Pan - WHAT - ism...?

I utterly love the concept of panentheism. Not pantheism (all things are gods), but panENtheism (God is in all things) … not only does it meld with how I read (have always read, despite what I was taught by those who claimed to have a corner on the market of orthodoxy) scripture, but it fits with the God I’ve come to know and experience, within. I’m going with that God, rather than the god others have told me about.

I see more both/and than either/or — I see that Christ has indeed invaded all cultures, religions and people-groups, lavishly spreading His Truth on the planet-at-large — whether the individual people are yet-aware of Him or not. He’s far more secure in His identity than Christians fret over; I see that the One who was content to let the universe unfold for 14 billion odd years (often *quite* odd!), is also content to let us discover who He is, and what He’s done for all, whether that discovery occurs within time, or eternity.

Certainly Christianity, with it’s smug, superior exclusivity, has been the catalyst for driving folks away from Christ, far more than drawing folks to Him. But perhaps that’s because (or at least what I now believe) that Christianity has always been a wholly manmade endeavor … with the Christian life being a poor substitute (& even a mockery of) the Abundant Life (Jesus, I notice, only spoke of the latter, and in my opinion, never intended to set up the former).

I see that we all need our minds to be renewed (replacing lies with Truth; exchanging our own egoic perspectives with His perspective), and that ALL of us have much to shed. All of us have many “aha moments” to come … whether it be, “Aha, Jesus Christ is the One who’s been revealing all this truth to me, who made it possible for me to even find truth – so THAT’s who I’ve been communing with,” or “Aha, I thought I really knew Jesus, but in excluding those who merely do not know His name, I see that I didn’t know His heart at all.”

Christ is the focus for me … and *yet*, I notice that the goal of Christ is to bring us to the Father — to show us the Father. Ultimately, it’s all about God … He who is all in all. So, I figure I’ve got some further revelations coming about Christ … I figure that God will continue to show me the things of man, and the things of God, and I will continue to be surprised about how the former has obscured the latter. Bring it on, God!

Shalom, Dena