Day One: Joyful Identity
The Subject of My Own Life
We need to focus on the “I” that is the subject of this journey. Who am I and what am I? If we don’t answer these questions, then “where am I going and how do I get there?” just don’t matter. We need to stop and really dig down deep into these questions. You and I need to think about this stuff, using the gifts of our own brains that God gave to us, so that in prayer we can wrestle with these big issues. These are the fundamental questions of our Identity: Who am I? Who should I be? Who am I becoming?
The Apostolic Church, Reinterpreted Today
What does it mean to live as Christ lived in present day America? I have no idea. The new evangelization requires us as Christians to live differently in the world today. We cannot walk around with this pre-Enlightenment European air of entitlement, spouting sayings about "Christian nations" and all that nonsense. This is not a Christian nation. Other than Vatican City, there are no more Christian nations. "Christendom is dead. Long live Christianity!" as Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen used to say.
I have been reading Acts of the Apostles lately with an ongoing irritation that I cannot seem to shake. The way they lived was not a once-only event. It needs to be revisited and reinterpreted in the light of today. I am not living the way that I think I should be, the way that I think my neighbor needs me to live so that they might have life. Here are three major things that stand out to me about the Apostolic Church.
Forgiveness is Weakness
Maybe I do hate you.
Maybe forgiveness for what you have done to me is too easy for you.