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.
Someone close to me shared some great wisdom from Thomas Aquinas today. I don’t remember the exact quote but the idea is, the more aligned you are with the interests, the will, and the values of another, the better you will love that person.
Or Person.
Jesus and his Father’s relationship was like that. Jesus’ interests, will, and values were aligned with God’s. And God’s interests, will, and values were aligned with Jesus’.
So for you and for me, to love God the very best we can, it’s important for us to align ourselves with the Father the same way, to the greatest degree we can.
And it works that way when it comes to loving other human beings too. But don’t take my word for it.
Find someone in your life who’s important to you and learn what their greatest passion is. Then dive into that same passion and watch what happens to your relationship.
Speaking of our Father, Jesus said,
“And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.”
John 8:29
Jesus and your Father:
They were aligned.
Notes:
Image of two men hiking side by side, by Project LM — Creative Commons
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.
Wonderful