As I was pulling together thoughts and musings for my blog this month, I came across something I had written as an intro to our National Celebration "Just Jesus" that we hosted in July of '22. I just couldn't shake the nudge that the Spirit was highlighting this as something to repost. My thoughts here are as true in March '25 as they were in June of'22.Re-reading this highlights for me that things really do take time to unfold and what drew us together then still rings true now.
Sustaining a sense of equilibrium in faith and practice in times that have been stretching and challenging in ways we perhaps have never faced before in our modern, Canadian context continues to be perplexing and a challenge to navigate. Severe climate unpredictability; destabilized economics; bi-polarized -partisan religion and politics; and the unsettled geo-political sphere have many processing, not just faith, but all of life and living in a profound way. In all of society, the descriptor, "de-construct" has become a common way to describe where people are at and how they are feeling. Anxiety is at an all-time high. Uncertainty is certain. Working from home, the Gig-Economy, cost of living, and the rise of unrest in our streets have us re-thinking a lot of things. In this time of remarkable shaking and dis-orientation, we truly believe that the Lord is graciously settling us and assisting us in establishing our footing as we continuously calibrate our compass to our True North.
Just Jesus.
We feel a call by the Spirit to return to the simplicity of worship. The non-anxious place of waiting. The safe place of weighing, carefully, intentionally, discerning what the Lord is doing. What the Lord is saying. Where He is leading us in this moment. Where we sense his affirmation and encouragement and also where He so kindly leads us into, and through, true repentance. Step by step. The Father is at His work. It is His invitation. His voice. So, let us not "refuse Him who speaks." (Hebrews 5:25)
The Message Translation of Hebrews 12:27 seems to capture well what we are experiencing in society right now. "A thorough house cleaning, getting rid of all the historical and religious junk so that the unshakable essentials stand clear and uncluttered." The NIV continues the thought in verse 28 and gives us great language to unpack our desire for the various regional and national gatherings we have, and will experience together throughout this year, including our National Celebration in Calgary this July. "Since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our 'God is a consuming fire.'"
Just Jesus.
"Will you put up with a little foolish aside from me? Please, just for a moment. The thing that has me so upset is that I care about you so much—this is the passion of God burning inside me! I promised your hand in marriage to Christ, presented you as a pure virgin to her husband. And now I'm afraid that exactly as the Snake seduced Eve with his smooth tongue, you are being lured away from the simple purity of your love for Christ." (2 Corinthians 11:1-3 MSG)
The call to simplicity, as it echoes the appeal of Paul in 2 Corinthians 11, does not seem to be that of reductionism. In our sincere desire to be accessible and non-religious, have we unwittingly sown into a cultural wind that created a blowback whirlwind of shallow discipleship, a bait-and-switch church culture, a celebrity-based ecclesiology, and a mission with no mission in it all, resulting in us being irrelevant and even worse, mired in the quicksand of hypocrisy? Perhaps a key in Paul's correction to us is that it is in, as the NIV translates, "sincere and pure devotion to Christ." Simplicity is about the decluttering as opposed to any dumbing down. In fact, the clearer we can see, the deeper we can go.
"Blessed are those who are pure in heart, for they will see God." An understanding of the NT language around "purity of heart" is not so much about morality, or as Dallas Willard would call it, "sin management", but rather that of being "single-hearted." A deeper truth of being "one thing." Not being duplicitous or divided. Pure. A courageous step into truth. Honestly. Vulnerability. It echoes the sentiment of Jesus in John 3 to be those who "worship in truth."
Just Jesus.
So, the call before us is to avoid reductionism and rather be radical. The definition of radical is, especially of change or action, "relating to or affecting the fundamental nature of something; far-reaching or thorough." To get back to the core of something. Its use in the mathematical world is to describe the root of a number. You can solve almost any exponential equation using radicals. Far from dumbing anything down, it is getting to clarity. To the root.
"So then just as you received Jesus Christ as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ." (Colossians 2:7-8 NIV)
Just Jesus.
So let us continue on this quest of the decluttering of our theologies, liturgy, and practices that can blur our clarity about who Jesus is, what He calls us to, and where He is taking this whole thing. Jesus is not "in the fine print." He, His work, and His Way are at the core of who we are. A gospel engagement that propels us free from the gravitational pull of a reductionist understanding of salvation into that of the Gospel of the Kingdom. The rebuke of the writer of Hebrews in chapter 5, verse 12, is clear; may we heed its instruction, "... you need someone to teach you the basic elementary beginnings of Gods oracles. You need milk, not solid food ... (you are) unskilled in the word of God's justice ... (we need to be) people whose faculties have been trained, by experience, to distinguish good from evil."
Just Jesus.
