Plow
Creek Mennonite Church
Sunday
Meditations
Disclaimer - meditations are the personal reflections of the worship leader, not official church doctrinal statements.
There are a number of events recorded in the gospels, where Jesus responds to someone who is reaching out to Him with the question “What do you want?” It is a key question, because we tend to not do well when we try to do a difficult thing that we don’t want to do, something we are doing because we “should” do it.
When each of us committed ourselves to following Jesus, we told Him we wanted Him to be our Help, our Savior, our Lord. This means that we invited Him to change us. To make us new, redeemed, better, more loving. That all sounds good. But the process often does not feel good. The transformation we need happens as we keep company with Jesus. It is a wonderful thing to live closely with Jesus, to know His love in an intimate way, to share His love with others, even without speaking sometimes.
But we have to really want this closeness, more than we want comfort, or assurance. The road to living in the Peace of Christ is a bumpy road. But if we want this enough, we will have the staying power when life gets tough. If we’re thinking we want to live closely with Jesus because it is something a Christian should do, we will probably not keep going well at those harder times, but choose to turn on God in anger, demanding the comfortable life our culture teaches us is rightfully ours.
Yet it is God’s desire that we be one with Christ. The essence of atonement is being made one with God. It was Christ’s work on the cross. It is our work daily if we are willing to let Him have his own way with us—a way that will lead to dying to self so that we may be free to truly live. But this dying to self is the heart of spiritual transformation. It frees us to leave behind our resentments, anger, self pity, and fears.
It takes real commitment to keep saying “yes” as the Lord brings people and situations into our lives—things that make us uncomfortable, that challenge us to grow. The road isn’t always hard. Our Lord and Guide knows when we need to rest and when we need to work. We can grow closer to Him through each kind of experience as we share it with him. Is it worth it? This inviting the Lord to come and change us into His own image?
In the very hard process that He led me through in my own journey, I have come to know so very much more how wonderful and complete His love for me is. But each one of us has this daily, free will choice to make. Will I let the Lord work in my life today, whatever that may mean? If we do, we will find ourselves being drawn closer and closer to Him. Or will I take the ways of comfort, choose to stay in whatever is “normal” in my life, even if it isn’t great? He will let us do that.
So what is it that you want?
Disclaimer - meditations are the personal reflections of the worship leader, not official church doctrinal statements.
What do you want?
by Louise Stahnke
June 17, 2007
Matthew
20.21; Matthew
20.32; Mark
10.36; Mark
10.51; Luke
18.41; John
5.6
There are a number of events recorded in the gospels, where Jesus responds to someone who is reaching out to Him with the question “What do you want?” It is a key question, because we tend to not do well when we try to do a difficult thing that we don’t want to do, something we are doing because we “should” do it.
When each of us committed ourselves to following Jesus, we told Him we wanted Him to be our Help, our Savior, our Lord. This means that we invited Him to change us. To make us new, redeemed, better, more loving. That all sounds good. But the process often does not feel good. The transformation we need happens as we keep company with Jesus. It is a wonderful thing to live closely with Jesus, to know His love in an intimate way, to share His love with others, even without speaking sometimes.
But we have to really want this closeness, more than we want comfort, or assurance. The road to living in the Peace of Christ is a bumpy road. But if we want this enough, we will have the staying power when life gets tough. If we’re thinking we want to live closely with Jesus because it is something a Christian should do, we will probably not keep going well at those harder times, but choose to turn on God in anger, demanding the comfortable life our culture teaches us is rightfully ours.
Yet it is God’s desire that we be one with Christ. The essence of atonement is being made one with God. It was Christ’s work on the cross. It is our work daily if we are willing to let Him have his own way with us—a way that will lead to dying to self so that we may be free to truly live. But this dying to self is the heart of spiritual transformation. It frees us to leave behind our resentments, anger, self pity, and fears.
It takes real commitment to keep saying “yes” as the Lord brings people and situations into our lives—things that make us uncomfortable, that challenge us to grow. The road isn’t always hard. Our Lord and Guide knows when we need to rest and when we need to work. We can grow closer to Him through each kind of experience as we share it with him. Is it worth it? This inviting the Lord to come and change us into His own image?
In the very hard process that He led me through in my own journey, I have come to know so very much more how wonderful and complete His love for me is. But each one of us has this daily, free will choice to make. Will I let the Lord work in my life today, whatever that may mean? If we do, we will find ourselves being drawn closer and closer to Him. Or will I take the ways of comfort, choose to stay in whatever is “normal” in my life, even if it isn’t great? He will let us do that.
So what is it that you want?