Love One Another

Obedience in the Christian’s life is never meant to be mechanical, cold, driven by achieving, maintaining, earning… Jesus refuses to reduce the Christian life to rule-keeping. He always reaches deeper, because the heart of the matter is matter of heart. Without abiding in His love, receiving His love afresh again and again, obedience becomes self-focused, drudgery, pride or despair, external, heavy, burdensome… but when love is present, with a heart warmed by the kindness of Jesus, steadied in the promises of Jesus, gripped by the reality of the cross – obedience becomes joyful. In that abiding relationship with Christ, you begin to now see every ‘do’ as an invitation to joy, and every ‘do not’ as protection from counterfeit joy. If you're growing in love, you’re throwing logs on the fire of your Christian life, it’s burning hot, it’s impactful, it's fruitful, it’s joyful.