From Michael Lister's Finding The Way Again

The Gospel of Jesus

The Good News isn't just good—it's the best news ever. It's shockingly good, and it is this: God is love.

You have heard it said of old that God is a distant deity, angry and vengeful, but I say that God is actually a loving parent who loves you so much you can risk loving others. God is love. That's his nature, character, being. God is like a kind father who cares and provides for his children, a tender-hearted mother who feels what her children are feeling, aches in her womb when they ache. God is a father who is patient with his children, who loves them even when they do wrong. God is like a mother hen whose greatest joy is caring for her chicks, gathering them beneath her wings. There's nothing you can do to make God love you any more than he already does; nothing you can do to cause her to love you any less.

God is love. If you can't grasp that, you can't grasp my gospel.

God will provide and care for you just like he does for the birds of the air and the flowers of the fields. Don't worry. Don't be selfish or greedy. Don't hoard your stuff. Share what you have with others. Give to those in need in the same way God gives to you. Truly trust God, and demonstrate that you do by giving, sharing, bearing one another's burdens.

Don't judge others. Be merciful. Be compassionate. Actually put yourself in the place of others and feel what it's like to be them. Feel what they feel. Care about their problems as much as you do your own. This makes you children of God—kind, gracious, giving.

If you trust God, actually believe he will take care of you, you can dare to live with freedom, hope, and abandon. You can be so secure that you relax and learn how to be yourself, stop fighting for your place or recognition, stop tearing others down in order to make yourself feel better.

God's reign is unlike anything you've every experienced. The last are first, those that serve, the greatest. To find your life, you have to lose it. To receive, you have to give.

Spend your time caring for others. God will care for you.

Give to those who ask of you. Share what you have. It all belongs to God anyway, and she has plenty. You don't need two coats if there's someone without one.

Love your enemies.

If someone hurts you, don't try to hurt them back. What would that accomplish? Be like God who loves everyone, who has mercy and compassion on everyone. Think of the opportunity you have to embody God by blessing those who curse you, praying for those who despise you.

Love those who don't love you. If you do, you will be like God, who lets his sun shine on the just and unjust, his rain fall on the good and the evil. If you only loves those who love you, what have you done? God has enough love to go around.

Lucky are the unlucky. Rich are the poor. Blessed are the cursed. Happy are the mourners. Full are the hungry. Why? Because if you do what God wants you to, they will have all they need. You can feed and cloth and comfort them. You can care for those who can't care for themselves, defend the defenseless, heal the hurting, love the unlovable. This is what I'm calling you to do. I'm entrusting you to continue my work. Are you willing? Please don't say you will if you won't. You're welcome to disagree with me, to reject my vision of God, my hope for humanity, just please don't do so and call it my gospel.

My gospel is the good news that God is love—news so surprising, so wildly wonderful and unexpected that it can turn your worlds upside down. In fact, if you not only hear and receive the gospel, but actually become it for others, it will turn the whole world upside down.

Finding The Way Again

The Way is a person. The person is a path—and not just to heaven or some future reward. The Way is a way of life—one that Jesus demonstrated for us. It's living in the kingdom of God here and now, rejecting the kingdoms of this world, dwelling in them, but not being of them. In the community where God reigns, we are loved and accepted, and out of our security we live unselfish, compassionate lives.

As people of The Way, our ways are not the ways of the world. Love is all. Compassion and justice are our goals. We can no longer live only for ourselves and our clan, but are moved with the plight of all of humanity. We've felt the emptiness of self-centeredness, the futility of fortune and fame, and now only traveling The Way will truly satisfy us.

No longer motivated by money or the pursuit of power, the meaning in our lives is derived from using the gifts God has given us and helping others. The Way is about sharing out of our abundance (and sometimes out of our need) to acknowledge that everything belongs to God and to her children. We have become convinced that our generous dad will take care of us, that our compassionate mother will provide for us, so we share gladly, give joyfully, grateful for the opportunity to express the love and gratitude we feel.

The Way is a way of wisdom—a counter-cultural, subversive, deeply intuitive wisdom. Counter-intuitive to the ways of the world, the wisdom of The Way operates on a different plane, in an unseen realm that has great influence on what is seen. On The Way, foolishness is wisdom, weakness is strength, losing is finding, serving is true greatness.

The Way is a different way. We often travel in the opposite direction, against the current of the way of the world. It's a struggle. We often fail, often lose our way.

When we wander off the path, when we replace our guide with one more to our liking, one more closely resembling us, we can find The Way again. When we discover that we've taken a wrong turn, all we have to do is turn around. We can return to the path, to The Way anytime. The Way is always here, waiting patiently, beckoning to us, wisdom raising her voice in the streets, calling us to return, to find our way back to The Way again, to find our way back home—and each time we do, our dad will run out to greet us, embracing us, weeping. Overjoyed to have us back, he will drape a robe over our backs, place a ring on our fingers, and call for a celebration. The party is in our honor. We were lost, but now we've found The Way again—or perhaps The Way found us—either way we are back where we truly belong.