John 14:12 tells me, “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing.” What has Jesus been doing? Crossing boundaries set up by society: the first shall be last, eating with sinners, talking with and validating women, reaching out to Samaritans and Gentiles, lepers, and the “untouchables”, throwing the money changers out of the temple, dying so we can know a deeper, newer, more eternal Life. Faith leads to action and action leads to the Living Grace of God transforming us and bringing us into a deeper relationship with Him.

What a peace your inspired words have brought forth in me. Pray that I have the courage to Live the Way God is calling me to Live. Kathy

I am a new subscriber and look forward to reading your posts.

I think it’s about first and second things. To paraphrase a familiar saying: Seek first being with Christ for its own sake and all the benefits will be added to you.

I haven’t found this to be the case, for myself. In relationships (my kids, my wife, my pastor), each one is different, and what’s going on in each one varies from week to week, day to day. My relationship with my wife is the most “transactional.” There are behavioral “expectations” — much more than sitting in silence with one another.

And sitting in silence with “the Lord, who is the spirit,” accomplishes various things. We are transformed from one degree of glory to another, we hear the still small voice, we discover what’s bothering us — things we’re ignoring for various reasons. All this has utility.

There is, of course, the problem of using people. My wife observed that in me, what I would call “kingdom-building” — wanting to use people to build myself up, using people like little organizational lego blocks, instead of discovering what it is that God wants to accomplish in another person’s life.

I had to repent of that impulse. And I wasn’t very good at it anyway.