Topic: Reconciliation

Jesus’s agenda, which we are called to follow, is about healing, liberating and gathering in the excluded, not purifying the community by excluding anyone.

Healing the world’s tribalism and uniting us as one human family is the central goal of the gospel, the mission of salvation, the realisation of the kingdom of God.

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.

The Holy Spirit, poured out on the church, opens pathways of communication, breaking down barriers to enable us to communicate with one another and with God.

The story of Jonah challenges us whenever we start thinking that we have special rights as God’s people.

In order to recognise and cooperate with what God is doing, we often need to recognise and see past the assumptions that come with our own privilege.

Jesus calls us to look to the new things God is doing and seeks to humbly cooperate with them and bear witness to them.

Being a disciple of Jesus is not about changing behaviour, it’s about changing life! It’s about being changed at our very core so that our inner motivations and attitudes are transformed.

The particularity of Jesus’s identity scandalises our tribal sensibilities, but our attempts to erase such details in favour of a more “universal” truth inevitably fail to convey the good news of God with us.

God invites us into a journey of healing, growth and reconciliation, and values our engagement with that journey far above our individual accomplishments.

In Christ, God has made an agreement with us, offering us everything and demanding nothing, but if we offer nothing we will be at risk of squandering it all.

The Kingdom of God can only be accepted the way a child welcomes a hug, not the way lawyers accept a divorce settlement.