Deepening our Christianity

the Monday Newsletter of Paul Prins

Edition #28 · 26 February 2024

Blessings Reader,

Following your Love

There is much talk in the Gospels about following Jesus. He explicitly tells us to take up our cross and follow Him. This is such a visual and physical first response. We know the story, and we know what happens Easter weekend. Jesus literally and physically takes up His cross, carries it to the top of Calvary, and is crucified upon it by the Romans. This brings such blinding clarity to His call to carry our cross like He would carry His.

There is more to following Jesus. There is also enjoyment in God’s presence and the experience of God’s tenderness. Within this relationship with God is an invitation to change. The love of God is a refining fire. A love so pure that, with time, it will purify us from all that falls short of God’s love.

This is a challenge for us, though. For we only know how to love with conditions. We must love with conditions to survive. In reality, I believe that Jesus’s unconditional love is why he was executed. Unconditional love will always lead us to be broken, inside of creation, which is defined by its brokenness.

The purity of God’s love continues to dwell and fill us as we open ourselves to it. A love that we must, on some level, resist before it breaks us. For this world is not yet safe to be lost all the way into God’s love. This tension brings us to a crossroads. A precipice before us where we see with such distinct clarity the endless nature of God compared to our finite, minuscule stature. So we do our best as we love and grow.

Some of us will get to parish at the hands of others as we lay down our lives in love. These exceptions water creation with the blood they freely give, just like Jesus. The martyrs know the cost of loving unconditionally. They have felt their own nails and piercing wounds. They have followed Jesus in His love. Following your Love, God, is beyond what most of us can comprehend.

We believe in you, Jesus; help us in our unbelief.

Until Next Week

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Unpublished Photo for this Edition

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A Prayer for the Week to Come

Beloved Begotten of God, Jesus, help us reflect in this season of Lent. Bring us into quiet moments to dwell with you as we reflect on the love you followed into Jerusalem. The love that made the jailers whip endurable. Love that held you to the cross. A love that the grave couldn't hold. We believe Jesus, and help us in our unbelief.

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