For a long time I struggled with Jesus. I knew I believed in Jesus as Lord and savior yet I struggled with what this meant. I struggled with who Jesus was and what he meant for human kind and for that matter what he meant for me. In college I came face to face with this tension in the form of friends who believed that the only way to be "saved" and go to heaven was to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and confess him as you Lord and Savior. This didn't sit well with me, yet I didn't know why. I think I knew there was more to it than this.
Fast forward 15 years to the present. I have been through seminary and worked in the church for 10+ years and I still have not been able to fully express what a truly believed about Jesus. I had some jumbled ideas and thoughts but nothing concrete. Then one day not too long ago this video (I wish I knew how to put this directly on this page) featuring Brene Brown popped up on my Facebook feed. As I watched it, I kept saying, "Yes, this is exactly what I know to be true and how I feel about Jesus!" I urge you to watch this 3 minute video. Basically she says that God sent Jesus to show us how to love; to show us that love is messy, it's hard, but it is worth it.
Jesus's kind of love is what the Kingdom of God and salvation are about. In other words we are entities of love just like Jesus was. The difference is that Jesus really understood true love, he was the master of it. We are all just apprentices learning from the best. We stumble, we fall, we fail, we even spew hatred. Salvation is about turning away from sin and towards God. God = Love. So salvation is really about being entities of God's Love as shown though Jesus. Each day we can choose to practice love-love for ourselves, our friends and family, the stranger, and even and maybe most importantly our "enemy." This journey called life is about learning to and living into to our calling to be entities of God's amazingly messy yet transforming love!
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