Page 17 - Contact Spring 2019.indd

Invest in

See what great love the Father has
lavished on us, that we should be called
children of God! And that is what we
are! 1 John 3:1

It is often hard to convey emotion in the
written word, as shown, perhaps, by
the popularity of emojis. Exclamation
marks are another way to express
excitement or astonishment.
The translators of John’s letter have
used two to help us grasp how
radically different from all other sorts It takes an investment of time to allow
of love God’s love really is. the truth of God’s love to change from
head knowledge to lived experience.
David Jackman writes that the We are to live from the deep and secure
instruction to ‘see’ makes imperative the awareness that we are children of
‘need to take time to contemplate this God – to be left gasping at its lavish,
love and allow its reality to sink down all-encompassing reality. This security
into the depths of our being. It is meant will be constantly challenged. Every
to take our breath away: to startle and advertisement, appraisal, or customer
amaze us so that we are left gasping’. review has the potential to convey our
need to improve in some way before
‘Contemplating’ implies unhurried time we are acceptable. To counter this,
when the words of the text are chewed we have to return repeatedly to
over and digested as food, with their God’s word, allowing the truth of our
goodness permeating our whole being. identity as beloved sons and daughters
They become the fuel for our lives. to shape how we speak and act.
Neuroscientists have shown our brain
to be a network of neural pathways It is as we comprehend God’s love for
which determine our habitual us that we are enabled to lay down our
patterns of thinking and behaving. agendas and our self-preoccupation,
As we practise traveling down new and love the people we meet each day.
pathways, we naturally weaken old Only then will God’s love be embodied
pathways. As we meditate on verses through us in our workplaces, schools,
such as 1 John 3:1, we are creating or homes, and communities.
reinforcing godly ways of thinking and
weakening the mindsets shaped by the LICC ‘Word for the Week’
negative dimensions of our workplace
culture, the media, or our upbringing.
Our minds are being renewed!