“13 This is the third time I am coming to you. Every charge must be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 2 I warned those who sinned before and all the others, and I warn them now while absent, as I did when present on my second visit, that if I come again I will not spare them— 3 since you seek proof that Christ is speaking in me. He is not weak in dealing with you, but is powerful among you. 4 For he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but in dealing with you we will live with him by the power of God. 5 Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test! 6 I hope you will find out that we have not failed the test. 7 But we pray to God that you may not do wrong—not that we may appear to have met the test, but that you may do what is right, though we may seem to have failed. 8 For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth. 9 For we are glad when we are weak and you are strong. Your restoration is what we pray for. 10 For this reason I write these things while I am away from you, that when I come I may not have to be severe in my use of the authority that the Lord has given me for building up and not for tearing down.” (2 Cor 13:1-10 ESV)

“26 What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up. 27 If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three, and each in turn, and let someone interpret. 28 But if there is no one to interpret, let each of them keep silent in church and speak to himself and to God. 29 Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said. 30 If a revelation is made to another sitting there, let the first be silent. 31 For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged, 32 and the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets. 33 For God is not a God of confusion but of peace.” (1 Cor 14:26-33 ESV)

Against that standard answer: “What is the basic framework, the Christian’s outlook?” “It is sin and repentance, forgiveness and eternal life”, factually and in the field the answer as given comes up flat. It becomes rote. It seems forced. It fails to inspire, and feels constricting.

First, our “framework” always is a living dynamism, a Posture and Attitude, a mosaic and mixture of hurts and boons, hardships and prayerful pleasures. We take pleasure in some un-rote, un-repetitive, basic Encounter with a friend who makes a certain eye-contact that is life-giving, that darts and enlivens, that humors and Promises: we Promise, with our gaze and in our hearts, that some “sixth sense” or “intuition” helps to discern friend and foe, safe passage and trap.

Therefore, life always reinvents Betrayal, Crossed Wires, Schizoid reversals. What is harbored in the heart, to deny a friend or betray a friend, is to deny or betray oneself. But more, we are to live as though Guaranteed, if not safe passage in this life, then Eternal Crowns of Glory for acting as though gamesman and joyous, unsuspicious, for the journey.

The framework saddens us also, for those brief hours when the Christ is taken away from us: go on, young soul, you can do it! For, in fact, Holy Spirit Fire Starter is never absent from us, as we deliberate, as we adjudicate, as we gently go forth boldly into the night.

The framework, then, is Saved and Damned, the latter never directly assumed of a person, only that not everyone is Saved: what the rest are, that remains to be seen. But to be a Christian who is Saved, is to have a framework or outlook of delineated enmity, of tempters and prayerful partners, of Today’s New delineating marks, each day an ebb and a flow. Really, there is no standard timeless answer to that question of what brings us home to “Repentance and Faith”, except that the saddened warrior in his or her foxhole reflects: Christ was besieged; Christ was betrayed; Christ was mocked and dragged before a crowd all in enmity against Him. So to that wake-up call known as non-blase, non-lazy, willing Accession to the Fact: we are beleaguered, we are in active counterpoint to an enemy “out there”. And if today we just want some rest, He grants that, only this: that He also grants the staying Power to see things truly, to accurately Reflect, to Analyze and Report to headship, a storyline, a framework, a “what is out there, really”.

Hungry, the Christian is reflecting on a world already plagued by the murder and torture of a good portion of its people, our own Homesteads notwithstanding. Hungry, the Christian is acting on due Haste, due Certain Duty, due Saddened Resolve. To fight. To make the judicious early cut that saves lives. To see all things through that Framework of, hey, man, hey, woman: you know Adam and Eve’s Fall; see it in your own lives. Accept His sanctuary and Mercy-seat prior to blaming anyone else. See the goodness in other people. Fight against presumptuous sins and career-destroying preaching: that criticism from the pulpit that Proves: Christ Died for one slanderous point, not a weapon forged against Him, but one slanderous, viral point. Anything that can take away from His peaceful Walk, will go viral and Destroy. Many have already died for us, for the living, for the Entrusted Servant who lives and dies in cadence, in lockstep, in due submission, gladly submitted to God with whom life is brief and eternity is long. Our mentalism or experience, this we share with our fellow Humankind: what I “feel” this day, my “outlook” and framework, this is a point shared with each other in the human spirit.