Why do we fail at doing this? We’re trying to do it from our own effort and will power instead of relying on Christ in us. In John 15:4-5, Jesus said, “Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” Remaining means believing God, depending on him and persevering no matter what because we know that God will do what he said he would do. The foundation for loving like Christ starts with realizing that we need to adandon self-effort and depend on Jesus to live his perfect life through us. As we learn the practice of remaining, it’s only then that we can live out the love and compassion of Jesus toward others.

In John 8:31-32, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” When it comes to following Christ, there are some key truths that we need to know beyond the basics. For example, we need to understand who Jesus is and what his mission was while he was here on earth. The Bible tells us that God came to earth and lived in human form as Jesus (John 1:14). Only God could save humanity. So, it makes sense that he had to create a way for us to be restored to him (John 1:29).

Living life with Jesus needs to have first place in our planning, visioning and whatever we do as a church. It’s too easy to get distracted.

If we could just get back to simplicity and what matters most, I think we’d get to the core of what life with Christ is all about. As a church, we’re just trying to focus on helping people who may be new to following Christ or who had a bad experience with church make three connections in life: connect with God, connect with others and care for people. To be fully human and fully alive, God encourages all of us to to experience these connections. But sometimes the way we do church or don’t do church gets in the way of what matters most.

With all of the busyness in our lives, it can be hard to just take some alone time to reflect on the spiritual meaning of things. It never ceases to amaze me that the God who created me and everything I see came to this planet in human form as Jesus. And, beyond that, Jesus demonstrated His love for us by sacrificing His life so that we too could become the kind of people that God created us to be. The best gift that we could give God is our lives.