Topic: Discipleship

En Cristo somos uno con toda la carne y la sangre, y por lo tanto nuestra lucha no es contra ningunas personas, sino contra los espíritus y los principados y los potestades que dividirían a la gente y les harían enemigos.

God is most likely and able to work through those who accept their own weakness and don’t try to forcefully assert their own power and influence.

We shall be ourselves when we are able to surrender ourselves to Christ and say ‘not my will, but yours’.

Jesus calls us to turn away from pathways of judgement and condemnation and to follow him on the harder path of love and new life.

Lent is a time to walk knowingly into the wilderness, to face the Accuser and the wild beasts that emerge when we live out our identity as God’s children.

The feeling of distance and separation from God – which we all feel – is perception not reality… it is the fruit of our fear and our holding-back.

Jesus calls us to model ourselves on him to embrace a new pattern of full humanity rather than just constrain the worst excesses of an old failed humanity.

The righteousness give to us in Christ, and which we grow into in our following of him, fulfils and exceeds the trajectory set by the biblical law and prophets.

Jesus doesn’t come looking for ready-made heroes, but for the small, damaged and fragile people we are, so that in the company of Jesus, we can become the giants we always dreamed of.

Full-blooded Christian discipleship may cost us some precious relationships and a lot of blood sweat and tears, but we will have plenty of new supporters and it all all be well worth it in the end.

Being a follower of Jesus means honouring his authority by following his teachings and his example (something that has become surprisingly rare).

A reflection on the Good Friday story of the crucifixion from the perspective of the disciple Joanna.