“Always obey Jesus.” Friends, this is the life-changing truth being taught tomorrow morning to little 2s and 3s.
Before going any further in preparation for tomorrow, God, stopped me right there, asking me to reflect on those three words in relation to my own life. Three simple, easy to understand words, you would think would be just as easy to live! In fact, we may even say to ourselves, “yes Jesus” or “amen” or “I do that.” Are you ready, cus I’m about to do some probing or prodding in our lives (including my own).
I’m convinced that a cursory nod or verbal consent is not quite what God had in mind. He’s been working out a grand salvation plan since before the beginning of time. If all He wanted was a mere nod in his direction I don’t believe He would have spent the past thousands of years planning, preparing, and providing in the extravagant means and ways that He has.
He sent Jesus to set things right in all the messed-up-ness in and around us. He sent Jesus to give us put-together lives once again. He sent Jesus to make all things NEW, not “continue to do things the way we always have but remember to thank God for Jesus.” He sent Jesus, because we’ve got it all wrong!
God said, in Jesus, I will show my people what I meant by life and I will free them from their former, sin-saturated ways they’ve been tricked into believing is the way of life. Since birth we have been fooled into thinking that the way life is lived (the things we prioritize, the things we see as nice conveniences or blessed luxuries, the things we fill our schedules with…) is life. From where we sit, God has been kind enough to add Jesus into the mix of life, as our helper so-to-speak, while we continue living the only way we know how to live (hectic lives crammed with our kids schedules, our getting ahead at work, our endless list of errands…the mistaken key word here is "our" - OUR decisions, OUR schedule, OUR life)
Into this kind of world (our world) God sent Jesus and said He is THE way, THE truth and THE life. He didn’t entrust himself to mankind for He knew what was in everyone. He lived life through God’s eyes, with God’s ears and God’s heart, viewing the world as God intended it to be: Lives that lived with God, for His glory. The things that are important to Him become important to us. A life that loves God and loves His image-bearing people. A life that exists to serve not to be served, where the first are last and the last are first…we've got it all backwards and God sent Jesus to turn it all around for us!
“Always obey Jesus” is a life that leans not on our own human understanding but trusts God’s ways, God’s means and God’s wisdom, ALWAYS. It truly is a new, reborn life, from the inside out, with a renewed mind, renewed heart resulting in a completely different way of living!
Praying God continues to teach us and enable us, by His Spirit, to walk by faith not by sight to recognize and trust His voice to live His way even when it doesn’t seem to make any human sense at all. “Not by power, nor by might, but by God’s Spirit says the LORD.“
Just as God equips and enables tomorrow's teachers to teach the children He brings to their classrooms to "always obey Jesus," praying that He will continually teach us too! : )
Love you all!
Ellie
"only when we do the Jesus truth, in the Jesus way, do we get the Jesus life" (Jn 14:6)
Before going any further in preparation for tomorrow, God, stopped me right there, asking me to reflect on those three words in relation to my own life. Three simple, easy to understand words, you would think would be just as easy to live! In fact, we may even say to ourselves, “yes Jesus” or “amen” or “I do that.” Are you ready, cus I’m about to do some probing or prodding in our lives (including my own).
I’m convinced that a cursory nod or verbal consent is not quite what God had in mind. He’s been working out a grand salvation plan since before the beginning of time. If all He wanted was a mere nod in his direction I don’t believe He would have spent the past thousands of years planning, preparing, and providing in the extravagant means and ways that He has.
He sent Jesus to set things right in all the messed-up-ness in and around us. He sent Jesus to give us put-together lives once again. He sent Jesus to make all things NEW, not “continue to do things the way we always have but remember to thank God for Jesus.” He sent Jesus, because we’ve got it all wrong!
God said, in Jesus, I will show my people what I meant by life and I will free them from their former, sin-saturated ways they’ve been tricked into believing is the way of life. Since birth we have been fooled into thinking that the way life is lived (the things we prioritize, the things we see as nice conveniences or blessed luxuries, the things we fill our schedules with…) is life. From where we sit, God has been kind enough to add Jesus into the mix of life, as our helper so-to-speak, while we continue living the only way we know how to live (hectic lives crammed with our kids schedules, our getting ahead at work, our endless list of errands…the mistaken key word here is "our" - OUR decisions, OUR schedule, OUR life)
Into this kind of world (our world) God sent Jesus and said He is THE way, THE truth and THE life. He didn’t entrust himself to mankind for He knew what was in everyone. He lived life through God’s eyes, with God’s ears and God’s heart, viewing the world as God intended it to be: Lives that lived with God, for His glory. The things that are important to Him become important to us. A life that loves God and loves His image-bearing people. A life that exists to serve not to be served, where the first are last and the last are first…we've got it all backwards and God sent Jesus to turn it all around for us!
“Always obey Jesus” is a life that leans not on our own human understanding but trusts God’s ways, God’s means and God’s wisdom, ALWAYS. It truly is a new, reborn life, from the inside out, with a renewed mind, renewed heart resulting in a completely different way of living!
Praying God continues to teach us and enable us, by His Spirit, to walk by faith not by sight to recognize and trust His voice to live His way even when it doesn’t seem to make any human sense at all. “Not by power, nor by might, but by God’s Spirit says the LORD.“
Just as God equips and enables tomorrow's teachers to teach the children He brings to their classrooms to "always obey Jesus," praying that He will continually teach us too! : )
Love you all!
Ellie
"only when we do the Jesus truth, in the Jesus way, do we get the Jesus life" (Jn 14:6)
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