Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Given all that is happening in our world these days – wars, rumors of wars, dissension, disagreement, tension — it is important for me to outline key articles of my faith.

To be specific, my faith in God. 

I don’t know what the future holds, but I know who holds my future – God.

This is very personal – a relationship with my God.  One on one.  Not a triangle involving anyone else.

So, on with the key articles:

• I try, without perfection, to follow God’s most prominent admonition, the “greatest commandment” – “To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; and love your neighbor as yourself.”

Matthew 22:36-40 outlines this greatest commandment:  “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the great and first commandment.  And a second is like it:  You shall love your neighbor as yourself.   On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.”

•  I don’t have to earn my way to heaven to be with God for eternity.

Key Bible verses for God’s plan of salvation include John 3:16, which highlights God’s love for the world by giving His Son, and Romans 10:9-10, which details confessing Jesus and believing in His resurrection for salvation.  Other significant verses are Romans 3:23 (all have sinned), Romans 6:23 (wages of sin is death, gift is eternal life), and Ephesians 2:8-9 (saved by grace through faith). 

• Put another way, I claim the free gift of salvation.  It is grace – “free and unmerited favor.”

Same verses as above.

• As a result of my salvation, I should be involved in good works that benefit Christ who gets the credit for those good works when I engage in them.

Ephesians 2:10:  For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Other translations add perspective:

New Living Translation/For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

English Standard Version/For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

• I view every person in the world to be, at least potentially, a child of God, regardless of ethnicity, color of skin, country of origin, immigration status, or any other factor.  That means that, as God loves me, I should love and respect all others.

John 3:1 begins by declaring, “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.  This highlights the extraordinary and generous love God has for believers.” 

It is God’s great love that takes the initiative to make us the children of God.  This extravagant outpouring of our heavenly Father’s love made the apostle John marvel:  “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!  And that is what we are!”

(1 John 3:1).

Being children of God means we have been born into God’s family.  We become God’s children through faith in Jesus Christ, which results in spiritual rebirth:  “But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. They are reborn — not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God” [John 1:12].

Jesus taught that only the children of God experience new birth and the opportunity to see the kingdom of God [John 3:3].  When we hear the gospel message, repent and confess our sins, and believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, at that moment we are born into God’s family.  We become a child of God and co-heir with Christ of everything in God’s kingdom for all eternity [Ephesians 1:13–14; Romans 8:14–17].  All that God has given to His Son in the kingdom belongs to us as His children, as well.

Note that these quotes often use the word “all.”  All persons are – or at least could be – children of God.  So, there is no reason to view those who may not look and act like us with derision and disrespect.

Two examples of this equity are programs that operate within the church my wife and I attend in Salem, Oregon.  They are Salem for Refugees and Salem Free Clinics.  Both are worth supporting because they treat ALL PEOPLE as children of God.

Verses 7 through 9 in Psalm 146 underline these responsibilities:

“He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry.
The Lord sets prisoners free, the Lord gives sight to the blind, the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down, the Lord loves the righteous, the Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.

• I eschew violence as a means to achieve anything, including in politics.

Jesus’ instruction to turn the other cheek, found in Matthew 5:39, means to turn the tables on those who seek to harm us and to overcome evil with good.  This is difficult, especially if someone exerts violence against you, as has been a hallmark of the current presidential administration.  Still, I abhor violence as any means to any end.

• It is not possible for something inanimate, such as a country, to be Christian.  The word Christian applies to individuals.  So, is – or was – the United States a Christian country?  No.  It may have exhibited aspects of Christianity or individual citizens may have been Christians themselves, but it is just that – individual Christianity.

No Biblical reference for this.  Just my view.

In conclusion:  We should place value on gathering with God’s people for the strength and capability that results from being together with friends

— and with God. 

Matthew 18:20, underlines this very well:  “For where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them.”