Gospeling Your Life ~ Finishing

 

Read John 19-21 ~ Woo hoo…fifty-ish days are wrapping up and winding down.  Four gospels complete.  I encourage you this weekend to reflect on what you experienced and encountered. 

 

Which Gospel stories still stick and stay with you?

 

Which Gospel stories still feel like sandpaper to your soul?

 

Which Gospel stories still feeling like a popcorn seed stuck in your teeth that you can’t get loose?

 

Which Gospel stories warmed your heart and stirred your soul?

 

Now, email me.  Or come and tell me your response.  Here is the invitation, I want to preach in the coming year on the stories you found meaningful, life-giving, troubling, and are wrestling with today.  I want our church to experience and encounter the breadth of the Gospels and need your help.  John ends chapter 20 (which might have been the original ending) with these words, “But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Christ/Messiah/ Embodiment of God’s love, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life.”  Why did we read the Gospels?  Because I long for the fullness of life that comes from following, being a student of, the One God sent to show us ways to be full of God’s love.  Remember Jesus lived God’s love, shalom, presence in a time of oppression.  He shared God’s love in a time of fear, a time of division, a time of hate.  In a time not so different than our own.  It wasn’t easy.  But the invitation was to life, full life, abundant life that wasn’t a five-step process, but was full of God’s presence.  I pray you have felt your life shift and stirred in meaningful ways over the last fifty-ish days.  And now, may the One who is able to empower and infuse our lives with a holy love that makes all the difference, makes us different, continue to “Gospel” your life for the rest of this year and throughout the coming year.  Amen.  Amen.