Stay in Love with God, part 1

March 15, 2019

DAILY READING

1 John 2:1-6
This weekend’s reading: Mark 14:43-52

FIELD NOTES
“There are two enormously encouraging truths for us to remember,” [Bishop] Job said. “One, God is with us. God continues to woo us, seek us out, love us, speak to us, enable us and lead us into the future. Second, it has been done before.”

So, what might it mean…to stay in love with God?  “Ordinance is a strange word to our ears, but to John Wesley, it was a word that described the practices that kept the relationship between God and humans vital, alive and growing. He names public worship of God, the Lord’s Supper, private and family prayer, searching the Scriptures, Bible study, and fasting as essential to a faithful life.”  [Three Simple Rules, p. 53]

While the church has ‘formal’ spiritual disciplines that help us remain close to God, every day is filled with opportunities to recognize, experience and honor God’s presence. Job says; “We may name our spiritual disciplines differently, but we, too, must find our way of living and practicing those disciplines that will keep us in love with God…practices that will keep us positioned in such a way that we may hear and be responsive to God’s slightest whisper of direction and receive God’s promised presence and power every day and in every situation,” [Three Simple Rules, p. 55]

QUESTIONS FROM THE FIELD

• How did you first build your relationships with people you love
• Think about your current relationships with people that you love. How do you actively participate in those relationships in order to sustain them?
• How, in particular, might you sustain your relationship with God during this season of Lent?

PRAYER
Holy God, you are as distant as the edge of the stars and as near as our breath.  You call each of us your ‘child’ and the Beloved.  You loved us before we were made and you will love us when we pass from this life.  Receive our prayers…formal or not so formal…shouted aloud or whispered.  Amen.