{"id":22141,"date":"2023-02-19T08:46:04","date_gmt":"2023-02-19T13:46:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=22141"},"modified":"2023-02-20T17:19:16","modified_gmt":"2023-02-20T22:19:16","slug":"22141","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=22141","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-embed-handler wp-block-embed-embed-handler wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Danny Gokey - Stand In Faith (Official Lyric Video)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ZIREaGBN4Jw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Following Jesus\u2019 Way<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesus summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them, \u201cWhoever wishes to come after me must deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.\u201d \u2014Mark 8:34\u201335<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Richard Rohr shares how Jesus\u2019 message and way is intended to change our lives with its counter-intuitive wisdom and call:<\/em>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A blatant contradiction between message and action is holding us back in every part of the world. Christians <strong>too often preach a self-absorbed gospel of piety and religiosity, rather than a \u201clifestyle gospel.\u201d<\/strong> The gospel is so radical that if we truly believed its message, it would call into question all the assumptions we currently hold about the way we live, how we use our time, whom we relate to, how we marry, and how much money we have. Everything we think and do would be called into question and viewed in a new way. [1]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I believe that we rather totally <strong>missed Jesus\u2019 major point when we made a religion out of him instead of realizing he was giving us a message of simple humanity, vulnerability, and nonviolence that was necessary for the reform of all religions<\/strong>\u2014and for the survival of humanity. We need to dedicate our lives to building bridges and paying the price in our bodies for this ministry of reconciliation (Ephesians 2:13\u201318). The price is that we will always, like all bridges, be walked on from both sides. <strong>Reconcilers are normally \u201ccrucified,\u201d and the \u201cwhole world hates them,\u201d because they are neither on one side nor the other. They build the vulnerable bridge in between, which always looks like an abdication of ground to the supposedly \u201ctrue believer.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jesus is a person and, at the same time, a process.<\/strong> Jesus is the Son of God, but at the same time he is \u201cthe Way.\u201d <strong>Jesus is the goal, but he\u2019s also the means, and the means is always the way of the cross.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For all authentic spiritual teachers,<strong> their message is the same as their life; their life is their message.<\/strong> For some reason, we want the \u201cperson\u201d of Jesus as our \u201cGod totem,\u201d but <strong>we really do not want his path and message of \u201cdescent\u201d except as a functional theology of atonement<\/strong>: this is what Jesus needed to do to \u201csave us.\u201d <strong>We do not want to see the cross as the pattern of life and a path for our own liberation.&nbsp;<em>We prefer heavenly transactions to our own transformation.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The way of the cross looks like failure. In fact, we could say that C<strong>hristianity is about how to win by losing, how to let go creatively, how&nbsp;<em>the only real ascent is descent.<\/em>&nbsp;<\/strong>We <strong>need to be more concerned with following Jesus, which he told us to do numerous times, and less with worshipping Jesus\u2014which he never once told us to do.<\/strong> [2]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Keep Changing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>In this excerpt from his 1980s talk&nbsp;<\/em>The Four Gospels,<em>&nbsp;Father Richard reflects on what it means to follow Jesus:&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Immediately after the temptation in the desert, Jesus goes out to Galilee and there he begins to preach. His initial preaching is summed up in the verse, \u201cRepent, for the kingdom of God is at hand\u201d (Matthew 3:2; Mark 1:15).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is a theologically packed statement. What does the word \u201crepent\u201d mean? First of all, it doesn\u2019t mean to beat ourselves up or to feel bad about ourselves. <strong>\u201cRepent\u201d (or&nbsp;<em>metanoia<\/em>&nbsp;in Greek) means to turn around, to change. The first word that comes out of Jesus\u2019 mouth is&nbsp;<em>change<\/em>\u2014be willing to change.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>People who are not willing to change are not willing to turn away from themselves. <strong>What we\u2019re in love with usually is not God. We\u2019re in love with our way of thinking, our way of explaining, our way of doing.<\/strong> One of the greatest ways to protect ourselves from God, and to protect ourselves from truth and grace, is simply to buy into some kind of cheap conventionalism and call it tradition.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the <strong>great traditions always call people on a journey of faith to keep changing. There\u2019s no other way this human personality can open up to all that God is asking of us.<\/strong>&nbsp; There\u2019s no way we can open up to all we have to learn, all we have to experience, <strong>unless we\u2019re willing to let go of the idols of yesterday and the idols of today. The best protection from the next word of God is the last word of God.<\/strong> We take what we h<strong>eard from God last year and we build a whole system around it, and then we sit there for the rest of our lives.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Immediately after he begins his preaching, Jesus calls his first four disciples. The way I see people transformed today sure doesn\u2019t happen this quickly. Jesus just says, \u201cFollow me\u201d and immediately they left their nets and followed him (Matthew 4:20). Now, maybe it happened that way; I don\u2019t want to say it didn\u2019t. But what I do want to say is that a true disciple will have that kind of readiness. I\u2019d be more likely to think that this was <strong>maybe a process of some conversations over a few weeks. And Jesus said, \u201cHey, I\u2019m into something. Do you want to be a part of it? Let\u2019s go.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I hope we realize that we\u2019re all called to discipleship the same way. We hope that the <strong>point comes when we\u2019re ready to let go of our nets. What are our nets? Our security systems.<\/strong> Fishing is Simon and Andrew\u2019s economic livelihood, and Jesus says to let go of it. He says, \u201cI\u2019m going to teach you how to fish in a new way, to fish for people\u201d (Matthew 4:19). <strong>What he means is that he\u2019s going to give them a new vocation. What is God asking us to do? Where is God asking us to go?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/image-4-500x348.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-22146\" width=\"707\" height=\"492\" srcset=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/image-4-500x348.png 500w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/image-4-300x209.png 300w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/image-4-768x535.png 768w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/image-4-1536x1070.png 1536w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/image-4.png 1834w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 707px) 100vw, 707px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Following Jesus\u2019 Way Jesus summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them, \u201cWhoever wishes to come after me must deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for my sake and that of the gospel will save [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22141"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22141"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22149,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22141\/revisions\/22149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}