Today’s Bible reading and an excerpt
Read Hebrews 11:1-12:3
Let let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
More thoughts for meditation
Being a Jesus-follower is being part of a movement—a people movement following our leader: the pioneer taking us to the ultimate land of promise. Jesus began this movement and remains at the head of it. The Holy Spirit has sustained this movement throughout the ages. In every age it is this movement that has demonstrated the Father’s kingdom coming, and his will being done on earth as in heaven.
Nevertheless, throughout the history of the church, people have stopped in their tracks. Church leaders have found a place that feels good and they have pronounced, “We’ve arrived.” Not good.
The first, simplest and most challenging thing Jesus ever asked is recorded in the gospels for us with just two words: “Follow Me.” It’s hard to be a follower if you believe you’ve already arrived—if you already have all the answers, or if you’ve already built a fence around your position and chosen to defend it at all costs against any encroachment. The church that has arrived is going nowhere. It is impossible for a movement to have already arrived. It is impossible to be a follower if you’ve stopped going somewhere. There is a future horizon toward which we are straining.
We are called to be fully at home in earth, wind, fire and water, starting right where we are in the moment. But since we are introduced to that grace in which we presently stand by Jesus, who we follow, we know we need to keep moving with him—into our own depths, into the world of need around us, and into the future. We are earthing, winding, firing, and watering.
Suggestions for action
In the last two weeks, you have been introduced to many basic things that keep us moving along the Way of Jesus. You were led to the Bible every day. Each day you were called to action.
It was demanding, wasn’t it? You may have been tempted to sit with it all like you were the center of the universe, receiving or rejecting input. But if you became a Jesus follower, you realized that the center comes from beyond you and you are a carrier of that power and love. You realized you need to get out and move.
Moving to this screen each day is part of the movement. But if you are listening, you know that Jesus might take you anywhere. In the United States, we are especially tempted to see the world as something to be chosen and consumed; we are stuck with an “imperial gaze;” we settle wherever we feel like living; we think of pioneering as conquering and owning. But like our scripture says today, we are called to move after Jesus, who calls us to places we have never fully imagined.
Journal about that. Where have you inappropriately settled—in terms of your personal growth, in terms of your action? Where are you moving?
