Plan of Discipleship - The Great Story (I)

 In order to become an intentional disciple we need to know the greatest story ever told.

    You were created by God out of love. You were not an accident. You were not an afterthought. From all eternity God had you in mind. He willed you in to existence and He wills you to continue in existence at every moment. Did God need to create us? Absolutely not! God is perfect in Himself and that is an important truth. God needs nothing from you - His only motivation for creating you is Love. “For God is love” (1 Jn 4:8), and love is God’s very being; it is all He knows how to do.

    Original sin and our personal sins blind us from seeing this in our lives. Sin darkens the intellect and weakens the will. Sin makes it hard to know the good and to do the good and avoid evil. Right from the outset of this sin God promises to send a Savior born of a woman. Speaking to the cunning serpent God promised: “I will put enmity between you [the serpent] and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Gen. 3:15).

    Jesus is the answer to the two opposing realities. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (Jn 3:16). Jesus is the incarnation (becoming flesh) of God’s love. And Jesus’ name means to save from sin. An angel speaking to Joseph says, “she [Mary] will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Mt 1:21). The God of love became incarnate to save us from our sins and to manifest His love for each of us.

    Jesus came to reconcile us to God. He came to take upon Himself our sins and to open the path to Heaven. In entrusting ourselves to Jesus, we enter in to the redemption that He brings. We experience His mercy and forgiveness, which changes our sin-hardened hearts. We recognize that God calls us to a life of abundance, full of love, peace, truth, beauty, goodness, and meaning that begins now, lasts forever, and cannot be taken away. Jesus preached and called this the Kingdom of God.

More to come!!

Prayer:
Lord Jesus,
​Help me to know how much you love me,
Open my heart to experience your call to conversion,
your call to discipleship.
Send the Holy Spirit into my heart,
and drive from it all sin and distrust,
and fill it with confident Trust in your merciful love.
May I decide today to entrust my life into your loving hands. Amen