Mirroring God's Heart

Two weekends ago, Chi Alpha WSU returned from our annual fall retreat at Camp Sanders, near Tensed, ID. Our group joins the Chi Alpha group from the University of Idaho at this retreat every year, and it is always encouraging to make connections with Chi Alpha students from another campus. It is an excellent reminder that while I invest my efforts here in Pullman, God is working to reveal Himself to people across the globe. The speaker whom we invited to Fall Camp this year is named Michael Mowry, the campus director of Chi Alpha at Central Washington University. He spoke on the topic of finding the heart of God throughout scripture.

Students from Chi Alpha WSU and U of I

What struck me from the first passage that he preached on (the parables of the lost sheep, lost coin, and prodigal son in Luke 15) was how God is pleased to share His blessings with us, even when He knows that we're likely to just waste them. It doesn't make logical sense to me that the father of the prodigal son would give him "his share of the inheritance" even though, first of all, the father should only give an inheritance when he dies; and second of all, the son shouldn't get anything anyway, since he's not the oldest son.

Then, in the third preaching session, Michael taught about a very common misconception of salvation in a way that really stayed with me. Rather than attempt to describe it for you in words first, I am going to show you an image that I drew at the retreat to illustrate his point:

Diagram of salvation ideas

Now, I will explain. In the figure on the left, it shows that Jesus is a part of your heart, indicating that you have invited Jesus to be in your life. However, in the figure on the right, we see that really, when you invite Jesus to truly be your Lord, you become a part of the body of Christ. This analogy reveals two important areas about salvation that I think are not accurately portrayed in a lot of Christian culture. First, it shows us that true repentance requires us to put aside our own plans for our lives, and acknowledge that God's Plan is both bigger and better than any plan that we could try to formulate. Second, we become aware of a need to act as a part of the body of Christ, rather than trying to act on our own will. This translates to a sense of belonging to and serving within Christian community.

So what exactly is God's heart? For us to hear His voice in our lives, and act on it. He has invited us to participate in His Plan together with Him, in a way that expands far beyond the reach we might ordinarily have. Granted, it is the greatest challenge of our Christian lives to try and live according to God's Plan, because it requires that we fully and completely trust Him to know what's best for us. I can think of no better way to end this post than with John 13:17, the same Bible verse that Michael ended the camp preaching with: "Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them."