Left Untried

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” — Matthew 22:37-40

Theoretical, academic, ethereal, cerebral – words some retreat into when given broad, all-encompassing instructions. What if these were treated as down-to-earth and practical? What might the Church be like? Jesus' ministry was a practical working-out of these commands. Might it be that they seem impractical to us only because they've been left untried?

This Lap, Then Another

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us — Hebrews 12:1

… to share in a companionship of the saints,
with the Father and the Son,
where Kingdom life is becoming more normal, less foreign;
working for good in the world,
and recruiting one more disciple of Jesus …. (repeat)

For the World

For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. — 1 Peter 1:18-19

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son—his first and his best, a lamb without blemish or defect. So many are still estranged from God. What am I willing to give, from love?