Discipleship is about feeling the weight of the cross a bit, counting the cost, weighing allegiances, and making hard yet life-giving choices.
When we finally learn to value the least among us in the same way we value ourselves, then we will have entered the Kingdom of God.
The Kingdom of God will be in us now or it may never be in us at all.
The will of God can only be known by listening to the Word of God. Until we do that, our prayers are at best, wishes.
With the written Word, and through the presence of the Spirit, Jesus operates as a master coach.
How many times did the “rich man” pass by Lazarus, the homeless man, without so much as a nod?
Jesus’ teachings strike us as bewilderingly counter intuitive at times precisely because he is instructing us to live in the present evil age as though the future age of the Kingdom of God were already here.
We don’t have a God who is looking for servants. We have a Father who is in search of sons and daughters.
Jesus calls for a decisive choice to be “all-in” with him. The power of the “or” is the way it leads to the real abundance.
We tend to live by the old adage, often attributed to the Bible, “The Lord helps those who help themselves.” According to Jesus, this could not be further from the truth.
To the extent we don’t see and love the broken and hurting and lost among us, we don’t see and love God.
There is a difference between a spirit of resignation to the situation and an intentional act of surrender to God.
