The historic and prominent reason given for God’s love and specifically for Jesus death and resurrection is that we are sinners and need saved.

Nice and neat.

Which begs the questions, saved for what exactly? Or even saved from what exactly?

Most Western Christians assume, because they have been taught this, that Jesus died for us because we need saved from Hell. The point being we can now spend all eternity in Heaven rather than being punished in Hell.

But is there a chance we have missed the point?

Now this is pretty much old news. We’ve debated for years, not just since Rob Bell’s book ‘Love Win’ was published almost two years ago, what the point of salvation is. But instead of looking at it from a “Is Hell a real place?” discussion, what if we reframed it into a “What if avoiding Hell or getting into Heaven for that matter isn’t the full objective” discussion?

Is Jesus death about that, or is it about saving us so we can be God’s Priests and Kings in the New Heaven and New Earth? Is it about following arbitrary rules to live as best as we can here and now in the hope that someday we will be leaving for something better?

Something tells me we’ve got it wrong a lot of the time and that we have misunderstood what Jesus came to do. We’ve made Jesus out to be someone we pray to once and use to get our golden ticket out of here rather than someone whose lead we follow by living sacrificial lives and growing to be more and more like, for the purpose of playing our part in bringing God’s kingdom to Earth.

Jesus death has set in motion a new way of thinking about the world. Not one where everyone needs to be told to repent so they don’t end up in Hell but where we need to repent because God is starting something bigger than we imagined and we have a part to play in it.

Perhaps we don’t like to view it like this because it means we have a responsibility to work at ourselves and train to become more like Christ and that seems too much like ‘works’. But this is not how Paul saw it and it’s not how we should either.

When you read the New Testament through the eyes of someone who believes that God is redeeming this world and that our goal is to work out our salvation to be a part of the rescue plan that is already happening, much of the New Testament begins to make more sense.

The Beatitudes become an example of the type of characteristics that will be found in the New Heaven and Earth, not just rules of how to act.

Jesus’ call to deny ourselves and take up our cross makes sense now that we know that we aren’t just waiting around for the end of the world. We need to so we can be part of God’s rescue plan.

Paul’s talk of putting sin to death is important not because it stops us getting to Heaven but because it stops us being examples and reflecting the fullness of life God is bringing forth right now. That is Heaven on Earth.

Jesus bringing in the new kingdom and defeating evil by the most humiliating way possible, suddenly becomes even more revolutionary when we realise God’s kingdom is brought forward not through violence but through peace.

The more I read the New Testament in this light the more I realise Jesus’ message is a sign to what He has promised, not only in the future but today. It is happening now. And we are called to respond.

Because right now, we’re not going anywhere.

I haven’t made any New Year Resolutions for 2013. Last year I had a whole load of plans and goals in January and ended up failing at pretty much each and every one of them.

Good intentions are one thing but when life gets in the way, we usually hit a snag.

A year is a long time and sometimes it’s good to look ahead but sometimes it just doesn’t work.

Consider the person who has decided to lose weight and get healthy. For a couple months they lose weight and get fit and then suddenly realise that they have another 10 months of 7am workouts and no Mars bars.

Or the person who commits to reading one book every month but then lack of time starts to diminish their appetite for it.

Or the person who wants to write a blog series, commenting every day on the book of Matthew and then realizes that is a mental idea and remembers they are not NT Wright.

And then there is the person who decides that they want to change their character rather than specific behaviours. Who realizes a year is longer than they think so breaks it up into small sections with small achievable sustainable goals. Who decides to nurture small daily habits that are easy to grow and after enough work become second nature. Who remembers why they enjoyed running in the first place and sees that pleasure as their new goal.

Who looks back at the end of the year and realizes they have changed, grown, succeeded and won more than they thought they ever could. More than grandiose resolutions would ever allow.

I’m not making any resolutions this year but I am asking myself a daily question, which person am I?

How many of the X factor winners can you name? Maybe you can name them all. But out of them who has actually gone on to have a lasting career in the music industry? Of those who achieved a Christmas number 1 after the show was over has gone on to have another one? Not very many I bet. Even Leonna Lewis hasn’t released anything is a while.

We all want to be successful but very few of us want to put the work in. We want success now. But when we get it overnight can we keep itgoing?

When I was a kid I hated being made to practice the piano for 1 hour a day. It’s not that I didn’t want to be good. I just didn’t want to put in the effort getting there.

Funnily enough things haven’t changed. I still don’t want to put the work in. So I want to be a great writer but I don’t want to write every day to find my voice or I want to run a marathon but I don’t want to run small amounts many many times to build up the stamina. I want community but I don’t want to have to grow intimacy and closeness every day, especially when it’s tough.

We often see where we want to be but are not prepared to do the small steps to get there.

The reason I think I and many other people feel like this is because we get frustrated when we start out and realise we aren’t as good as we thought. So when I went for a run a couple of weeks ago and realized I had lost most of my fitness and I was slow and dead after just a mile, I felt awful and wanted to be marathon fit already. I haven’t ran since.

But what if we look at it differently?

We all know the cliché taking it one day at a time. It’s true, but what if we saw our attempts each day as they really are. That is, the best that we can achieve right now. So when I run if I can only run a mile and have to stop to walk every so often and finish in over 30 minutes that is alright because right now that is my best. I have given it all I can. This is my peak fitness right now.

Or when I write tomorrow I write one blog but that is all I can come up with presently. That is my best. Yes in a few weeks I may be able to write 3 or 4 blogs a day but that is then and right now I owe it to my current best to achieve it.

Suddenly I am hitting my best work every day rather than feeling despair as I compare it to some hypothetical event in the future.

Soon though we find that we can run faster longer, we can write better and clearer and we can tell how our friend is doing without even having to ask.

This is how we get better. Not by beating ourselves up because we aren’t living up to our expectations (as reasonable as they are) Not by pretending you are better than you really are. But by achieving your optimum result whatever that is today.

Afterall, all you can do is your best.

Most of my time writing is spent looking at a blank screen. Not typing. Not forming sentences. Just staring. That is if I can find a moment from checking twitter, facebook or watching Breaking Bad.

I was going to write “most of my time as a writer…” in that first sentence but I couldn’t bring myself to it. If I am a writer I’m a pretty bad one. I don’t actually write. That’s what writer’s do isn’t it? I don’t call myself a plumber because I don’t fix sinks or work with pipes. I don’t call myself a professional footballer because I don’t pray professional football (even though I still think I can). Then I shouldn’t call myself a writer if I don’t think of words and document them somehow…right?

Wrong.

Writing is unique in that some days we can write a bunch of stuff that flows well and we work. We have so many ideas we don’t know what to do with. We work hard and it feels great. Other days not so much. Other days the words are scarce and even if I do manage to write something it is basically crap. It’s full of clichés and its boring and its dull. But at least I have written. The days when I don’t write feel like I am wasting time and am living as a fraud.

But here’s the point. Being a writer is more than writing. Yes at some point I am going to need to write, yes I can be a writer but never put in the effort and leave a gaping hole where my work should be, but if I start defining myself by what I do or don’t do I will never get anywhere. If I don’t write and then decide that that means I am not a writer I will wake up tomorrow and not write. If on the other hand I don’t write but sit down and try then at least I gave it a shot. I will wake up the next day ready to give it another go. In my head I have called myself a writer and that is what I am.

But the magical thing, and it is magical, is that when we sit down to write eventually it will happen. We will think of something or inspiration will hit us and we will write. It doesn’t matter if it’s good or not.

You’re a writer.