If/Then Faith
We live in a world that has reduced faith to things concerned with personal spirituality that only deals with questions of “heaven.” Further, we rob the gospel of its power as we reduce faith to a series of “If/Then” equations: IF I follow the rules, THEN God will love me; IF I am a good person, THEN I will go to heaven; IF I repent, THEN God will forgive me. According to the Apostle Paul, this is, well… nonsense. The good news of Christ addresses the “groaning” of creation and each of us as we suffer under the weight of a broken world. Our “if/then” statements start with God’s action in Christ: “IF God is for us, THEN who can be against us.”