{"id":9445,"date":"2020-11-05T23:29:50","date_gmt":"2020-11-05T23:29:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/?p=9445"},"modified":"2020-11-05T23:29:50","modified_gmt":"2020-11-05T23:29:50","slug":"jesus-committed-his-life-to-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/?p=9445","title":{"rendered":"Jesus committed his life to us"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Through the life and ministry of Jesus, Jesus invested his life, Jesus invested his love! Rather than moving away from people who were broken and even angry he moved toward them &#8211; toward us.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bibleserver.com\/ESV\/John12%3A23-24\" class=\"bibleserver extern\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">John 12:23-24<\/a> tells us he moved toward us willingly, and was completely and unequivocally prepared to die for those he loved.\u00a0This act is an expression of the Father heart of God toward us.\u00a0As I have said on this before, God\u2019s actions in and through Jesus<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>was a wilful act of God to deposit life, salvation, healing, strength into us.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><b>God committed himself to us,\u00a0<\/b><b>with the hope that we might commit ourselves to him,\u00a0<\/b><b>that we might commit our lives toward one another.<\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The gospel tells us that Jesus was willing to take a bullet for us and now because of the covenant he established with us he asks us &#8211;\u00a0are we willing to take a bullet for those we love for those with which we share this covenant?<!--more--><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><b>A culture of honour requires of us that we be like Jesus who died for us\u00a0<\/b><b>even when he didn\u2019t get to control what we did with the gift of His life.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>We don\u2019t get to control what people do with the love we gift them.\u00a0All we get to control is ourselves. What we are responsible for, in our primary relationships and in the body of Christ, is that we always \u2018keep our love on\u2019 no matter what it costs.<\/p>\n<p>Our responsibility to one another is that we tell the truth, in the manner of Jesus ,\u00a0about how we are affected by the people in our lives.<\/p>\n<p>Our part in \u2019a culture of honour\u2019, in this covenant of love\u2019 is that we not be passive victims but rather be that we be powerful and free and never turn our love off.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The parable of the \u2018prodigal son\u2019s probably the best illustration on how to act toward someone who has blown up their life. The prodigal son, in the eyes of the father, is always his son no matter how offensive he has been or how badly he has lived how badly he has blown up his life. In the Father\u2019s eyes he is always important, he is always of high value. When the son returns its the father who moves toward the son. In this interaction the Father has died to self and the son has died to self<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>&#8211; there has been a change in the son\u2019s mind and heart about what matters. The son has moved from deliberate disconnection to connection.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">He comes willing to clean up his mess. Does the father know what the son is going to do with his restoration? Not at all. Yet he keeps his love on!\u00a0Is the father just? Should not the son have been punished? In the covenant of law &#8211; Yes. In the covenant of love &#8211; No. It is not us who get to judge and condemn and hand out punishment. <b>Our role is always to move toward others with deposits of love and strength, always contending for connection because when we do we release blessing, capacity freedom, creativity and trust. In this environment people thrive because there is no fear.<\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">adapted from &#8216;Keep Your Love On&#8217; by Danny Silk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Through the life and ministry of Jesus, Jesus invested his life, Jesus invested his love! Rather than moving away from people who were broken and even angry he moved toward [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,35,76,51,71],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","category-honour","category-hope","category-identity","category-kingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9445"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9446,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9445\/revisions\/9446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}