Topic: Discipleship

Conversion to the way of Jesus is not just a matter of belief, but requires a serious reckoning with our past complicity with attacks on his way.

In a world that is hell-bent on self-destruction, Jesus calls us to gather to him and to love faithfully and vulnerably with him, rather than surrendering to the hate and fear.

Lent calls us to faithfulness to God and we need to assess the direction of our journey, our call to ministry and also to meet our own demons.

Acknowledging and appreciating Jesus is relatively easy, but we find it much more difficult to transform our lives in conformity with his teaching.

Most of us are addicted to achieving results and success, and it is crippling us. Jesus leads us towards an unexpected and almost unrecognisable freedom.

It is with the love of Christ taking charge of us, that we can venture into combat with the wrongs of our time without being dragged down by the very same demons that we oppose.

Suffering raises painful unanswerable questions, but Jesus leads us into a life where the sharing of our honest questions is part of shaping a community of healing and hope.

There is nothing wrong with an eager desire for a special closeness to Jesus. Jesus is eager to fulfil such desires, but warns us of the cost of sticking with him.

When we commit ourselves to following Jesus, we surrender all our personal aspirations and our share in the aspirations of our nation, in order that we might receive the life of Christ.

There is no neat finish to the Jesus story, because it is far from over. The risen Jesus is always ahead of us, calling us to follow and live the next chapter.

The life that Jesus calls us too will not be found and enjoyed until we give up trying to engineer the life we dreamed we were supposed to be living.

Jesus resisted the temptation to force his will on the world, and he pioneered a pathway for us to similarly refuse the exploitation of power.