12 Quotes by Benjamin L. Corey

It's important to remember that Israel's story is a story of being in the process of getting to know God, all before Jesus presents himself as the ultimate revelation of God. It is not unlike other relationships where we need time to fully understand and appreciate the true self and identity of the other person in the relationship. The story involves moments when Israel truly sees God, and moments when they profoundly misunderstand God--both of which are normal parts of any relationship.

But what if there's really no such thing as a crisis of faith? ... What if it just feels like everything is going wrong, but really that instance is a moment when everything is about to go right? ... What if what we often call a faith crisis is actually a divine journey--not from God, or simply to God, but a journey with God?

[re: 'keeping the commandments'] I believe that "keeping" speaks more about focus than measuring success on a pass-fail basis. When we keep something, we hold it close to our hearts and allow it to progressively become our object of focus. The action of keeping becomes personal and intimate, not regulated by an outside authority. Whatever we keep becomes an object we love and cherish, and it becomes a center point from which the rest of our lives flow--like a compass.

Through a lens of navigation, then, we can see that "keeping" isn't about having a perfect, linear or flawless journey; keeping is about having a focus point that you want to keep moving toward.

The things that Jesus thought, and the things that Jesus did, were not a clean fit for those whose entire focus had been right thinking or right doing; Jesus was, and still it, altogether different and outside all of our camps and categories.

Unlike the bounded-set approach where we're constantly trying to measure ourselves up to see whether we're in or out, the centered-set paradigm invites us to ask far more simple and profound questions: "Am I moving toward Jesus? Am I moving toward love?

Drawing identity from any area other than the source of life is a spiritual death sentence, and worse, it's contagious, because it gives birth to tribalism. However, when we return to our central identity of image-bearers designed to receive love from and reflect love to others, we are naturally invited to shed all of the unloving, fear-based tribal behaviors that come from loyalty to the label.

In this story, we are not God's enemies. We are God's image-bearers and the most precious thing he created. We are not sin but are oppressed by the force of sin. We need saving but not from God or even ourselves--we need saving from all of those many things that interfere with our ability to perfectly reflect and receive love.

We can see that sin is simply anything that disrupts the way life is intended to be. Sometimes we are the ones who do the disrupting; sometimes it's done to us. But never does sin become part of our identity. We are created in the image and likeness of love, and nothing can destroy that.