LISTEN. . . "Thou shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength and your neighbor as your self." (Luke 10:27) AND "Do not think that I have come to bring peace". (Matthew 10:34)
CONSIDER. . . Jesus' sayings are not rules to live up to but challenges to live into. Rather than being impossible ideals, they provoke us to grow, step by step, by trial and error learning, into the best possibilities of our nature.
Make no mistake about it. Jesus is out to provoke us. Despite the Jesus of the Gospels who is healer, teacher, social critic and non-violent revolutionary--Jesus is one who challenges us to find and use our strengths. He wants to spur us into a spiritual maturity that meets His Love.
Jesus' sayings are an invitation to discover the muscles of our heart, mind and soul--the movements of God's love made flesh, step by step, in our own lives.
SO WHAT. . .What sayings of Jesus provoke you, maybe even make you mad? Which of His sayings needs the most work in your life now? Don't bother with guilt about past failures, just note that it's a cutting edge practice that you can work on during this Lenten season. Spend some time with these questions, don't rush through but push yourself to answer these questions.
PRAYER. . . Loving God, help us, one step at a time, to take Jesus' words into our souls and begin the process of letting them get to work on our lives. Help us to ease ourselves into one challenge after another as we read your Word. May we open ourselves up to the biggest challenge in the words, "follow me". Amen.
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