In the midst of our world, with its trials, sins, hunger, and longing for the rule of love, the prayer of Jesus leads us back to our loving God and Father.
Seeking and Sharing the Fullness of Life
Seeking and Sharing the Fullness of Life
Sermons on Formation
In the culture of Jesus, the very conditions that create discomfort, struggle, suffering and even scorn, paradoxically are transformed into the essential ingredients to inherit and inhabit the kingdom of God.
Jesus leads us through the confusion of transition times, into a new space with hugely expanded horizons and lives made meaningful in a global way.
Jesus calls us to follow his lead in bringing healing, hope and positive leadership to others, and not to be too worried about anxious and vexatious criticism.
Acknowledging and appreciating Jesus is relatively easy, but we find it much more difficult to transform our lives in conformity with his teaching.
Jesus models for us a willingness to listen, learn and grow rather than a domineering certainty that insists on knowing who’s right and who’s wrong.
The task of being changed into what God calls us to be involves a radical break with the established norms of our world.
Jesus calls us to choose between the old bread of hostility and death and the new bread of compassion and life.
We are not added to a particular church flock in order to be in the “right” group, but in order to learn, with Christ, to love others and lay down our lives for the world.
To grow up well, children need to be anchored to a broad community with shared values, which nevertheless allows for individual differences.
God evaluates us only in terms of our growth to fruitfulness, expressed as Christ-like love, and such fruitfulness comes only from our interrelationship with Christ. God deals with us in whatever way will lead to further growth – sometimes that is gently, sometimes it is harshly, always it is for the same purpose.
The foundation of our faith is in a living Christ who enables us to understand the Bible, rather than in a Bible that enables us to understand a dead Christ.
As creatures made in the image of God, imitation of God is the pathway to fullness of life.
The pathway to a life of joy and gratitude is to imitate Jesus in filling our minds with things which are worthy, honourable, merciful and loving.
The self-emptying of Jesus reveals both his divinity and the pathway to our full humanity.
There are no passengers in the Kingdom – those who accept the call must go on to clothe themselves in righteousness.
God’s love for us is so all-consuming that he accepts us as soon as we accept him and is happy for our behaviours to be sorted out in the transforming experience of love.
Love is a gift which we invited to become at home in, receiving and enjoying it, not questioning, measuring and regulating it.
The experience of the resurrected Christ may not be as instantly transformative as we’ve often thought, but those who seek Christ’s self-revelation will grow into his mission.
In the elusive quest to know Christ, spiritual disciplines are a valuable means, but can also easily degenerate into idols.