On Union with God

It's the point of this whole thing

Photo by David Rodrigo on Unsplash

Dear reader,

I want to address a question asked by a subscriber.

For those of you who don’t hold the Christian faith this may well read like gobbledegook. That’s entirely understandable.

This person has been on quite a journey recently with some experiences of Christ that could be described as mystical. It has been a privilege to have heard of some of what has been going on for her as she considers faith in a different way.

As she has experienced these things and contemplated them, there’s a phrase I’ve used that has caught her attention.

She saw me mention ‘union with God’ being the chief pursuit of the Christian life. She had never heard this phrase before, but has now seen me use it a number of times and has asked me to expand on it.

Just recently she shared a frustration that after years of services with various churches, and conferences etc, she had never heard this phrase, and here I am saying it’s the point of the whole thing. She reflected that it seems like the chief pursuit of pastors, as she has experienced it, is to get us saved. Because of that, she asked if we’ve been fed a dumbed-down gospel. I wouldn’t say it’s a dumbed-down gospel, but I would say it’s an oversimplified gospel that only gives a portion of the picture.

I can’t affirm or deny what church leaders in her years of experience have or haven’t said, but I do know that in my own experience the discovery of the idea that this is all about union with God, changed everything, and a whole lot of stuff made more sense. It also changed my practices, and made me see what churches are or are not doing in a very different light. Let me explain…