building a tower (Gen. 11:5-9) and raining fire and brimstone down on Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 19:24-25). Why does the God you know as forgiving and accepting seem so angry? Where is God’s love and grace here, in the Old Testament?

Many people give up on the Bible and/or their faith because God isn’t what they expect, or they go for a version of Christianity that highlights the New Testament and ignores any verses about uncomfortable topics like judgement and sin. But authentic Christianity demands something more of its followers. Jesus said, “Many are called, but few are chosen” twice in Matthew’s gospel (Matt. 20:16; 22;14). We don’t want to be the people who receive the seed of the gospel and then wither away because we have no root (Matt. 13:5-6, 20-21).

The lives of Christians are supposed to reflect the nature of our God. If we aren’t diving deep into His word, we won’t know who He is or what He requires, and we can’t grow roots into our faith. We can’t let misconceptions about or fear of His anger and expectations scare us away from getting to know Him. Read more →