The View from the West Mesa

Salvation is not a once in a lifetime event. Having responded to God at some point in our lives does not admit that we can stand on that event forever. It is not accurate, in an absolute sense, to suggest that at some future point we can stand before God and justify ourselves because we had done such and so at some time in the past. We are not able to say that we had let go at some point, or that we had been baptized, or performed some penance and therefore God must accept us. Because salvation is more appropriately described as a relationship, a state of existence, it is not properly or completely defined by a legal state or by some act. We either are saved, in relationship with God, submissive to Him, or we are not. We cannot say "I may not be in submission to God now, but I once was." We either live in concert with God or we do not. What God wants is people who seek Him, who want to live with Him, in Him, and to have Him move through them. This living is imperfect and God ...

It is Man’s destiny, his ultimate goal or purpose, to return to God. We were made in communion with God, in His presence, and in His image. It is to this original relationship with God that we are called – a place where God is with all, in all, through all, where we live in Him and He in us. There are various schools of thought concerning how this looks in practice. For some, this is an “assumption,” a “joining,” a losing of one’s self in God so that there is little or no difference between me and God. We see the world as God sees it, we act as God acts because we have become so like God that we must. Others perceive that Heaven is the Creation restored to its rightful place. We will inhabit a pristine world as we were meant from the beginnings. Regardless of which view we take, there is some sense in which we return to God and live in harmony with or in Him. What is sin? How do we become separated from God? Sin, regardless of which word we care to use for it, is essentially either 1) ...