“Lord God, you give us Jesus, you come into the world in the form we understand, you travel with us on the journey from birth to death. Help us to know and trust in Jesus our brother, so that we may enter into his way of obedience and, having passed through the tests of life, join in your feast of joy at the end. Amen.” (Bernard Thorogood, in A Treasury of Prayer)
What is the Christian life? What does it mean to be a Christian? How does our faith work out and survive in such testing times as we live in right now? It always seems to come back to this. T the end of the day, being a Christian is about a relationship. Not a set of rules, not a particular set of behaviours… but a relationship. A very special relationship at that – a relationship with God through His own Son, Jesus Christ – all made possible as a consequence of God’s love for us and our response to that love. In that relationship, Jesus walks with us day by day, sharing our every experience, our trials, our sorrows, our joys. Unseen, in human terms, but a presence so real that we could reach out spiritually and touch him, he’s that close to us. Are you in that kind of relationship with Jesus? If not, perhaps as we worship together today, you might want to ask him into your life and begin that walk with him.
Today is the first day of the rest of your (eternal) life!