Throughout this book, Carey has made no secret that she has chosen to live her life following the teachings of Jesus Christ. This has been the key to her success as a parent and in being the wonderful person that she is. If you would like to know how to use this same key in your own life, read on. If you don’t want to hear about God or Christianity, please humor Carey and I and read on anyway. It’s only five minutes of your life and really can’t hurt you. (Come on, at worst its only well-intentioned rhetoric from an incurable optimist! What are you, scared?)

The Story Begins

A long time ago, in a galaxy not so far away, there was a Trio of Beings of such like mind and essence, that They were effectively, One. They were Beings of infinite love, intelligence, and power. He was so loving, that by His very nature, He always wanted to give.

So, He made a planet out of nothing (you can do this when you have infinite power). On this planet, He made oceans, and trees, and mountains, and all manner of animals in the sky, on the land, and down to the depths of the seas.

Then, He took a risk. He created a man and a woman and He made them in His own image. Oh, they were not like Him in His infinite qualities. His abilities, intelligence, and size were limitless. They were limited to the confines of physical bodies. They were limited in where they could be because they were stuck right inside their little bodies. They were limited in what they could do because again, residing in shells of flesh, they were limited to what that flesh could do. And they were limited in their intelligence because their brains fit right inside their heads.

Nevertheless, they were in the image of their Creator because they too, could create. They could create ideas, they could create thoughts, and they could create choices.

The creator now had others whom He could give His love to, others capable of being in a love relationship with Him and with each other. Because they could create choices, real love could exist; for love, to be love, must be chosen.

For a home, He gave them a beautiful garden with good food and He allowed then to eat of nearly every tree. One tree however, they were not to eat of. The Creator warned them that eating of it would bring death and destruction to their lives. It was a tree whose fruit would give knowledge of good and evil and that being in many ways like infants, they as yet knew only good.

Still, the Creator needed to give them a choice. A way to show their love and trust for love that is not chosen, is not love at all. For a time, they chose to love with the Creator. They chose to trust that He knew more than they did and that He had their best interests in mind and so the tree of knowledge remained untouched.

There was another being in the garden though. He was evil and I might add— insane. Though the Creator had made and loved him, he had chosen to reject the Creator and His love. Now, he lived to try to turn others from the Creator as well, thinking that perhaps, he might steal affection due the Creator and have it for Himself.

He disguised himself as a snake and went and spoke to the woman the Creator had made saying, "Is it true that the Creator forbids you to eat of the fruit of this garden?"

The woman, though startled to hear speech from an animal, replied, "No, we may eat of all the trees and save only one, for if we would eat of it, it would destroy us."

"Is that what He said? I’m not surprised. I’ve been around for a while and I’ve seen it before. You think He’s so great, but sister, He is holding out on you! He knows that if you eat fruit from that tree, you will be just like Him, knowing good and evil. You uh, don’t know much about evil do you?" said the serpent.

"Well, I know what good is, but I’ve never heard of this, ‘evil’," replied the woman.

"Well let me tell you it is grrrrrreat!" The serpent reported, "I know all about it and ya know what? I’m free to live my life without the Creator telling me how!"

"But the way He has taught me to live has always been so wonderful—"

"Like you would have any other way to compare it to!"

"Well, maybe a small bite, for comparison’s sake."

"That’s the spirit! You are one heckuvan adventurous gal!" said the serpent with satisfaction.

So for the first time, she doubted the love and goodness that the Creator had always shown her. She saw that the fruit was good for food and desirable for gaining knowledge and she ate. She also convinced the man and he ate.

Afterwards, when the man and woman heard the Creator walking in the garden, they remembered what He had said about the tree bringing death and they somehow assumed it would be from the hand of the Creator. (Knowledge of evil can bring that type of confusion when you don’t yet know how to handle it.). So they ran and hid from the presence of the Creator.

The Creator, however, pursued and found them for that is what He always does to those he loves. He did not bring death as they expected. The fruit had begun to bring a slow death to their bodies already (for that is what evil does). He did however, drive them from the garden to work the land for their food that they would learn to trust Him. (1)

The Pursuit

And He has been pursuing us ever since. He sent many messengers and did many great things throughout history to reveal Himself and to show what He is like. And a great deal of humanity continued to believe the lies of the serpent who would still speak to deceive men and nations to mistrust the good Creator saying, "this is what He is like! He is holding out on you and just wants to control your life for his own, sick pleasure! Don’t listen to Him, be your own master! You know enough!" (2)

Finally, one of His three parts took the form of a human. He walked among us and showed that He is not like we thought. He loved. He healed. He forgave. He touched those others would not. He gave chances to those others wrote off. And true to form, we killed Him.

We didn’t want to believe He was good because then we might have to admit that maybe He knew more about how to live life than we did, that maybe things that we thought were fun and okay (though they caused us and others damage and thus Him, pain), were not. So we convinced ourselves that he was a dangerous lunatic deserving death. Selfish humans nailed the unselfish Son of God to a Roman cross.

"If you are God’s son, save yourself!" they chided. He could have. He could have called an army of angels to wipe out the people and take Him off the cross. He could have blinked and taken them all out with a thought. But He is not like that. He allowed them to go through with it. He showed us what He is like. Even when we are at our worst, He loves. While we were torturing Him to death, He was crying out, "Father (God), forgive them, for they know not what they do!" (3)

Trust and God’s Right to Rule

Maybe you think you can’t trust God. That He is just some cosmic killjoy up in the sky waiting to fry everyone that does something bad. If he can scream forgiveness while being tortured to death, I think you can see that this is not the case.

Maybe you think that you are qualified to rule your own life. I want you to think back to the last time you hurt someone else’s feelings and hopefully that will be enough to convince you that you need some help.

We are not qualified to rule our own lives. We live in these little bodies with brains that fit right inside our heads. We can’t see the big picture of everything that is happening in the world, and in the minds, wills, and emotions of those around us. As a result, we can make mistakes that bring damage to ourselves and to others.

God is everywhere and knows all knowledge. He continually sees and is aware of everything in existence from the smallest subatomic particle to the most gigantic galaxy. He also knows the hearts and thoughts of every human at all times, in every place.

In addition, we are often selfish. We make that choice to surf the Internet a little longer when we know that our family needs to spend time with us. We may tell little white lies here and there to make things easier for us. We may pursue careers and money at the cost of our families. To put it simply, we are not good enough to rule our own lives without bringing damage to others and ourselves in some way, shape or form. (4)

God, however, is love. He is constantly, at all times, willing and working towards the highest good of every being in existence. God and God alone, is qualified to rule our lives. (5)

The beauty however, of God’s rule, is that He does not rule by force, but through loving relationship and by appeals to choice. (6)

Do you ever wonder why, if God is so good, that there is suffering and misery in the world? It is because people, whom God is appealing to, to submit their lives to Him in love relationship, are saying that they will not submit to His reasonable appeals because they don’t feel like it. This is easy to see in obviously heinous crimes such as rape or abuse, but it is effectively the same in any selfish choice— no matter how small. (7)

Therefore, we should let God rule our lives because He is the only being with infinite intelligence and goodness and therefore, the only being qualified to rule our lives well.

So What About Heaven and Hell?

Heaven is where people that are in love with God and are willing to let Him rule their lives spend eternity. You cannot want to be in love with God and not want Him to rule your life. It is like wanting to live without having to breathe. Love consists in action. If I say I love my wife, but consistently live in a way that damages her or people she loves, I’m full of it. When we act contrary to God’s reasonable requirements, we bring damage to ourselves and to those we love. (8)

Hell is a place where God let’s those who don’t want to be bothered with Him inflict damage on themselves and others for eternity. If you stick a bunch of selfish five-year-olds in a room and tell them they don’t have to worry about any rules anymore, they will end up harming themselves and each other and causing all around misery. They are neither benevolent enough, nor smart enough to keep this from happening.

Even though we may reject God in this life, He is still acting in benevolent pursuit of us. He still sees that there is some good in our lives and often curbs the full extent of misery our selfish choices inflict upon others and ourselves. In Hell, God steps out of the picture and lets the fires we start burn and burn. Quite simply, in Hell, those who don’t want God mucking with their lives will get their wish.

Salvation

A lot of people approach Christianity or shun Christianity because of the whole Heaven/Hell issue. I would like to propose that both camps are missing the point. This is not to say that the destination of one’s eternal soul is unimportant, but Heaven and Hell, are simply not what salvation is about. Salvation is about relationship with God. Jesus states in John 17:3, that eternal life is relationship with God. Heaven and Hell are by-products. If you want to love God for eternity, you go to Heaven. If you want to be selfish and reject God for eternity, you go where God just lets you be . . . Hell.

The point of Salvation is that we need to be saved from our sin that is, we need to be saved from the selfish, destructive choices we make that separate us from God. (9)

Exactly how does sin separate us from God? It is not because God can’t or doesn’t want to be around us, that’s for sure. Jesus came to show us what the Father is like and He spent his whole life hanging out with and pursuing friendship with prostitutes, thieving tax collectors and other seedy characters. Also, right from the beginning, when Adam and Eve sinned, they were the ones who his from God and He pursued them. Likewise, when Cain killed his brother Abel, God pursued him and showed kindness to him by keeping others from killing him. (10)

Sin separates us from God not because He does not want to be around sinners, but because sinners don’t want to be around Him. If I were to gossip and slander you behind your back, one of three scenarios could occur the next time I saw you. The first, is that I might feel so guilty that I would not be able to look you in the eye and would try to leave your presence as soon as possible. My guilt would prevent us from relating in friendship.

The second possibility is that I could look you in the eye and act like everything was just fine, despite the fact that I was spreading lies about you behind your back. In this scenario, though we may seem to be communicating, our communication is superficial at best and I am making a huge assumption that you will not find out what I have said. In this case, we are separated because of my dishonesty in relating to you. Love relationship cannot exist when one or both parties are not relating to the other truthfully.

The third scenario provides the only way for restoration of that relationship. After slandering you, when I see you, I realize what I have done and I see the damage it has caused. I approach you and tell you what I did and that I am sorry and then commit to trying to set things right by telling the person I slandered you to that I was wrong in what I said. At this point, I have attempted to bridge our relational separation. Our relationship begins to be restored, when you look me in the eye and say that you know what I’ve done, and that you believe that I am sorry and will purpose to behave differently. You then tell me that although what I did hurt you, our relationship is worth more to you than my offense and so you forgive me. There remains only one thing for us to be friends again. I have to believe that you mean it. That you are good enough that you won’t hold on in your heart to the past offense and let it come between us again at some point.

In this illustration, we see that our sin separates us from God, not because God is some delicate, oversensitive being that can’t handle being around dirty sinners, but because we are guilty and can’t look God in the eye with honesty.

Salvation from our sin can only occur when we believe God is more qualified than we are to rule our lives. When we believe that He deserves to be the first and greatest object of our love, and that He can and will forgive us if we repent and submerge our lives in who He is.

In the book of Acts in the Bible, Peter, one of Jesus’ best friends, is giving a speech to a group of international Orthodox Jewish men. After establishing from their own history that Jesus was the One God sent to reveal Himself and that they had killed Him instead of listening to Him, here is how they responded. Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brethren, what shall we do?" —Acts 2:37.

Peter responded be giving the first recorded public instructions on how to be, "saved," Peter said to them, "Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. —Acts 2:37 (Here we see two conditions for Salvation from sin: repentance and baptism.)

Though you may not have realized it, this book has been about repentance. If you just got tense and felt your guard go up when you heard that word, you like many others today in our society, probably associate the word repent with, "religious extremists," holding up cardboard signs and looking to infringe upon your life.

For the purpose of this discussion, let’s define our terms so we can speak the same language and not miss each other. Put simply, to repent is to turn from one direction or course of action to another because you believe new course or direction more valuable than the old. Unless you believed that staying at home with your children was more valuable than being a working mom, you would not do it. (11)

There have been times, where, in insensitivity, I have been rude to my wife and have had to apologize and adjust the way I related to her to be more loving. In doing this, I repented of the things I said or did and altered my conduct. At these times, repentance was necessary to restore relationship with her.

The second condition for salvation, as put forth by Peter is baptism into the name of Jesus. This condition is often misunderstood to mean that in order to be saved; one must be dunked under water in a ceremony of public declaration of faith. The Bible, however, was not written in English, but ancient Greek and in this case, I believe it is necessary to look at the Greek word that is translated, "baptized," in this passage in order to understand what Peter meant. James Montgomery Boice published a good article on the word in the May 1989 issue of, Bible Study Magazine,
Original Word: baptizo (Baptizo) Phonetic Spelling: bap-tid'-zo

1. v. to dip repeatedly, to immerse, to submerge (of vessels sunk)

2. v. to cleanse by dipping or submerging, to wash, to make clean with water, to wash one's self, bathe

3. v. to overwhelm

Not to be confused with 911, bapto. The clearest example that shows the meaning of baptizo is a text from the Greek poet and physician Nicander, who lived about 200 BC It is a recipe for making pickles and is helpful because it uses both words. Nicander says that in order to make a pickle, the vegetable should first be 'dipped' (bapto) into boiling water and then 'baptized' (baptizo) in the vinegar solution. Both verbs concern the immersing of vegetables in a solution. But the first is temporary. The second, the act of baptizing the vegetable, produces a permanent change. When used in the New Testament, this word more often refers to our union and identification with Christ than to our water baptism. E.g. Mark 16:16. 'He that believes and is baptized shall be saved'. Christ is saying that mere intellectual assent is not enough. There must be a union with him, a real change, like the vegetable to the pickle! (12)

In this case, I would add, that the vinegar solution is the name of Jesus. Now that sounds cosmic and mystical in our culture, but in the ancient Jewish world, one’s name told a lot about a person. In the Bible, People’s names would often be changed to communicate something about who they were. For example, Peter, means rock. Jesus had changed his name to express how this unstable disciple formerly known as Simon (harkening) would become Peter (rock) a man of great character who would not move in the face of adversity. According to the historical accounts of Flavius Josephus, this change came to pass for Peter was ultimately crucified upside down for his faith. (13)

So one’s name was intended to communicate something about who they were and what they were like. Thus, to be baptized in the name of Jesus is to be immersed or submerged in His character. This happens through relationship with Him.

This effect of being changed by being around someone all the time should not seem all that peculiar to us. It happens in other friendships all the time. As we relate with groups of friends, often we will develop similar senses of humor or begin using similar expressions. As our friendships and conversations deepen, we may find our philosophies and views are influenced by our friends.

The effect of being immersed in God should be the same but to an immensely greater degree.

An Introduction

For those of you who read these last few pages simply to humor Carey and me, thank you. I hope that what I have written has at the very least, given you something to think about, and at the very most, led you to believe that you need God in your life.

For those that were so convinced or for those that were convinced by reading Carey’s book and understanding God’s heart through what she wrote, here is an introduction. Often, people call a prayer like this a sinner’s prayer but I prefer to call it an introduction because it is not a, "get into Heaven spell," but a first meeting with a loving God that has been chasing and calling out to you your whole life. If you want to meet Him, here is a good prayer to begin your relationship. You don’t have to say it word for word, but the important points are that you are turning from ignoring and disobeying God to doing what He says, and that you are beginning to submerge yourself in relationship with Him.

"Hello God. I’ve never really paid much attention to you before or I haven’t for a while. I see that you love me. You deserve to rule my life because you have my best in mind. Not only that, but also you have everyone else’s best in mind and I don’t always think about that. Please forgive me for making the selfish and foolish choices I have made that have brought damage to others and myself and have brought pain to you as you watched the misery I caused. Thank you that you died for me and in doing so proved your willingness to forgive me. I commit to listening to You and doing what I know you are saying from now on no matter what that may mean. Please come into my life and change me. I want to hang out with You so much that I become like You. I love You and want to learn to love You more."

If you just prayed that prayer, congratulations, you just got adopted into God’s family and He is your daddy now! As in any good relationship, you need to invest yourself in your relationship with God to keep it healthy and growing. Here are some ways to do that:

1) Start praying. Prayer is simply communication with God. He is easy to talk to since He is everywhere. Listening, on the other hand, takes a little work because He seldom communicates in an audible voice like we do. If you had a friend that was mute, you would have to learn how to understand sign language in order to know what he was saying to you. In order to understand anyone, we have to learn to understand how he or she communicates. Think of learning to hear God’s speaking like learning to understand a new language or sign. A good book on this is Loren Cunningham’s, Is That Really You, God?

2) Get a Bible and read it. Personally, I recommend a New American Standard translation, as they tend to be more literal in translating word for word from the original languages (any translation is better than not having any though). Also, I recommend an inductive study Bible as they teach you how to study the Bible for yourself rather than giving you other people’s opinions in the notes, which can sometimes, be confusing.

3) Ask God to fill you with the Holy Spirit. This is so He can lead you, guide you into truth, remind you of the things Jesus said, and give you power to tell others about Jesus. John 14:26, 16:13, Acts 1:18

4) Find other people that are in a love relationship with Jesus Christ and hang out with them. A local Bible-believing church is a good place to start.

NOTES FROM ROBERT FINNEY, JR

(1) This story is based on the events of the book of Genesis, chapters 1-3.

(2) A brief synopsis of the Old Testament.

(3) For a record of Jesus life on earth, see the Biblical New Testament books of Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John.

(4) Romans 3:23

(5) I John 4:8

(6) Isaiah 1:18

(7) James 2:9-11 James points out that whether you show partiality (favoritism) which doesn’t seem like a, "really bad," sin, you are just as much a law-breaker as one who commits adultery or murder.

(8) John 14:21

(9) Matthew 1:21

(10) John 14:7-9, Matthew 9:11, Luke 7:36-50, Genesis 3,4:8-15

(11) Here’s how good old Noah Webster defined repentance back in 1828.

REPENT

1. To feel pain, sorrow or regret for something done or spoken; as, to repent that we have lost much time in idleness or sensual pleasure; to repent that we have injured or wounded the feelings of a friend. A person repents only of what he himself has done or said.

2. To express sorrow for something past.

3. To change the mind in consequence of the inconvenience or injury done by past conduct.

Here is the Greek word translated, "repent" in this passage. Original word: metanoeÑw (Metanoeo) Phonetic Spelling: met-an-o-eh'-o

1. v. to change one's mind, i.e. to repent

2. v. to change one's mind for better, heartily to amend with abhorrence of one's past sins Number: 3340 God does not force repentance. God appeals to the mind to submit of it’s own volition to God’s ways and ideas about things.

(12) Bible Study Magazine, James Montgomery Boice, May 1989.

(13) Matthew 16:18