A " What IF " test --- for seeds of contemplation

What IF.....?

1. ....we always saw the implications of the “big picture” along with “my picture”?

2. ....we wanted to do what was true and not just convenient or self-serving to me?

3. ....we listened to the deepest values of all cultures and not just to our own?

4. ....we stopped, looked and listened to our hearts to examine its daily “movements”?

5. ....we could see the personal struggle in people’s hearts before we imposed any moral obligations?

6. ....we sought out the truth in the beauty and art of our own tradition, past and present?

7. ....we thanked God every day for our breath and blessings?

8. ....we described our humanity and personhood in biblically-based but understandable terms?

9. ....we realized that many things we thought were “wrong” or “taboo” really were not?

10....we thought it is “OK” to reinvestigate our methods, moods, and commitments to the faith?

11....we were biblically authentic, we “lived real and did life well” to such a degree people asked how beauty goodness and truth could be in their lives?

12....we truly believed that the gospel was the “good news”? A message that could have the potential of being as good to you as creation is to God.

13....we could find harmony in the in-between, living in God’s “already and not yet” kingdom?

14....we where known as people of the Spirit and the Word without confusing, diluting, elevating, dividing, and contrasting them?

15....our ethical lives were observably beautiful. A life free from legalism and lasciviousness, free for service and love, a life of poise, a kind of dance where control and abandon move in a beautifully complimentary display, a life that can only be described as graceful (grace filled)?

16....we saw the gospel as bigger than something we own the rights to but as a message that had ownership of us, how would that change our mission, our life?

17....we saw the gospel not as something we lived by but something we lived in, not as a story we just told but a story that told us, not as a point to life but as a point life is seen through…. how would our vision of life be reshaped?

Most, yet not all, the answers are in Matthew 5, 6, 7, and 26:31-46.