God Running is a place for anyone who wants to (or even anyone who wants to want to) love Jesus more deeply, follow Jesus more closely, and love people the way Jesus wants us to.
Last post on God Running I wrote about how it might be possible that because of COVID and the corresponding reduction in busyness, Jesus could truly be at the center of Christmas in a way that hasn’t been happening in my family for a long time now. The typical frantic pace surrounding Christmas in a normal year, normally overwhelms us to the point that we barely have time to shop for all the presents and show hospitality to all the people coming and going. Places to go. People to see. Busy-ness. Busy-ness has dominated my family’s Christmases for a long time now. And because of this busy-ness, Jesus was pushed down to a place of low priority. (And that’s on me by the way.)
But this year, I wrote, could be different. The strange, terrible, unusual, odd, dystopian atmosphere of 2020 could actually provide an opportunity. Because of the smaller gathering, because of the more quiet celebration, this year, we might be able to truly put Jesus at the center of our Christmas.
Well, here’s what happened.
Gabe and Charise (pictured above) hosted Christmas on their back patio — a patio equipped with a sail overhead to protect us from the rain and every heating device you can imagine to ward off the cold. Gabe offered heartfelt prayers before a wonderful brunch and an amazing Christmas dinner. We sang O Holy Night and O Come All Ye Faithful. We read the Christmas story from Luke chapter 2. Nate and Anastasia talked about faith and the Church Fathers.
It was an extraordinary Christmas. It was a wonderful Christmas.
It was a Christmas with Jesus at the center.
Jesus finally came to be with us this Christmas.
All we had to do was invite him in.
Newly released book by Kurt Bennett, now available on Amazon!
Love Like Jesus: How Jesus Loved People (and how you can love like Jesus)
Love Like Jesus begins with the story of how after a life of regular church attendance and Bible study, Bennett was challenged by a pastor to study Jesus. That led to an obsessive seven year deep dive. After pouring over Jesus’ every interaction with another human being, he realized he was doing a much better job of studying Jesus’ words than he was following Jesus’ words and example. The honest and fearless revelations of Bennett’s own moral failures affirm he wrote this book for himself as much as for others.
Love Like Jesus examines a variety of stories, examples, and research, including:
- Specific examples of how Jesus communicated God’s love to others.
- How Jesus demonstrated all five of Gary Chapman’s love languages (and how you can too).
- The story of how Billy Graham extended Christ’s extraordinary love and grace toward a man who misrepresented Jesus to millions.
- How to respond to critics the way Jesus did.
- How to love unlovable people the way Jesus did.
- How to survive a life of loving like Jesus (or how not to become a Christian doormat).
- How Jesus didn’t love everyone the same (and why you shouldn’t either).
- How Jesus guarded his heart by taking care of himself–he even napped–and why you should do the same.
- How Jesus loved his betrayer Judas, even to the very end.
With genuine unfiltered honesty, Love Like Jesus, shows you how to live a life according to God’s definition of success: A life of loving God well, and loving the people around you well too.
A life of loving like Jesus.
