John 10:7-10

In Christ we can have abundant life now and forever. We live life on the edge of eternity. We live now with purpose and one day we will live forever in God’s kingdom. They way to live a life so that you can die with no regrets is to live as if you had one month to live. In the world, a long range plan may be 10 , 50 or even 100 years. In Christ, you can have a long range plan of abundant life both today and for all eternity.

Today’s Challenge:

Accept the gift of abundant life that God offers. Are you ready to make a pledge to never settle for a mediocre life of postponement and regrets? Are you ready to Live Passionately, Love Completely, Learn Humbly and Leave Boldly? Don’t take anything less than the eternal abundant life that God wants to give you.

Textual Reflection:

To get a sense for this text, it is probably worth reading the whole chapter to to get the context.  Jesus is trying to explain who he is and what he has come to do.  To do this, he uses a variety of images. He introduces these images through a collection of I AM’s.

With this image of the gate Jesus clarifies two very important claims. First he clarifies any confusion about his claim to centrality.  Jesus claims that he is at the center of what God is planning to do.  This is a claim of sharp particularity and if we are tempted to negate this claim we do so at great risk to the teaching scripture.

Secondly he claims that he comes to secure life for all those who will “enter through him.”  I often need a reminder of what God in Christ  intends for me.  Lies speak in my head to say, “there is a better life than this. That short cut won’t matter.”  Into that lie come the words of Christ.  There is one way to enter the life for God made you and me.  That one way is the through the forgiveness and lordship of Jesus Christ.  That is why Jesus came.  Jesus came to save those who are dead in our sin and to give us life.  And not just any life, but the full life for which we were created.

on the walk

-Ethan

Ephesians 5:8-20
How many chances will you get? How many more times will you get to talk to your parents or play with your children? How many more conversations will you have with your friends? How many more days are you willing to waste in the sinful patterns that are so comfortable to you? If you had one month to live you would be naturally compelled to “make the most of every opportunity.” You would not waste a conversation. You would not waste one moment. Imagine how boldly you could face death if you knew that you had not wasted a single breath

Today’s Challenge:

Take a look at your life. From an eternal perspective, which moments are you wasting? Perhaps those moments are being wasted in sin, or by pursuing wealth and power. Perhaps they are being wasted because you are resisting God’s will for your life. Write down two ways you are wasting your life. Pick one and make a plan to replace that waste with fruitful living.

Textual Reflection:

There is a lot of great stuff in this text, but I will limit my comments to two points.

Firstly, Paul believes that people, apart from God, are lost.  It isn’t that we can do nothing good.  We can.  I am so grateful for all the good things that many people religious and irreligious have done.  But the good that we can do is not enough.  It isn’t even that my sin out weighs my goodness (although that is surely true).  Rather it is that I am in darkness and the only way out of darkness is for some light to come in.   Light does not grow out of darkness, rather light pierces the darkness.  This is the foundation for Christian ethics.  That God has has come into our lives that were lost and given us the opportunity to live in in the light, and to live eternally.

Secondly, I love this phrase: “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness.”  Having been saved from death and darkness, God’s people have a choice.  We can waste the gift that God hsa given us by returning to the fruitlessness and futility of our former ways, or we can live in the light with signifigance and purpose.  This helps me solve a puzzle that bother many Christians.  Having been rescued by God grace some start to feel that living a godly life no longer matters.  Others worry that their continued sin cuts them off from grace.  Neither view is correct.  For those in Christ, you sin has been forgiven and cannot separate you from the love of Christ or remove you from Christ family.  But my sin (and yours) is a return to the fruitless life from which God intends to save us.  In this way we waste the gift of salvation and deny the fruit that God intends to bear in our lives.

I don’t want to die and have to look back at a life of wasted days.  But that isn’t because I fear hell.  Christ has paid that price for me.  But rather because I love God and I want my life to be a testimony to the fruit that God intends to bear through my submission and obedience to God.

on the walk

-Ethan

Romans 12:1-2

There is a secret to using a Jell-O mold. Those who know the secret can shape Jell-O into to a visual delight. Like a Jell-O mold, our culture works to box in our thoughts and give shape to our attitudes, expectations and actions. Christians must master the secret of resisting this conformity and instead be transformed into the shape (likeness) of Jesus Christ. We do this by letting God’s word renew and mold our minds.

Today’s Challenge:

Become a critic of the Jell-O mold of your culture. Write down how you “fit in” to the world around you. Ask God to help you break free of that mold. Commit to read God’s word and ask God to transform you to the standard of Jesus. (If you need a place to start, try the books of Mark or Luke.)

Textual Reflections:

I love Jello.I love the taste. I love the slow melt as it changes from semi-solid to pure liquid goodness in my mouth.  But especially love how the gelatin can so quickly turn from a liquid taking the form of any container and then hold that form after removal.  It is a delightful process.

Unfortunately my worldview works the same way.  Patterns of thought are not  static.  Our perceptions about the nature of the world are not permanent.  They are moldable.  If we are not careful, they can melt take on the shape of any container in which we find ourselves.  So we must choose our container carefully.

Which brings us to our text.  The key to getting this text is the first word.  THe first word is “Therefore.”  I am not sure of the origin, but all my life I have have the phrase in my head: “When you find a “therefore” you need to know what it is there for.”  Funny, huh?  And also true.

If Paul says therefore, we simply must look back and see what he has been talking about.  Because he thinks that what he is about to say follows form what he has just said.  Assuming he is right, let’s take a look back.

In chapter 11 (which you can read for yourself if you want to check) Paul has been talking about God’s complicated strategy for offering salvation to all people.  Paul has made it clear that God desires the good of salvation and kingdom life for all people.  God is a God of big mercy. In short he has clarified for them the kind of God they serve and what God desires for all people.

THEREFORE

In this context Paul says “therefore.”  Whatever correction he is about to offer follows from what he has just just taught us about the nature of God’s mercy and God’s plan for all people. So with that as background let’s look at what he says.

Offer yourselves as living sacrifices.

Die to your own self.

You can see why we need to go back and check out what the therefore is there for.  Apart from the assurance of God’s mercy and God’s power, who could risk offering themselves as a sacrifice to God.  Apart from the goodness of God,  how could I rationally make any choice but to preserve my life at all cost.  (Or, according to the evolutionary imperative, to preserve the life of my offspring.)  But precisely in light of God’s nature and God’s promises, I can sacrifice every thing, even my own life as an act of worship to God.

If you do that then you don’t really need to worry about conforming.  What can be more non-conforming ot the pattern of the age then to live for God instead of for yourself.  But if Paul is right, then this non-conforming lifestyle is also the only rational choice. If God’s plans for us are both eternal and eternally good, than the only rational choice I have is to submit to transformation by God’s renewing influence on our minds.

This perspective is important to me.  I know that some people are motivated by a desire not to be evil.  (I wish that I was sometimes.)  I am much more motivated by a desire not to be stupid. So Paul’s argument that appelas first to rationality as the foundation for morality is important to me.  (Paul will argue the other way occasionally as well.)  Perhaps you as well have thought, “This may be good but it is rational or reasonable.”  In this section, Paul teaches, that offering yourself and a sacrifice in worship and resisting the forming influence of the age is not only good, it is also reasonable, rational and wise.

on the walk

-Ethan

Psalm 23

God doesn’t want you for anything you can do or accomplish. God wants you for you. God wants to be with you and for you to be with God. Sometimes this will mean forging into a dangerous mission and risky service. Sometimes this will mean giving away your possessions and offering up your life. But often this will mean sitting and praying, reading and talking. Even when you are not seeming to accomplish anything, you are with God and that is God’s desire.

Today’s Challenge:

Carve out an hour of silence this week. Do not bring a journal or a book. Turn off your cell-phone. Tell your plans to a friend who can hold you accountable. Spend a full hour with no agenda but to invite God to be with you. Write down your reflections here.

Textual Reflections:

This is the first chapter of the Bible that I memorized.  I just tried it right now.  I remembered all the phrases but I mixed up the order on a few.  (I forget whether the oil or the table came first.  It is the table.)  There are a lot of details that are worth exploring.  We can gain a lot of understanding about the richness of this text by learning more about ancient shepherding practices (what are the rod and the staff) and we need to know that having oil poured on your head is a good thing not a bad thing.  But I expect that you got the main point without all these details.  And the main point is something pretty amazing.

This Psalm describes how God desires to relate to you.  God wants to be a shepherd to you.  God loves you.  God wants to lead you to places of goodness and God will be with you even in the valley of death.  Even when you are surrounded by enemies, God can give you a party. And ultimately if you accept the Lord as your shepherd, then you can live in God’s house forever.  I remember very clearly the first time I found myself walking through a dark section of downtown Philadelphia, alone,  in the very early morning.  Ten years later, I remember walking down the street to confront a drunk neighbor who was abusing his wife.  In both cases these words were on my lips, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” It was not a magic spell or a superstitious ward against harm.  It was a declaration of who God is to me.

God loves me.  God desires to meet me in green pastures and to walk with me in dark valleys.

on the walk

-Ethan

Acts 18:18-28

You still have things to learn. If that sentence shocks you, then you may need to look again at the story about Apollos in the book of Acts. Even with all his credentials (which are pretty impressive) he had something to learn from two Corinthian leather workers. If he had ignored their teaching he would have missed an opportunity to serve God in a powerful way. Likewise, if we are too proud to learn from such surprising teachers, we may miss what God needs to teach us.

Today’s Challenge:

Write down some things that you sense God wants to teach you this week. Admit before God and others that you don’t have all the answers. Ask someone you trust to give you an honest appraisal if you are teachable. Do something with the answer.

Textual Reflections:

I had mixed feelings about Apollos as a kid.  I know that every kid goes through that stage, but for me it was prolonged.  He seemed dangerous.  Here we find that he is going around teaching the wrong things.  In the first letter to the Corinthians, he is one of teachers around whom a faction has coalesced (of course so is Paul).  So I kind of developed this since that he was not quite to be trusted.

I have recently changed my mind.  In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul does not act like the factions are Apollos’ fault anymore than they are the fault of Peter and Paul. (See 1 Corinthians 1 for more details.) So my bias against Apollos has softened and with this softened bias, I feel like I have seen this text for the first time.

Apollos was from the center of Jewish academic thought at the time (Alexandria).  He was a learned man from that town with a thorough knowledge of the scriptures.  We learn that he was a skilled debater.  Nothing about a man like that makes us expect that he will be ready to be taught by two itinerant laborers. (This also tells us something about the care and wisdom of Priscilla and Aquila.)  But he did listen.  What a remarkable thing for a man at the prime of his career to listen to someone an learn from them.

After all this time I find that I want to be like Apollos.  I don’t want to be wrong, but I assume that I probably am.  What I want to be is teachable, at all times from anyone.

on the walk

-Ethan

Ps. There is one cool detail that must not be missed.  Priscilla and Aquila did not address his error publicly.  They did not humiliate him or call him out.  They handled the situation carefully and kindly.     They had him over to their house.  They explained, they did not ridicule or belittle.  May we all be so careful when we need to teach someone else. And then when he had learned, they supported him and endorsed him to further ministry.

Philippians 3:10-16

Change and growth are hard. Trying news things and learning new things are never easy. But the alternative to growth is death. This is true in our physical bodies and in our spiritual life. Even Paul, the greatest evangelist and church planter of the first century, recognized that he had not made it to the place God wanted him to be. He wrote the letter to the church in Philippi late in his life and still he saw the need to press on and keep growing. Paul had accomplished a lot and could have rested on that, but instead he looked forward to the growth God has planned for him.

Today’s Challenge:

Even with one month to live there is growing to do. Don’t let yourself get proud about where you are. Keep your eye on the horizon ahead of you. Write down four ways you would like to grow in God’s direction. Pick one growth goal to keep in front of you during the One Month to Live challenge. Make a plan to press on toward that goal.

Textual Reflections:

This text is an amazing window into the life of discipleship of the Apostle Paul. I will restrain myself and point out two absolutely transformative details.

Paul wants to know Christ.  This is not the kind of knowledge you get from an encyclopedia.  This is not a desire to know about Christ (although it would include that.)  This is not merely the kind of knowledge that would come from research and experiment.  Paul is not saying that he wants to understand Christ (although that would be part of it).  This is primarily relational language.  Christ is a person now.  The king of the world whom GOd sent ot save all and set all things right is some guy named Jesus.  To say I want to know a person is a very different thing than to say I want to know the capital of Kansas or to know how a chain saw works.

Imagine a raving fan of some celebrity.  They know the details of their whole life and are even be able to imitate them so as to fool all but the most discerning eye, but if they have never met, then they do not know the object of thier affection they only know about them.  Paul wants to know Christ. (and some other stuff too.)

The second detail that jumps out at me is Paul’s insistence that he is only trying to take hold of the very thing for which Christ took hold of him.  This thing that Paul wants is what Christ Jesus wants for him.  That is such a stark reminder.  When we reduce what Jesus wants for us to just forgiving us or helping us avoid hell, we miss the bigger picture.  Paul gets the bigger picture.  This relationship for which he presses on is precisely why Jesus took hold of him.

If you are a Christian, then this is why Jesus took hold of you too.

on the walk

-Ethan

Aaron ran into the plague to save the people. He stood between the living and the dead. You can do that today. Loving others completely will include sharing the good news about what Christ has done. To avoid mentioning the truth that could save someone’s life may be socially polite, but it is not love.

Today’s Challenge:

If you had one month to live, who would you need to tell about Jesus? What is stopping you? By staying silent, are you loving them completely or just doing what is easy? Pick one person you need to talk to about Jesus and commit to a friend that you will tell them in the next thirty days.

Textual Reflections:

This is a fantastic story.  In the climactic moment we are told that Aaron stood between the living and the dead. The plague was not his fault.  The people had rejected God, and yet God was not willing for God’s wrath to be fulfilled.  But someone was needed to stand in the way.  Can you imagine the fear that Aaron must have felt?  Running out into the death.

That is the fear I often feel when I take the risk to tell someone the good news that can save their life.  But unless I am willing and unless you are willing to face this fear, who will stand today between the living and the dead?  I want to be that one.

on the walk

-Ethan

Matthew 18:21-35

When a major company is in trouble with overwhelming debt they usually ask for a bailout. Our relationships need the same thing. Forgiveness is the art of offering a bailout those who have wronged us. Some wrongs can never be set right. Unkind words can never be unsaid. The only way to repair the damage to you and the person who wronged you is to forgive the debt. This is what God has done for us and what God calls us to do for others.

Today’s Challenge:

What relational debts are you owed? How would you experience freedom if you released those debts? What relational debts do you owe? Are you ready to ask for forgiveness? If you had One Month to Live who would you seek out for reconciliation? Why wait?

Textual Reflection:

There is in the reading of this text the potential for one simple and common error.  I’ll start by correcting that error and then we will get to the point of the parable.

The error comes from the difficulty of reading parables.  It may be worth returning to a post from last week for more comments on the skills involved in reading parables.  In this case our difficulty has less to do with reading them as allegory and more to do with forgetting what it means that these are narratives.  Jesus tells stories that are squarely set in the common world of his day.  This means that we should not read particular meaning into the narrative details that are naturally part of the setting of the story.  Equally when a details shows up that is out of place in the narrative world we need to recognize this as significant.  (An example of this occurs in the story of the prodigal son.  In that story the young man finds himself ultimately stuck feeding pigs.  Jews considered pigs unclean, so that narrative details has special power.)  Additionally we should not assume that the details of the narrative world are applicable outside of the narrative world of the story.

I will offer an example because even I am confused by that last paragraph.  Imagine that I told my son the story of the boy who cried wolf and then concluded that story with something like, “That is why it is important to always tell the truth.”  If he responded, “You mean if I lie, then I will be eaten by a wolf.” his reply would be understandable but it would also reveal that he doesn’t know how a fable works.  Fables teach us a truth even though they are fiction.  The stories they tell are perhaps exemplars but the are not examples of real life interactions.  The actions that happen make sense in the narrative world of the fable but may not be what happens in real life.  So I would reply and say, “No you won’t be eaten by a wolf, but if you lie a lot, people will stop believing in you just like they did the little boy in the story.”

So in this story there are few things that were part of the common world of Jesus day and therefore are part of the narrative world of this parable.  In particular there is the final punishment for unforgiving servant.  He is thrown in prison until he can repay the debt.  Because this is not how we treat debtors, it is easy to see this as an exaggerated detail that is entered to make a point.  Perhaps we wonder, “Does this mean that if I don’t forgive other people I will go to hell.” This response is reasonable but it makes the same mistake imagined in the story above.  It forgets what kind of literature this is and it forgets what elements are simply a natural part or the narrative world (which in this case is simply the common world of Jesus’ day.)  Jesus has not concocted some extreme consequence to end this story with a dramatic flourish.  This was the law of the day (you will notice that this was the original plan for the guy before he received mercy).

So we shouldn’t be distracted by the details of the story that are a natural part of the social setting.  What we should do is what we do with all parables, we look for the core truth and see how it is used by Jesus and we avoid getting distracted by the natural details of relevant story-telling.

So in this case, Peter comes to Jesus feeling rather proud of his gracious attitude.  He suggests that he might forgive seven times.  This is already more than was expected by the Jewish law.  Jesus response is just outlandish.  Who could keep track of that many opportunities for forgiveness?  And in this context Jesus tells a remarkable story.  The story is simple.  An man who is greatly forgiven refuses to forgive.  When that is heard by the one who forgave him, the man is disappointed to find that he will be treated as he had deserved and not according to the grace he was depending on.

Jesus concludes that this is how God will treat those who do not forgive.  This is a startling teaching because it simultaneously explain the source of our ability to forgive others and it connects our willingness to forgive with our ability to receive forgiveness.  This second point is not an isolated teaching.  Jesus frequently comments that our ability to recieve forgivness is linked to our willingness to forgive others.  This is also not a fringe teaching.  Jesus brings up this point during the teaching of the Lord’s Prayer.  This is important stuff.

However in this text we see a new side to the equation.  In this story we see that it is precisely God’s forgiveness to us that allows us to forgive others.  It is hard to overlook how similar this situation is to our current banking crisis.  The man in the middle is caught by the debt that he owes and the debt that is owed to him.  He cannot pay the debt that he owes because he has not been paid the debt that is owed to him.  This is like a bank that borrowed a lot of money to issue mortgages.  When people cannot repay the mortgages, the bank defaults on their loans.  Suddenly the whole system is broken.  Unless the one at the top of the whole system decides to forgive the middle man who now can release those indebted to him.

Of course in our relationship there is so much sin and consequently so much debt.  We are all in to debt to God for the sin we have committed and we are in debt to each other.  And debts like this don’t cancel each other out, they simply build upon each other. And none of these debts can be repaid.  If I lie to a friend and then they hit me in retaliation.  Those debts don’t pay for one another, on the contrary they simply both leave us a little poorer and a little deeper in debt.  There is only one solution.  WE need a bailout from God and we need to offer one another a bailout.

It is as if God says to you.  “Do to the crushing burden of debt that has been caused by a whole lot of sin, I am going to set up a new set of debt forgiveness rules that is governed by mercy instead of justice.  Anyone who wants to can come live by these rules.  If you do, your debts are cancelled but of course since you are living under these new rules you can hold a debt against anyone else either.  If you want to hold people debts against them you can do that, the old set of rules are still available, but trust me, that is a bad idea.”

Peter asks, “How much must I forgive?”, and Jesus basically replies, “As much as you have been forgiven.”

on the walk

-Ethan

Ps. Sorry this one came out so late.  My original post was swallowed by the computer.

Philippians 2:1-13

“Me first, me first,” children call out as they run to the front of the line at the slide or at snack time. As we age we learn to be more guarded, but many of us never lose that attitude. But Jesus has a different strategy! Jesus’ strategy calls us to love completely by placing the needs of others ahead of our own. You can do this because you can trust God to take care of your own needs.

Today’s Challenge:

Who have you hurt because of your “selfish ambition”? Whose needs are you called to make a priority? How can you let God work in you to accomplish God’s good purposes (v. 13)?

Textual Reflections:

This is high level discipleship.  This is not the beginners version of following Christ. This is the whole thing. I often have people ask me how they can go “deeper” in their Bible study.  I love this question and the hunger that it represents, but occasionally when I am feeling sassy this answer pops in my head (but never out of my mouth), “Just go read Philippians 2 and live it out.  When you have mastered that, then we’ll talk.”  It doesn’t get much deeper than this text.

Paul gets things rolling with some rhetorical questions.  Understanding these rhetorical questions is so important.  Paul believes that all of the answer are yes.  In fact he uses a particular grammatical form that can only take yes for an answer.  Some translation try to accommodate this with renderings like, “if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ and you do, if …”  Other render it like this, “Since you have encouragement from being united with Christ, and…”  Neither of these readings are a graceful, but they get to the sense well enough.  Paul is not doubting the reality of these benefits, rather he is counting on them.  In fact the rest of the chapter only makes sense in light of the overwhelming reality of these benefits.

Let me give an example.  If I were trying to convince my 6 year old to share his toys with a guest who was visiting, my argument might go something like this.  “Didn’t I give you all those legos, and didn’t I help you build all the ships, and don’t I always fix them after they break and won’t I probably buy you more soon, and don’t you get to play with them whenever you want, and can’t you play with them as much as you want, then just do me a favor and share your legos with your friend.  Let them choose first and don’t fight over the legos.   Got it?”

So I lead with some questions, but we both know the answers to those questions and in fact if he were to contradict the implied answers to those questions in that situation he would have some explaining to do. But if he truly agrees with me on all those answers then I truly hope that he will understand why he should behave in this way.  And in the same way, I can only imagine someone acting like this is they truly can agree with Paul’s opening litany.  (As an aside, because of Paul’s opening litany we can say that this kind of behavior is the specific call of Christians.  It is Christians who can say yes along with Paul and thus it is Christians who are called to live a life that puts others need first.)
The only way that I think that I would even be tempted to behave in this way is if I trusted in the work that Jesus had done for me.  Not only because his example compels me, but also because it is only in light of God’s abundant care for me that I can risk putting others first in my life.

So Paul’s first point is to consider all that God has done for us in Christ and in light of that we are freed to care for others.  The second is a bit different and in an odd way appeals to out self-interest.  Paul argues that Christ’s voluntary self-abasement was a means for God to glorify Christ.  In the same way, Paul says that when we graciously humble ourselves and do not grumble but instead humble ourselves and our agenda, that is precisely God’s opportunity to work God’s good purposes for our lives.

So because God has been gracious to you, you can be gracious to others and when you are gracious to others you put yourself in a position for God good work to be done in your life.

on the walk

-Ethan

John 13:34-35

Life is about relationships. No one sees this more clearly than those who see death fast approaching. Jesus was approaching death when he taught his followers this new commandment, “Love one another like I have loved you.” The command to love others was not the new part. The new part of this is the command to love like Jesus. Jesus love is complete love even to the point of sacrificing himself. Jesus teaches us that when we love like that, everyone will know whom we follow.

Today’s Challenge:

What priorities get in the way of the relationships you need to value? If you had one month to live, what practical changes would you make to demonstrate that relationships matter most? Which of those changes can you put into motion this week? What relationships need an hour of your undivided attention? Write down one person that you want to start loving as Jesus loves you, AND how you plan to show that love.

Textual Reflections:

If you wonder what Jesus would prioritize if he had one month to live, then this is your text. John 13 and following records Jesus conversations in the last day before his death. In these conversation his top priority is on the relationships of his followers.  He calls them to love one another.  He offers two clarifying additions to this call.  First Jesus clarifies the kind of love they should express.  Secondly, Jesus clarifies the impact this love will have on others. But before we get to that I want to mention one detail that is subtle and perhaps surprising.

Did you notice the target of the love that is commanded in this text.  In other places Jesus will call on his followers to love their neighbors and even their enemies, but in this text Jesus calls them to love one another.  This is a teaching about the kind of relationships that are expected within the Christian community.  Christian communities should be marked by a unique kind of relational health that transcends what is found outside the church.  This happens far too rarely and when Christian fail to love another the consequences are very serious.

Now to the clarifications.  The first one is to describe the kind love that Christians should show to one another.  This is the newness of the command.   The power of this comes largely from its context.  He says this just after he has washed the feet of his disciples, and just before the events begint aht lead to his death.  In this context he says to them.  Love each other just like I am loving you.

The second clarifying truth is about the  consequences of our love.  Jesus says that it the quality of our communal love that Christians reveal their identitiy to others.  There is ample eveidence of this in the first few centuries of the church, and I think that this remains remarkably true.  It is remarkably easy to find out what kind of person Jesus was.  We literally give away books about his life.  And then when the world reads about his life and observe those who claim to follow him a remarkable opportunity is available.  There is opportunity to draw that person to God through the power of a love like Christ’s or to drive them away as they observe a vst disconnect between the life and love and Jesus and the life and love of we whom claim to follow him.

I am occasionally in conversation where we discuss how a certain event or a certain practice is “mission critical.”  Lately we have been having those conversations about parking.  At Mountain we need more people to use our shuttling system and free up spaces in the main lots.  That is “mission critical.”  Well the truth is that parking needs will come and go but loving one another like Jesus is always “mission critical.”  It is the quality of our communal love that identifies us to the world as followers of Christ.

on the walk

-Ethan