Laura

“We can’t just know about the love of God; we have to know the love of God,[37] to experience it in our inner beings, if we are to be transformed into people of love. And in Paul’s paradigm, this transformation happens as we “contemplate,” as we gaze, as we look at God, looking at us, in love.”
― John Mark Comer, Practicing the Way: Be with Jesus. Become like him. Do as he did.

“peek: The question for goal #1, “be with Jesus,” was, How do we be with Jesus? And the answer was, basically, we abide in the vine; we live rooted in a relational connection to Jesus by the Spirit. The question for goal #2 is not all that different: How do we become like Jesus? A full answer would take a book,[35] but here’s the SparkNotes version: through contemplation. We let God love us into people of love.”
― John Mark Comer, Practicing the Way: Be with Jesus. Become like him. Do as he did.

“This simple, uncomplicated act has the potential to transform our inner lives and heal our deepest wounds in ways that more Bible study, church attendance, and even therapy (as good as those are) cannot possibly touch. David Benner, a psychologist and spiritual director, said this of his own experience of contemplation: Meditating on God’s love has done more to increase my love than decades of effort to try to be more loving. Allowing myself to deeply experience his love—taking time to soak in it and allow it to infuse me—has begun to effect changes that I had given up hope of ever experiencing. Coming back to God in my failures at love, throwing”
― John Mark Comer, Practicing the Way: Be with Jesus. Become like him. Do as he did.

“no family of origin is healthy enough to transform us into the kind of love we see in Jesus, and no family is dysfunctional enough to keep us from becoming people of love in Jesus. All of us have the potential to grow and mature into people of agape. But to do so, we have to experience the love of God.”
― John Mark Comer, Practicing the Way: Be with Jesus. Become like him. Do as he did.