We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
Making Resolutions? Consider This!
So, this is the time of year when we all look back at the year that is passing and look ahead to the new year in front of us. If you’re considering a New Year’s resolution, we wanted to make a tiny suggestion for your consideration.
Greg has been fleshing out the ReKnew Manifesto in his recent series, and it occurred to us that although the manifesto is made up of ideas and things that we hold to be true and important, they are completely worthless unless they are lived out. Just as Jesus is described as the Word made flesh (John 1:14), we are all invited to give flesh to the reality of God and his Kingdom. We are calling for a peace-filled revolution that will draw people to Jesus.
So here’s the suggestion we hope you’ll consider:
Read through the manifesto, and notice what stands out to you. Is there something that calls to your heart and stirs up passion in you? As you notice this, consider what it would look like to begin to give this idea some flesh. What does this idea ask of you? Invite the Holy Spirit to inspire you and give you wisdom. Then make a short resolution based on your time in prayer and reflection. Tell others about it. Get support. Keep moving forward even when you forget about it and seem to be failing. Take little baby steps. Use your imagination to see and hear and feel yourself living out what the Holy Spirit has inspired in you.
If you decide to participate in this exercise we’d love to hear from you. You can contact us at editor@reknew2015.wpengine.com. Who knows what might come from even just a few of us agreeing together to make this revolution more than just a bunch of words.
Lord bless you, and let’s together commit to making 2014 a year in which we partner with God to bring about his will “on earth as it is in heaven.”
Category: General
Tags: Flesh, Jesus, New Year, ReKnew Manifesto, Revolution
Related Reading
A Brief Theology of the Trinity
“The economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity, and the immanent Trinity is the economic Trinity.” This is the maxim introduced by the Catholic theologian Karl Rahner that should shape our discussion of the Trinity. It is simply a short-hand way of saying that since the way God is toward us in Christ truly reveals God,…
Reflections on the Supremacy of Christ (Part 1)
In my previous post I argued that the Bible tells a story in which the culminating event – the coming of Christ – reframes everything that preceded it. Though it is all inspired, not everything in it should carry equal weight for us. Rather, everything leading up to Christ, including the portraits of God, must…
Jesus: True Myth and True History
Though the Jesus story gives us every reason to believe it is substantially rooted in history, it has a curious, and fascinating, relationship with myth and legend. The story of God coming to earth, being born of a virgin, manifesting a heroic, counter-cultural love toward outcasts, dying for the people who crucified him and then…
Caught Between Two Conflicting Truths
In my previous blog I tried to show that adopting a “Christocentric” approach to Scripture isn’t adequate, as evidenced by the fact that people adopting this approach often come to radically different conclusions. In fact, it seems to me that the “Christocentric” label is often close to meaningless inasmuch as it doesn’t meaningfully contrast with anything. If a “Christocentric”…
Getting Behind the “Letter” of Violent Portraits of God
“I will do to you what I have never done before… in your midst parents will eat their children, and children will eat their parents…” Ezek. 5:9-10 In my previous post I offered a brief review of Matthew Bates’ fascinating work, The Hermeneutics of the Apostolic Proclamation by Matthew Bates (Baylor University Press, 2012). Among other…
In the Wilderness of Religion
Eric Bryan via Compfight There are an awful lot of us in the Church today who are no longer feeling at home in Evangelicalism. Regardless of how you feel about World Vision’s hiring policy decisions, the spectacle of thousands of people discontinuing their child sponsorships (relationships with flesh and blood children in need) because of…