Good NewsSample

A Life Laid Down

Jesus announced the good news of God’s kingdom when He walked among us. He said living in God’s kingdom means following Him, by seeking peace, radical forgiveness, and an abundance of grace even towards those you would call your enemies.

Grace. It’s something we love to celebrate when we’re on the receiving end of it. But when you’re asked to give it… or accept that someone else who has hurt you in some deep way is receiving it, it can be one of the hardest things in the world. Yet we serve a God abounding in grace. We have reconciliation and peace with God because of grace. We are people who can be shaped in the image of God and bring Him to a hurting world because of grace.

As we read in John, Jesus calls us to ‘love others as I have loved you’. This love is a laying down of justice, a laying down of self-righteousness and of choosing love. Choosing relationship. Choosing reconciliation. ‘You did not choose Me. I chose you… so that you would be sent out and bear great and perpetual fruit. As you do this, anything you ask the Father in My name will be done. This is My command to you: love one another’ (John 15:16–17, The Voice).

In life it’s easy to cry out for justice and at times this is absolutely the right thing to do. However, more often not in the day-to-day, we stand in our ‘right-ness’ and want justice for even the slightest of wrongs. In these moments let us consider what Jesus is calling us to – to love as we have been loved. To lay down our pride, our rightness and to ‘unselfishly seek the best for one another’.

Written by NATALIE BENNETT