As I see it now, there were multiple ways that our ideas about being saved distorted biblical teachings. One is that our form of religion was about escaping from earthly life, whereas Jesus’s message was fundamentally about transforming it. Because we saw the central issue to be life after death, we tended to miss New Testament teachings about what God sought for this world. If we noticed in Jesus’s model prayer the request that God’s will be done “on earth as it is in heaven,” we assumed that God’s will being done was primarily a matter of getting people to make a commitment that prepared them for eternity.

What would it mean to replace the judgmental images of God we carry with us with the thought that God sees through our weaknesses and attends to what we can be? What would it mean to think that instead of harping on each failure, God is able to experience delight at the baby steps we take toward developing our talents and showing concern for others?