One of the many advantages of being married for more than a few years is, that you now each other very well. And since my wife knows me so well, she got me the perfect gift for Christmas. A book. “Blessed are the misfits” by Brant Hansen. I have devoured his book “Unoffendable”. (I read it three times in a row and have numerous times since.) So, I am looking forward to reading the new one soon. From what I know, it talks about the feeling of being somehow the wrong person for church. Someone, who does not seem to fit. (Who knew with a title like that?) And I know that feeling.

Throughout church history there has always been a sense of rift between faith and science. A prominent incidence (and maybe the beginning) was the dispute between the Catholic Church and Galileo Galilei. All his life he believed in God and was a faithful member of his church. But his studies suggested, that Copernicus was right and the earth was not in the center of our solar system. That threatened the the position of the church as the keeper of all truth. And since they just barley survived the reformation, they refused to give up more ground. (To their defense I have to mention, that the pope, Urban the 8th, never took side in the matter. And Galileo Galilei was officially rehabilitated 360 years later.) The damage was done. Hence forth there would be a battle about who is right and who is wrong. And all players like to stress, that it is either one or the other.

This understanding of science and faith makes me mad and sad. It has let to a world, that believes, science has disproved God. (I tackled that already.) And it has let to a church, that still tries to be the keeper of all truth and is skeptic about everything scientific. So when you enter church, please leave your brain at the door. (The church is not completely wrong. All truth is in God and we strive to be in His Presence. But we are wrong to think, that the Bible is a scientific book or that something we don’t know is automatically wrong. And since they usually don’t teach science at seminar… But I also love, how God shows His Character in the physical universe too.)

At university we noticed, that we are not studying to learn formulas and graphs. (That is something you can look up.) We study to achieve a certain mindset. Being a scientist is not about what you know, it is about how you think. And, of course, I brought that mindset to church. Well, as you can imagine, that didn’t help me to fit in. Nobody likes that guy who tends to question everything. Why do we do things the way we do them? Can’t we do something else? Fortunately I had leaders, who not only allowed those questions. They tried to answer them and sometimes even said: you are right. We could do it differently. But, as I found, it is rare in the church, where tradition is a great authority. (Even in newly founded churches.)

In the letters in Revelations 2-3 the first one is written to the church in Ephesus. And as in almost all these letters, Jesus is pointing out problems. They have left their fist love. For whatever reason, this is the vers in these letters, about which I heard the most sermons. And they all went like this. Remember, when you first found Jesus. When you first fell in love with Him. The zeal you had. The fire, that was burning in you. And all the things, you did for Him. Inspect your life and see, where you lost that fire and ask God to help you reignite it… But here is the problem for me. I can’t remember that time, because it never happened. When I first found Jesus, I did not fall in love with Him. That came years later. And the first time I heard that type of sermon, it made me really uneasy. Because it almost convinced me, that I did not become a follower of Christ. All of the sudden I was not sure anymore, if I was even saved.

I was born into a Christian family and I never did not believe in God. But that didn’t make me His son. I knew, He existed, but I didn’t follow Him. Of course I went to church, but that had no effect on the rest of my life. Back than, we sang a certain song (which I can’t remember anymore). And one line of that song was along the line of “you are my Lord” or “I surrender all”. Something like that. Whenever this song came, I skipped that line. I new, I didn’t mean it, so I didn’t sing it. Because I was aware, on some level, that it would mean, to give God access to every part of my life. It would mean, to sign over every right to choose my own way. And I was not willing to do that. But I knew, it was the right thing to do. So in a sense, the climax of me becoming a Christian, was singing a line, I avoided so far. (Know those guys, who met Jesus in a dream in prison where they served a life sentence for murder and their life completely changed after that? I guess their story seem pretty lame right about now.) My walk with God started in obedience. Love followed.

When I first watched the movie “the first knight”, I had problems wrapping my head around the title. Richard Gere was was not the first. He was actually the last member of the round table. The title didn’t make sense. I didn’t realize back than, that “first” did not mean being the first in time. He was, in a sense, the first in importance. Sean Connery even says: “You are my best, my first knight.”

But when I take, what I learned in “the first knight” and apply it to Revelations, it makes sense again. It is not about the first time, we fell in love with Jesus. It is about the greatest Love there is, God’s. John (who wrote the book of Revelations) wrote in his first epistle (1John 4,10): “This is love: Not that we have loved God, but that He has loved us (first) and gave His Son to atone for our Sin.” The word “first” is not in the Bible, I put it there. It is right none the less. And that leads to an interpretation of the letter to the Ephesians that I can live with, that I even like a lot. Now I don’t have to question my walk with God anymore. I am even happy, that, for me, obedience came first. Because falling in love can be tricky. Feelings can change. My love for God changes. But His Love does not. By sacrificing His own Son, He showed us, that His Love for us is without end, neither in time nor in importance. And that is something I can never outgrow or leave.