Jesus Wants to Save Christians Intro

I recently completed Rob Bell’s latest book entitled “Jesus Wants To Save Christians:  A Manifesto For The Church In Exile“.  I highly recommend it to you.  I’d like to highlight some of the passages within and encourage us all to move from a place of “exile” and return to become the people of God, the Church God intended.

From The Introduction:  Air Puffers And Rubber Gloves.

       There is a place called Eden, a paradise, a state of being in which everything is in its right place.  A realm where the favor and peace of God rests on everything.

       And Cain is not there.  He’s east of there.

       And he’s not only east of Eden, but in chapter 4 of the book of Genesis, the text says that he was “building a city.”

       It’s not just that he’s east of where he was created to live, but he’s actually settling there, building a city, putting down roots.  The land of his wandering has become the location of his home.

       The writer, or writers of Genesis keep returning to this eastward metaphor, insisting that something has gone terribly wrong with humanity, and that from the very beginning humans are moving in the wrong direction.

       God asks Adam, “Where are you?”

       And the answer is , of course, “East.”

       East of where he’s supposed to be.  East of how things are meant to be.

The Kingdom of God is first presented to us in Eden.  This is the place where everything is just as God would have it to be.  The Kingdom is a reality.  God’s Kingdom is how things really are and how things should really be.  The already here, and not yet fully here, reality and will of God.  Tension.

Where are you in relation to this Kingdom reality and will of God?  ”East of there?”

Have you settled there?  Have you settled for a false reality?  Are you chasing the mirage of a false kingdom that will never come?

Are you moving in the wrong direction?

Where are you?

East?

East of where your supposed to be?

East of how things really are?

-Ben Nockels