When we think about our work it deals with our motivations, our desires, our sense of security, purpose, and status. Our work deals with a whole host of relationships. Work impacts the flourishing of individuals, communities, and nations.
So much is wrapped up in our work and each book of the Bible points to Christ and the good news of what he's done that impacts the whole of our lives and the whole of our world. When our eyes are opened to see how each book of the Bible points us to the gospel, the relevance to our work and the need for this good news to enter into our work becomes increasingly evident.
We people of the world need to find ways to get to know one another - for then we will recognize that our likenesses are so much greater than our differences, however great our differences may seem. Every cell, every human being, is of equal importance and has work to do in this world
Faith in the gospel restructures our motivations, our self-understanding, our identity, and our view of the world. Behavioral compliance to rules without heart-change will be superficial and fleeting… We can only change permanently as we take the gospel more deeply into our understanding and into our hearts. We must feed on the gospel, as it were, digesting it and making it part of ourselves. That is how we grow.
...It's more important than ever that we find new ways to cultivate curiosity - because our careers, our happiness, and our children's flourishing all depend upon it.
Every member of our Church is a missionary. Without the formality of a setting-apart we should be so set-apart from the ways of the world that we can teach the gospel, which is our Father's way of life, by the very lives we live.
On the flip side, when we connect our work with a greater sense of purpose and calling beyond the paycheck, we begin to see the kind of flourishing that we were called to create.
How we come into this world, how we are ushered in, met, and hopefully embraced upon arrival, impacts the whole of our time on earth.
Perhaps the greatest reason for missionary work is to give the world it's chance to hear and accept the gospel. The scriptures are replete with commands and promises and calls and rewards for teach the gospel. I use the word command deliberately for it seems to be an insistent directive from which we, singly and collectively, cannot escape...I wonder if we are doing all we can. Are we complacent in our approach to teaching all the world? We have been proselyting now 144 years. Are we prepared to lengthen our stride? To enlarge our vision?
Yet spiritual realizations often remain compartmentalized, apart from everyday life, or become used as a rationale for living in an impersonal or soulless way. That is why, if we are to live our realizations and bring them into this world, we also need to work on the vessel of spirit - our embodied humanity. Soulwork is the forging of this vessel... If spiritual work brings freedom, soulwork brings integration. Both are necessary for a complete human life.
As our region and neighbors face unprecedented challenges and impacts amid the Covid-19 crisis and the call for racial equity, our support of United Way and its work is more critical than ever.
I really believe that an awakening, a greater perspective on our lives and existence is happening. It's really the firing of archetypes that are already built into our brains, we just are able to awaken to a point where we can see a greater beauty in the world, a greater connection and sense of well being. This is what the mystics speak about. The insights fire us up into a greater consciousness on the planet. So it is a greater consciousness at the same time and a greater awareness of our spiritual nature. That is what the 'aha' is.
Our work is the embodiment of our will. The spiritual manifestation of this work is its effect. When such work is properly done it brings happiness, and when carried out incorrectly it assuredly brings misery. Humanity! Your will is paramount! You can command Nature if you but obey her!
At the root of all our disobedience are particular ways in which we continue to seek control of our lives through systems of works-righteousness. The way to progress as a Christian is to continually repent and uproot these systems the same way we become Christians, namely by the vivid depiction (and re-depiction) of Christ’s saving work for us, and the abandoning of self-trusting efforts to complete ourselves. We must go back again and again to the gospel of Christ-crucified, so that our hearts are more deeply gripped by the reality of what he did and who we are in him.
Our mental and emotional diets determine our overall energy levels, health, and well-being to a far greater extent than most people realize. Every thought and feeling, no matter how big or small, impacts our inner energy reserves.
Hospitality means we take people into the space that is our lives and our minds and our hearts and our work and our efforts. Hospitality is the way we come out of ourselves. It is the first step towards dismantling the barriers of the world. Hospitality is the way we turn a prejudiced world around, one heart at a time.