It’s a beautiful thing when people “invite Jesus into their hearts”. Yet if this doesn’t lead to saying yes to Jesus’ invitation into God’s heart for the world, tragically it doesn’t lead to discipleship. And as Bonhoeffer would reminded us, “Christianity without discipleship is Christianity without Christ.” If in fasting we learn to say no to the desires of the “filthy rotten system”, it is in prayer we learn to desire what God desires.
Live Life | Week 2: Prayer by Jarrod McKenna from World Vision Youth on Vimeo.
A little while back I asked Stanley Hauerwas how he responds to people who ask him about his faith. He simply said, “I invite them to pray the Lord’s prayer with me.”
That continues moves me so deeply. The man that time Magazine called “America’s Best Theologian” saying that Christianity isn’t merely a doctrinal system, or a propositional philosophy, it’s saying yes to Jesus’ invitation to lose ourselves in prayer with God, and find ourselves desiring what God desires.
Lord, this Lent would you teach us to pray. Would you teach us to desire what you desire. Through the Holy Spirit may we say yes to Jesus’ invitation into God’s heart for our world.
Amen.
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You can get started with Live Life this Lent at www.worldvisionyouth.org
All videos will eventually be posted here together.
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Jarrod McKenna is amazed by grace. A peace award winning nonviolence trainer and activist, and now World Vision Australia’s National Advisor on Youth, Faith & Activism. Jarrod with his amazing wife and son Teresa and Tyson, are three of 17 people living at First Home Project; an innovative community welcoming, housing and empowering refugees. Follow him on twitter here.