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.

In our last post we took our first look at some things I learned from a book that has really inspired me and resonated with me. The name of the book is The Other Half of Church by Jim Wilder and Michel Hendricks. It’s a book that talks about what a group of Jesus followers should look like and the authors sometimes include brain science information from a UCLA professor named Dr. Allan Schore.

More specifically, in our last post we discussed the first attribute of a group of Jesus followers, which is this certain specific biblical kind of joy: a joy that comes from God’s face shining upon us and the faces of Jesus followers lighting up when they see us because they’re happy to be with us. Faces like that should be common in the group of Jesus followers we connect ourselves with.

This kind of connection with a group of Jesus’ followers whose faces light up when they see us not only fills us with joy but it’s also a source of great power. It’s what fuels us to love people the way Jesus loved people. It’s what enables us to love those who don’t love us back. It’s what empowers us to love our enemies or difficult people or people with a different worldview from our own.

In today’s post I want to talk about something else we can do to foster this kind of joy and this kind of power to love others. There’s something else we can do to help our own faces to light up when we see others. And that something is gratitude.

The On-Ramp for the Joy of the Lord

I want to share something with you that I want you to remember forever:

Gratitude is the on-ramp for joy.

So I’ve written before about how I started a gratitude journal. I leave that document up on my screen in my office and I have it easily accessible on my phone. I’m making it as easy as I possibly can for me to add to that document. I would encourage you to do the same. It’s very helpful.

But now I’m going deeper into gratitude. I’m using some techniques from this book I’m so enthusiastic about. I’ve made a list of gratitude memories about God. Memories of those times when I felt God’s presence very near to me. Like the time I stopped while hiking on the side of an extinct volcano and I looked out over the valley and I, I don’t know, I think I was praying, but for whatever the reason, in that beautiful spot, I felt God very near to me. So that’s number one on my list. My goal is to spend a few minutes each morning recalling that time with God, reliving that time, or one of the other times, with God, in a silent attitude of gratitude for that deep intimate time with God. Another item on my list of gratitude memories about God is the time when Gabe and I attended a retreat together. I’m just super grateful for that time. I felt God’s presence during that time. Another gratitude memory is from my time at the Jesus Table praying with the leader and some of the table hosts. I felt God when I was with those people.

I think you get the idea.

Anyway, it turns out gratitude is the on-ramp for joy and it’s an on-ramp to an ability to love others. That’s what the brain science says according to Wilder and Hendricks. And that’s what scripture says too.

“Enter his gates with thanksgiving,” Psalm 100:4 says, “and his courts with praise!”

Psalm 100:4

The deeper we engage in gratitude practices and thanksgiving, the greater our chances of entering into the joy of the Lord.

When we do that we put ourselves in a state of heart and mind where we’re especially receptive to God’s joy.

Deep gratitude practices fit together perfectly with connecting to that group of Jesus followers with the shining faces, the faces that light up when they see us.

We need these things.

These are what fuel us and empower us to love God well and to love others well.

So if you feel you’re lacking in power to love like Jesus, connecting with the group of shining faces and deep gratitude practices are the keys to unlocking that power.

Try it and see.

“Father, please help the dear person reading this right now, and help me, to connect ourselves regularly and often to a group of Jesus followers whose faces light up when they see us. And inspire us and help us to go deep into practicing gratitude and thanksgiving. Lead us in these ways of Yours Father.

“Help us.

“We’re like little children down here.

“Help us.

“In Jesus’ name we ask.

“Amen.”

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. (Kindle, hardcover, and paperback now available on Amazon.)