{"id":19902,"date":"2021-03-05T09:35:37","date_gmt":"2021-03-05T14:35:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19902"},"modified":"2021-03-05T10:36:06","modified_gmt":"2021-03-05T15:36:06","slug":"a-gospel-lens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19902","title":{"rendered":"A Gospel Lens"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/n3HioWWCe18\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p><em>You are not here to verify, <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Or carry report. You are here to kneel<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Where prayer has been valid. \u2014<\/em>T. S. Eliot, \u201cLittle Gidding\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Everybody looks at the world through their own\nlens, a matrix of culturally inherited qualities, family influences, and other\nlife experiences. This lens, or worldview, truly determines what we bring to\nevery discussion. When Jesus spoke of the coming of the Reign of God, he was\ntrying to change people\u2019s foundational worldview. When Francis of Assisi\ndescribed his \u201cmarriage to Lady Poverty,\u201d he was using a lovely metaphor to\nexplain his central thesis for life. When Americans identify money as \u201cthe\nbottom line,\u201d they are revealing more about their real worldview than they\nrealize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We would do well to get in touch with our own\noperative worldview. It is there anyway, so we might as well know what this\nhighly influential window on reality is. It\u2019s what really motivates us. Our <em>de facto <\/em>worldview determines\nwhat catches our attention and what we don\u2019t notice at all. It\u2019s largely\nunconscious and yet it drives us to do this and not that. It is surely\nimportant to become conscious of such a primary lens or we will never know what\nwe <em>don\u2019t <\/em>see and\nwhy we see other things out of all perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Until we can allow the Gospel to move into\nthat deepest level of the unconscious and touch our operative worldviews,\nnothing substantial is going to change. It will only be rearranging the\nfurniture, not constructing a new room. Conversion is about constructing a new\nroom, or maybe even a whole new house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our operative worldview is formed by three\nimages that are inside every one of us. They are not something from outside;\nthey have already taken shape within us. All we can do is become aware of them,\nwhich is to awaken them. The three images to be awakened and transformed are <em>our image of self, our image of God, and\nour image of the world<\/em>. A true hearing of the Gospel transforms\nthose images into a very exciting and, I believe, truthful worldview. When we\nsay Christ is the truth, that\u2019s what we mean. Christ renames reality correctly,\naccording to what reality honestly is, putting aside whatever we think it is or\nwhatever we fear it is. Reality is always better than any of us imagined or\nfeared; there is joy associated with a true hearing of the Gospel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All together, we could put it this way: \u201cWhat should life be?\u201d \u201cWhy isn\u2019t it?\u201d \u201cHow do we repair it?\u201d When these are answered for us, at least implicitly, we have our game plan and we can live safely and with purpose in this world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"332\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/image-7-500x332.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-19905\" srcset=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/image-7-500x332.png 500w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/image-7-300x199.png 300w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/image-7-768x510.png 768w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/image-7.png 1946w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You are not here to verify, Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity Or carry report. You are here to kneel Where prayer has been valid. \u2014T. S. Eliot, \u201cLittle Gidding\u201d Everybody looks at the world through their own lens, a matrix of culturally inherited qualities, family influences, and other life experiences. This lens, or worldview, truly [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19902"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19902"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19906,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19902\/revisions\/19906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}