In the Readings (Jonah
3.1-5, 10) the prophet is called to go to the ancient city of Nineveh and warn
them of God's plan to destroy them. They have an epiphany moment, realize they
are in trouble, repent and God spares them. In the Epistle Paul is instructing
the Christian community of Corinth on how to prepare for the End Times by
focusing on God to the exclusion of worldly issues and relationships. This is
how to respond to the Epiphany moment in the Gospel of Mark (1.14-15) when
Jesus announces "The Kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the
Good News." The Good News is that God is intervening in history and making
a new Covenant in the shed blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus is calling individuals
into a community of followers who are developing a spiritual life of love in
Jesus Christ through:
·
Orthodox
Bible teaching, worship, experiences of the Holy Spirit and Christian
community.
·
Serving
the needs of their neighbours (Relevance) and
·
Telling
people about Jesus (Outreach).
1.
We are called into a special community relationship
Community and
relationships of love with others is perhaps the most desperate need of many
people in our time. The nuclear family has been the greatest disaster in
Western culture in the 20th. Century. Even the nuclear family is failing as
marriages are destroyed by our self-centred culture. Many people feel unhappy,
alone, rejected or abandoned:
·
Experiences
of love as a baby or infant calls our personal spirit to life
·
Community
relationships nourish our spiritual life
·
Kingdom
of God in heaven breaks in more tangibly as we experience fellowship and gather
together to worship God
·
Christian
community connects us in love to each other, God the Father, Jesus and the Holy
Spirit
2.
We are called into a love relationship with Jesus (Orthodoxy)
Jesus calls us
individually to make a decision to repent and give up our old focus on self and
separation from God. When we make this decision and clean up our spiritual life
we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit who teaches, comforts, heals and guides
us in our daily lives.
- · Experience our personal spirit rejoicing when we hear and celebrate the truth about God - how we know it's true
- · Effective church communities keep people in touch with the truth about God through Bible study, teaching and mentoring.
3.
We develop our spiritual life by serving our neighbour
Our spiritual life gives
us meaning, purpose and joy. We develop this by following Jesus example of
caring for the needs of other people.
·
Experience
of real self-giving agape love gives us joy
·
Focus
on what Jesus taught and the Holy Spirit vs self
·
Keeps
us from being jugemental Pharisees
·
See
evidence of the Holy Spirit healing people physically, emotionally and
spiritually
·
Outreach
experiences give our spiritual life meaning
4.
Called to proclaim the Good News of Jesus to our neighbour
We are all called
through our Baptism promises to proclaim the Good News of forgiveness,
right-relationship and joy to our neighbour.
·
Means
we have to do some work to read and study the Bible so we can share our story
of what Jesus and the Holy Spirit has done in our lives.
·
Our
spiritual life, like love, grows and develops as we share it with other people.
·
Proclaim
by who we are as a community
·
Proclaim
by what we do as a community
·
Proclaim
by what we say to others, particularly in difficult times
I am revising my
manuscript "Going Spiritual" and these readings are helping me
explain how to develop a spiritual life of love through personal experiences of
intuitive love:
1.
In
relationships in a Christian community,
2.
In
Orthodox teaching and experiences of the Holy Spirit that connect us to God
3.
In
serving the needs of others through Outreach experiences
4.
By
discovering meaning, purpose and relevance in our lives
THE GLORY OF GOD IS MAN
FULLY ALIVE
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