You’re Still Lost

Pretty sure you’ve heard the one about the airline pilot who comes on the PA about two hours into a flight and says, “Well, folks, I’ve got some bad news and some good news. The bad news is we’re lost. The good news is we’re making great time.” It doesn’t matter what great time you’re making if the supreme thing—the destination in this case—isn’t the supreme thing. You’re still lost.

This is a little like something St. Augustine wrote in The City of God where he called the “proper order of our loves” (order amoris) the “brief and true definition of virtue.” According to this order, we must love everything in creation only according to its proper relationship to God, which means loving God above all—as supreme—and not inordinately loving anything else as our ultimate end. Everything must be measured in relationship to God’s supremacy. No exceptions. Get this wrong and it doesn’t matter if you're ‘making great time’. You’re still lost.

In this week’s Epistle, the Apostle John, striving to encourage seven churches besieged by the abject evil of the Roman Empire—when it was looking like everything was lost—reminds them of this: everything must be measured in relationship to God’s supremacy.

He was writing to us in our day, too.

See you Sunday.

Steve+