Tag Archives: live

Share the Blessings

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Have you ever said you will do something, without being really clear on what it is you have agreed to do?  And then you discover…

Matthew 5:13-20 (CEV)

Salt and Light

13 You are like salt for everyone on earth. But if salt no longer tastes like salt, how can it make food salty? All it is good for is to be thrown out and walked on.

14 You are like light for the whole world. A city built on top of a hill cannot be hidden, 15 and no one would light a lamp and put it under a clay pot. A lamp is placed on a lampstand, where it can give light to everyone in the house. 16 Make your light shine, so that others will see the good that you do and will praise your Father in heaven.

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The Law of Moses

17 Don’t suppose that I came to do away with the Law and the Prophets. I did not come to do away with them, but to give them their full meaning. 18 Heaven and earth may disappear. But I promise you that not even a period or comma will ever disappear from the Law. Everything written in it must happen.

19 If you reject even the least important command in the Law and teach others to do the same, you will be the least important person in the kingdom of heaven. But if you obey and teach others its commands, you will have an important place in the kingdom. 20 You must obey God’s commands better than the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law obey them. If you don’t, I promise you that you will never get into the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus has shown the disciples what true blessing is, he now tells them what they have to do.  This is right at the beginning.  He has called his disciples and now he is telling them what the calling is.  They are to be salt and light in the world – to be his presence.  He has come to show them God’s ways, and they are to live them in the world, so that everyone can see.  God’s blessings are not just for them to hug tightly to themselves, but to share with everyone else, that they too might see God.

And for those who thought Jesus was bringing something new…

well he is, and he isn’t.  God’s ways haven’t changed.  He hasn’t come to tell them that God didn’t mean all those things about loving your neighbour and living justly; he has come to show them what those things actually look like.  Successive generations had failed to grasp what God meant by his laws, so now they are going to be shown.  That is what Jesus is here to do, and what his disciples are called to do too.

So the challenge, as ever, is to live God’s ways, day by day, in all we do.

Help me Lord,
as I learn about you
to live it,
share it,
that others may know too

Tell Out My Soul

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Borrowed Rooms #adventbookclub – Day 35

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Luke 2:7 (CEV)

7 she gave birth to her first-born son. She dressed him in baby clothes and laid him on a bed of hay, because there was no room for them in the inn.

Luke 22:7-13

Jesus Eats with His Disciples

7 The day had come for the Festival of Thin Bread, and it was time to kill the Passover lambs. 8 So Jesus said to Peter and John, “Go and prepare the Passover meal for us to eat.”

9 But they asked, “Where do you want us to prepare it?”

10 Jesus told them, “As you go into the city, you will meet a man carrying a jar of water. Follow him into the house 11 and say to the owner, ‘Our teacher wants to know where he can eat the Passover meal with his disciples.’ 12 The owner will take you upstairs and show you a large room ready for you to use. Prepare the meal there.”

13 Peter and John left. They found everything just as Jesus had told them, and they prepared the Passover meal.

A borrowed room suggestions having no place of your own.  Nowhere that is safe, or that ties you down.

Plenty today know the lack of security that not having a home of your own can bring.  The unease of never knowing when you might be evicted, or not able to pay the rent.  The landlord might suddenly decide not to have tenants any more or choose to go back on their word (maybe through no fault of their own).  Life without a permanent home is a risky business, with the very real possibility of constantly having to find a new place to live

Jesus was born in a borrowed room, and his final night on earth was a borrowed room too.  He had no place of his own, but he chose to use other people’s homes.

I think there is something powerful in allowing others to offer us hospitality.  To receive from them, to give them the chance to give.  Jesus was very good at that.  We hear of him going to many people’s houses.  He wasn’t stuck in one place, but was able to be with people, where they were and receive what they had to offer.

That continues today.  Jesus has no home on this earth.  He needs ours.  He needs our lives for his place to live and work.  He longs to come and dwell with us and in us, and to receive all we have to offer.

Will I allow him to not just borrow my life, but to have it, move into it, inhabit it?

Which brings me to one of my favourite hymns that ends in a prayer

Come Let Us Sing of a Wonderful Love

Come Lord, dwell with me, I pray

This year, several of us are reading Beginnings and Endings by Maggi Dawn and joining together to comment on it.  Do join us at the Adventbookclub Facebook page, follow #adventbookclub on Twitter or comment below.  If you are also reading and blogging on this book, let me know and I will link to your blog.

Living in Love

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We thought last week about remaining in God, being firmly attached to his life and growth.  Now we are told specifically that we are to remain in his love.

John 15:9-17

9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit —fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.

What does remaining in God’s love look like?

Well, first of all, it involves letting him love us.  That may sound strange, but it is perfectly possible to keep God at arm’s length, to not “let him in”, to stop him wrapping his arms around us and allowing ourselves to know we are loved by him.  A relationship with God is just that, a two-way event.  It is not just about us doing the right thing, worshipping him, praying and all those other things that make up faithful christian living; it is also about allowing God to touch us.

We need to rest in God’s love…

…and then

we have to go, and love others in the way that God loves us – a sobering thought.

God loves, without memory, without condition, without holding anything back.

The fruit we are called to grow are the fruit of love.

Lord,

I long to feel the touch of your love.

May I not keep you at arm’s length,

or shut you out,

but receive the love you pour out to me.

Let it fill me,

and overflow from me,

that I may pass that love on,

to others that need to know

and feel

your love

– my love