Obedience and love are a packaged deal

Beloved of God, 

    Please be praying for our children as they come to lead us in worship this week. They have been working diligently to prepare something to guide us into worship together. I’m excited to hear from them, and I know you are too!
   
    I’m also looking forward to recognizing some of our young people this Sunday who will be taking a big step into adulthood as the school year ends. Please pray for teachers and students, especially graduating seniors, as they finish this year’s work.

    In our Scripture reading this week, Jesus gives us a call to obedience. Loving Jesus, we learn, means obeying his teaching. Failure to love is a failure to obey. Modern folks like us can have a hard time connecting love and obedience. Our notions of fidelity, personally and professionally, don’t always include that kind of behavior. We’re free (we think) to do what we want!
    But here we find that when it comes to Jesus, obedience and love are a packaged deal. It is in loving Jesus, in obeying Jesus, that we become people at home in Jesus. What’s more, we don’t enter this task alone. In His goodness and grace, Jesus sends us the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, to teach us and remind us. Even in this call to obedience, Jesus doesn’t leave us unsupported. God helps us to be that which God demands that we be. He gives us the task of obedience in love, and then helps us to obey. What a good God to do such a thing!

Please join me this week in praying for:

• Rain
  
• Wisdom
  
• In thanksgiving for the good work of those fighting wildfire in our state.
  
• Peace, comfort, and defense for those still facing danger or damage from wildfire.
  
• Our young people as they come to lead us in worship on Sunday.
  
• Faculty, staff, teachers, and students as they approach the end of the school year.
  
• Those of us recovering from illness, or from medical procedures.
  
• Those who respond to emergencies on our highways, in our wildlands, in our communities, and even in our homes.
  
• Faithful hearts as we receive the teaching and reminding of the Advocate.
  
• A habit of life that works out our love in obedience to Christ.
  
• Each other (please email [email protected] if you’d like to be added to our prayer list)
  

You are the salt of the earth; you are the light of the world,

Marshall