Reminder to my youth family

(I frequently send out brief messages to my youth kids in the form of daily devotionals, words of encouragement and/or insightful things I feel God wants me to share and sometimes it's so good I need to save it in my blog for when I need the reminder myself.  Here is one I got from my studying theology this morning.) 

Morning youth,

We continually renew our decision to follow Christ each day.  It will not be something automatic (like the other habits in our lives are).  We must "deliberately return again and again, each day and each moment of the day, to the one true starting point."

We must abide in the love of Jesus as Jesus does in the love of the Father. 

This "abiding" means "holding on loyally to the decision once taken, and one can only hold on to it by continually going through it again." But this is not just a continual being "for", but a being "from"--not the holding of a position but an allowing oneself to be held. That is why Jesus says abide in Me AND I in you (John 15:4)

"But love will be expressed--can only be expressed-in obedience.  Jesus' "abiding" in the Father's love was expressed in his obedience.  Jesus had no program of his own.  He sought no "identity" for himself, no "image".  He simply responded...simply responded...in loving obedience to the will of his Father AS IT WAS PRESENTED TO HIM IN ALL THE ACCIDENTS, contingencies, and INTERRUPTIONS of daily life.  Only thus did Jesus "abide" in the love of the Father.

The disciple will "learn obedience" by following Jesus in the same kind of moment-by-moment obedience to the will of the Father AS IT IS DISCLOSED in the contingent happenings of daily life in the PLACE AND TIME WHERE GOD HAS PUT HIM. 

“By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

John 13:35

Let not the daily things shake you today beloved sisters and brothers.  But know that God is the Gardener and He does only what will make you flourish, so remain in Him whether today is a day of bearing fruit or of being pruned!  Let us learn obedience as a being from not a being for.  From love within.  Not for love without.  

Love you guys. 

(I got this from Lesslie Newbigin's book titled: "the Light has come" -commentary on the gospel of John,  if y'all are interested in reading it I highly recommend it!)