Don't Just Worship, Follow Jesus

Richard Rohr challenges us with this meditation:

"It seems to me that it is a minority that gets the true and full gospel. We just keep worshiping Jesus and arguing over the right way to do it. The amazing thing is that Jesus never once says 'worship me!' He says, 'follow me'"

For example, Matthew 4:19 says: “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” (NIV)

Rohr continues: "Christianity is a lifestyle—a way of being in the world that is simple, non-violent, shared, and loving. However, we made it into a clever 'religion,' in order to avoid the lifestyle itself. One could be warlike, greedy, racist, selfish, and vain, and still believe that Jesus is their 'personal Lord and Savior.' The world has no time for such silliness anymore. The suffering on Earth is too great."

Sobering thoughts, and a challenge to really "follow Jesus".

What Inspires You?

This excerpt from the editorial, written by Rev. Sam Chaise, General Secretary of Canadian Baptist Ministries, in this summer’s “Mosaic” magazine, seems especially appropriate to us at Community Life Church, as it really fits with what Pastor Jeff has been saying.

"What sort of a god would make something that looks like this?"  That was what I heard in the midst of silence as I gazed, two summers ago, at a sunset framed by ocean and mountains. I was in the midst of a difficult time in my life, having faced much loss, and it had shaken my faith in the goodness of God. As I stared into the stunning vista in front of me, the question wafted into my consciousness: what sort of god would make something that looks like this? Something so beautiful, so lavish?  And I realized that, even if I was someone who knew nothing about God, the sheer beauty of what I was seeing would lead me to believe that whoever made it was good.

I am inspired by beauty, especially by beauty in nature. Each of us is inspired in different ways, and it is important for us to discover them and nurture them so that we can be sustained in the work God calls us to do.

"Inspire" literally means to "breathe in."

It is about being filled with something from the outside that animates and enlivens us inside. Just as oxygen vitalizes our bodies, inspiration enlivens our souls. In the beginning, God breathed life into earth-matter and the first humans were created.  Today, we can breathe in the Spirit and be filled. Body-soul inspiration ultimately comes from God. The deepest and longest-lasting inspiration comes from breathing in God himself, and breathing in the new things that God is doing in us and around us.

From Truth to Love

N. T. Wright is the former Anglican Bishop of Durham, England, and author of more than thirty books. He is considered one of the foremost New Testament scholars, but in spite of his scholarship, his writing is clear and understandable.  His book “Simply Christian” is a clear summary of our faith.  In the first section, he touches on the issue of truth.

“Over the last generation in Western culture, truth has been like the rope in a tug-of-war contest.  On the one hand, some want to reduce all truth to ‘facts’, things that can be proved in the way you can prove that oil is lighter than water, or even that two and two make four.  On the other hand, some believe that all truth is relative, and that all claims to truth are merely coded claims to power.  Ordinary mortals, dimly aware of this tug-of-war, and its social, cultural and political spin-offs, may well feel some uncertainty about what truth is, while still knowing that it matters,

“The sort of thing we could and should mean by ‘truth’ will vary according to what we’re talking about.  If I want to go into town, it matters whether the person who has told me to take the number 53 bus is speaking the truth or not.

“But by no means all truth is of that kind, or testable in the same way. If there’s any truth lying behind the quest for justice, it is that the world isn’t meant to be morally chaotic; but what do we mean be ‘meant’, and how do we know?  If there’s any truth in the thirst for spirituality, it could be simply that humans find satisfaction in exploring a ‘spiritual’ dimension to their lives, or it could be that we are made for relationship with another Being who can only be known that way.

“And, talking of relationships, the ‘truth’ of a relationship is in the relationship itself, in being ‘true’ to one another, which is considerably more than (though presumably it includes) telling each other the truth about the number 53 bus. . . .

“What we mean by ‘know’ is likewise further in need of investigation.  To ‘know’ the deeper truths we have been hinting at is much like ‘knowing’ a person - something which takes a long time, a lot of trust, and a good deal of trial and error - and less like ‘knowing’ the right bus to take into town.  It’s the kind of knowing in which the subject and object are intertwined, so that you could never say that it was either purely subjective or purely objective

“One good word for this deeper and richer kind of knowing, the kind that goes with the deeper and richer kind of truth, is ‘love’.”

- From “SIMPLY CHRISTIAN: Why Christianity makes sense”, by N. T. Wright, published by Harper Collins, 2006, pages 50 and 51