I have been an "ok, so what do I do right now?" kind-of-guy for some time. Maybe always. This has been my gut response to anyone who claims to have some kind of teaching that I am supposed to embrace or, more generally, some kind of sermon/harangue that they wield. What is it that I am supposed to do right now if what you are saying is true? The fact is if there is nothing that I am supposed to do in response to a lecture, I am not inclined to keep listening.
When I began hearing God for what seemed like the first time, it was immediately obvious what I was supposed to begin doing right now. I was to stop living so selfishly and being so full of pride and began loving other people, looking after their interests instead of mine own. Begin loving right now. Start being kind. And gentle. And everything else that I'm supposed to do and be but don't and aren't.
Another thing that I began to do, another heuristic that I began to live by, was to be a servant. Join into God's work of by being a servant. It is the way that God was teaching me to express love, serving others instead of myself.
To love and to serve others is not a bad way to try to orient your life. Loving and serving is what Jesus did and does. But my thinking is continuing to grow as I think about some of the things that N.T. Wright says in Simply Jesus, his new book in which he tries to get us to think about and respond to Jesus in a fresh way. Jesus rules. How did that happen, how does he exert his rule now and what is our part in that rule right now?
So what about you? What is it that you live by? What is your response to Jesus right now?
To love.
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