Transformed

16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Shortly after calling his first disciples Jesus sends out 12 to go and teach what they have learned to others. Jesus’ instructions are simple. Go to those who welcome you, share about Jesus, pray for those present. The disciples return to Jesus with stories of miraculous things happening and lives being changed. Jesus invites us to join the places that he is already moving, and to share the stories of how we see God on the move.

In Acts 15 we see one of the first large church gatherings. Their agenda was to answer this question: who is part of this group? The disciples start with a long list of things that matter to them, but quickly narrow the list to just a few items. That belonging in Jesus should not be an overwhelming list of dos and don’t, but focus around a few core things that define an alongsider.

I am a Pastor. I am a Father. I am a husband. We all have I am statements about who we are in this world. One of the easiest ones is to say I am what I do. I am my job, I am the activities that I participate in, and in Luke 10 Jesus helps to remind us that while work, serving, and caring for others are all important, none of those should define who we are.

What keeps you grounded?  What is your answer to who are you?  In Luke 15 Jesus shares a few parables that speak to how God sees us, and how we are expected to God and serve others in light of who God says we are.

In Ezekiel God makes a covenant with Israel. The Israelites had once again abandoned God and disgraced his name. In response, God promises to transform their (and our) hearts as we follow after him passionately. We see the phrase “I will” over and over again in this passage, reminding us that God is the one who does the work of transformation. Join us as we talk through what it looks like to surrender to that transformation.

In Acts 9 we meet a woman named Dorcas who seems to be living a relatively normal life. Then she passes, and the town begins to turn out in large numbers to remember the simple, everyday ways that this woman served and blessed her community. From a place of gratitude to God, we each are invited to serve and love others out of the overflow of our relationship with God.

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus outlines a variety of ways that we are to live out our faith. Part of that is an assumption that to believe in Jesus changes our lives, and how we live. The word for belief in the bible assumes that you both comprehend and agree with something in your mind, and that your knowledge of that transforms your heart, mind, and actions.

The easiest person to blame when things are not how we want them is someone else, truly anyone else besides me. Being an alongsider means that we have a responsibility for our own faith, our own growth, our own relationship with God. That we will chose to pursue God, to ask questions, to dig into our faith.