Make disciples. "The eleven must go. They must create learners--disciples.They must baptize them. Then they must teach them to follow every last detail of Jesus's commands, not with inventiveness, not with astonishing oratorical flourish, not with awesome miracles." Simple to say, more difficult to do. I am reminded of II Timothy 2:1-2: "You then, my child, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus' and what you have heard from me through many witnesses entrust to faithful people who will be able to teach others as well."
So the task at hand is to live the teachings ourselves, and to teach others. What we have the tendency to do, however, is to see Jesus' teachings kind of like a smorgasbord from which we pick and choose. We like the ones about being loved, about forgiveness, but we don't like the hard parts about suffering and surrendering ourselves to him lock, stock, and barrel. 'A dollop of things that make me feel good, and a dab of that which I won't find to inconvenient."
I like his prayer:
Today I pray that you, with the father and the son,
will embrace a shared purpose
So the task at hand is to live the teachings ourselves, and to teach others. What we have the tendency to do, however, is to see Jesus' teachings kind of like a smorgasbord from which we pick and choose. We like the ones about being loved, about forgiveness, but we don't like the hard parts about suffering and surrendering ourselves to him lock, stock, and barrel. 'A dollop of things that make me feel good, and a dab of that which I won't find to inconvenient."
I like his prayer:
Today I pray that you, with the father and the son,
will embrace a shared purpose
To fire in me a passion to obey everything Jesus commanded
To stir in me a passion to teach others
To obey everything Jesus commanded
To forgive me when I don't obey
To forgive them when they don't...
No comments:
Post a Comment