The Center ...

Friday, April 12, 2019. It is interesting to look at our human life, how we shape our ideas of who we are and where we want to go. How are we making our decisions? What are the guiding mechanism in our life? In what way are our decisions made now, when we seem to do them? What is preparing these decisions? What is setting the environment for us to develop in one or the other direction?

Humans grow up as infants and children. About 20 years of our life are needed to shape our mind and our heart, to give us the framework to think, to judge, to make decisions and to develop some basic understanding of who we are. 20 years are needed! We should not think that our decisions today would be done just the moment we formulate them or become aware of them. They are shaped over time, prepared over time!

Truly Human …

When the apostle Paul talks about the situation of human life, it is interesting to see where his thoughts go. He talks about some people. Then he talks about his own joy and longing - it is a longing for living in peace and faith and puritiy with the others. But then, when he thinks about how this is possible, his mind quickly comes to Jesus, to the Lord. He talks about the life of Jesus. Here, one of the famous pieces of the New Testament is written:

5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,1 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant,3 being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (from Phil 2)

Humans want to be acknowledged, loved, valued and they are looking for ressources and potential. Jesus, as the son of God, had all this. He was in a community with his father and the holy spirit, within the trinity. In this trinity, full acknowledgement is there, love beyond measure, value and power. He was God, the word of God, with God, God himself, part of creation, creating power himself. The situation is described at the beginning of the Gospel of John: At the beginning there was the Word …

Christ Jesus …

We need Jesus in our life. We need him, to shape all we are, day by day. Jesus became human, he lived among us. This is the center of the Christian message. He gave up his godly powers, to be a human like you are one, like I am one. He lived in faith, trusting his heavenly father. He lived innocent, which does not mean that he lived without conflicts.

When we want to make progress in our life, it is necessary to look into the life of Jesus. It is necessary to see and understand how he lived, what he did, how he talked and acted. We need to be inspired by him, inspired in a literal sense. His spirit needs to come into our mind, our heart, our life!

Let us come back to shaping our decisions. Learning from Jesus is a process. It starts with simple steps. It consists of individual little decisions. It consists of thoughts, when I make decisions what should fill my mind right now. It consists of prayers, day by day I can make decisions for whom to pray, and how to spend the next 10 minutes of my life with the Lord. It consists of words, the word I say to someone, the words I do not say knowing they are not adequate or good for this particular moment. There is so much to gain and discover when I lead a life full of faith, following Jesus by many little individual steps! (Roland Potthast) ... further texts