A Jesus Perspective

In our rage and grief it’s all too easy to frame this tragedy as the “evil other” attacking the “righteous us.” But this is not the way of Jesus. Contrasting ourselves with an evil other does not produce the wholeness of God’s loving reign (shalom). Setting ourselves up against those who are trapped in sin, have succumb to a spirit of violence and death, does not magically make us the peculiar people who reflect God’s love. Instead, the only way for us to become the embodiment of God’s loving reign, is to model our love after the love of God demonstrated on Jesus’s cross: a love that prays for its murderer’s forgiveness. In Jesus’s death and life, he modeled a love that identified with those who were wounded, as well as those who were stigmatized—even with violent Zealots. The Apostle Paul, himself a violent murderer, was transformed by God’s love and called to herald the glorious Gospel of God’s Kingdom among the Gentiles. That’s the power of God’s love that is at work in this Jesus movement we call the Church! - T.C. Moore

Getting Through It

Life is hard sometimes. As Christians, how do we get through it? The late Brennan Manning says: I believe childlike surrender and trust, is the defining spirit of authentic discipleship. The supreme need in most of our lives is often the most overlooked: an unfaltering trust in the love of God no matter what goes down.

As a beloved child of God, I admit it is often hard to surrender and trust my heavenly Father no matter what goes down. That's not God's fault - that's mine. Forgive me, Abba.

Loving Another

The command of Jesus to love one another is never restricted by the nationality, status, ethnic background, sexual preference, or inherent lovableness of the "other". - From "Abba's Child" by Brennan Manning

Making the List

It is probably the most well-known, most often quoted, and most visible Bible verse there is. I'm talking about John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but receive eternal life."   

 What does it mean that God so loves the world? The "world" is the whole human race (kosmos), no matter who you or what you've done. Yet oftentimes we feel that God is angry at us. We feel that because we mess up and miss the mark, that God is going to condemn us, so we have to try harder. Read the very next verse after John 3:16. It says, "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him".

God's goal is that the world might know how much He loves each one of us. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Christ's sacrifice shows the world how much God loves us. And His love is not just reserved for a certain group of people.

God loves the poor and he loves the rich. He loves men, women, children of all ages. God loves the elderly, and the newborn. He loves the strong and healthy, and he loves the weak, sick, abandoned, and broken. God loves the educated and the illiterate. He loves persons of every color - black, white, and yellow, brown. He loves the lowly, powerless and oppressed. God loves liars, thieves, murderers, adulterers, pimps, prostitutes, whores, rapists, pedophiles, gang bangers, those who abort babies, and he loves their helpless victims. God loves the greedy, the lazy, the employed, the unemployed, the homeless. He loves those self-disciplined, and he loves the addict. God loves Republicans, Democrats, Right-wing conservatives and left-wing liberals. Barack Obama and Rush Limbaugh. He loves the happily married, the miserably married, the single, the widowed. God loves the divorced. He loves those who are addicted to pornography. He loves heterosexuals, and he loves homosexuals. God loves atheists, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists, Methodists, Lutherans, Pentecostals, Catholics, and yes, Mennonites. He loves those who take his name in vain. He loves selfish, mean, proud, racist, vicious people. He loves those who hate him. He loves his enemies. He loves the unlovable - He loves you, he loves me - no matter who we are or what we've done. He loves everyone. God so loves the world.  

Did I leave anyone out?