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.
Romans 1:1-7
Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ,
To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Toward the end of 2024 we finished our journey through the book of Acts. And in Acts we saw the way Saint Peter, John, Philip, Barnabas, Stephen, and Paul lived for their Lord Jesus. In today’s passage I was struck by Paul’s words.
“Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus”
“set apart for the gospel of God”
Jesus was “declared to be the Son of God in power”
“Jesus Christ our Lord”
“To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints:”
“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Emphasis mine)
What I noticed was the behavior of the Saints in the book of Acts lines up with the way Paul communicates in the first seven verses of the book of Romans.
They lived as servants of Christ Jesus.
They lived lives set apart for the gospel of God.
They saw Jesus as “the Son of God in power.”
They lived their lives obedient to “Jesus Christ our Lord.”
They lived lives like people who were “called to be saints.”
In 2025, if all the believers in the world truly saw Jesus as their Lord, the Son of God in power, and lived their lives accordingly, imagine what the world might be like.
“Oh Father, please use Paul’s life and the lives of the saints in the book of Acts to inspire us to recognize Jesus as our Lord and our King. Fill us with Your Holy Spirit and help us to live our lives the way these saints lived their lives.
“Inspire us to be wide open to our Lord Jesus, and to obey his words, and to walk in the same way in which he walked, as these men did in the book of Acts.
“In the name of our Lord Jesus we ask this of You.
“Amen.”
“Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.”
1 John 2:6
Notes:
Image via Will Foster – Creative Commons
Available on Google Play Books and 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 and the ebook is now available on Google Play Books.)
