THOUGHT: Ain't No Room For Hermits

What would God really like? A good old-fashioned hermit, right? They look religious and full of suffering and asceticism. Fer sure God would be into that right? Living alone in a cave with a nice scratchy, burlap robe that is ripped and too small would certainly bring me closer to God, right? I mean how could it not?

The emphasis that we see in the Bible repeatedly is not on ritual, tradition or asceticism. (yeah go ahead, look it up). The focus is placed on practical, other-centered behaviour. We should be constructive rather than destructive in our words, compassionate in practical ways toward people in distress, counter-cultural in our daily life, refusing to simply follow the accepted norms of the majority (the "world") when those norms do not lead to a loving lifestyle.

God wants us to experience an intimate relationship with Himself and then express that through a holistic lifestyle of compassion for others. Galatians 5:6 helps us here: "The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love."

Jesus does not call us to a privatized spirituality, but to an experience of spiritual family.

"God's purpose is not just to save isolated individuals, and so perpetuate our loneliness, but rather to build a new society, a new family, even a new human race, that lives a new life and a new lifestyle."
--John Stott

Don't live for the Empire, live for the Kingdom and then IMAGINE what can be, IMAGINE it into existence.

g-ram