Good News: Epilogue

What might some concrete expressions of this humble response, this in-breaking of heaven on earth, look like?
--Pray. Talk to God. Acknowledge your need for Him. Ask Him to lead you and guide you. Praise Him for His goodness.
--Seek out a mentor. Find someone who walks with God, someone from whom you know you could learn some things, and ask to spend time with him or her on a regular basis. This takes intentionality. You have to go after it. It's not easy to find someone and get going, but the benefits will prove to be more than worth the effort.
--Get involved in a church. By "church," I mean a group of people following God together. This can look different in different circumstances; it might be Sunday morning in a pew or Tuesday night in someone's living room. The important thing is that this group is seeking God, doing life together, and loving the people around them. In addition to its own benefits (see part four on needing other people), this is probably where you'll find a mentor.
--Read the Bible. The Bible is a record of God revealing Himself to humanity, and it serves as our primary written guide for life. It's also a "living book," because as you read it, you will find it changing you in ways other books do not. For better or worse, it's not a simple book to read. There's no one perfect place to start, but many people recommend the book of John (the fourth book of the New Testament), and I suppose that's as good a place as any to get going. As a supplement, consider How to Read the Bible for All It's Worth, by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart.

If you have reservations about following this path, ignore them. Wait... no... that would be ridiculous. Explore your thoughts and feelings. What gives you pause, and why? Talk with someone about it. (I'm available! Blog comment, email, phone...) For intellectual reservations, a good place to start is The Case for Christ, by Lee Strobel.

I'd like to address one common reservation. If you genuinely consider this good news I've been sharing, you have probably recognized that following Jesus is an exclusive path. The idea of any spiritual path being true at the exclusion of other paths is highly unpopular in our world today, but I hope you can see why this is the better way to see things. Frankly, the pluralist perspective ("all roads lead to God") is existentially unsatisfying. In its attempt to validate all spiritual paths, it actually robs every single spiritual path of its meaning. Yes, there are common threads in many religions and philosophies, but the fundamental differences cannot be ignored. To say that it doesn't matter if one is a Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jew, humanist, hedonist, or nihilist is an insult to followers of all of those paths (except the nihilist, of course).

Those who believe in a single path above other paths are often accused of being closed-minded or conceited. I am not trying to make a statement of cultural superiority. (How could I? My culture doesn't embody this good news.) This is a statement of the superiority of Jesus of Nazareth. Also, while following Jesus is the exclusively true path, it is not a path of exclusion. No person is barred from following Jesus by nature of their birthplace, ethnicity, gender, past evildoing, or any other trait. All people are invited to follow Jesus.