When we live as equals with every human as a much-loved child of God, we no longer compete for value. Being secure in God’s immeasurable love, no more and no less, makes us the owners of everything that can’t be bought.

The good life in God’s kingdom is ours when we feel like we’ve lost something we hold dear. When we mourn the mess that is, we allow God to comfort us with the beauty of what will be.

The really good life isn’t for the pretty and perfect who keep it all together. It’s when we’re broken and at the end of our rope that we have more room for God. We are blessed when we trust that the imperfect are already perfectly loved.

Life’s big questions deserve serious attention. It matters whom we trust to guide us when everything is on the line. The person, story and teachings of Jesus convince us that he is the unique expert we should follow as if our very lives depend on it. Because they do. Seriously.

Orange Sunday

Our human God finally and fully breaks the chains of sin and death and restores the original goodness we were created for. His resurrection brings to life our choice to join him and each other in the renewal of all things.

Because Jesus was fully human, he fully experienced the same temptations we do. We can learn from Jesus how to resist those temptations when we reject their lies by surrendering to the good news that we are God’s much-loved children.

In his divinity, Jesus reveals what God is like; but in his humanity, he reveals what humans can be like. We flourish as humans when we continually choose to follow Jesus as a fully growing human.

Our default imagination for loving like and living as Jesus is to power up and try harder. But our fully human God shows us how to depend on the same power he did to live a fully human life, the presence of God’s Spirit with us.

When we imagine Jesus as superhuman, we may assume it’s unfair or unrealistic to follow him. But when we embrace Jesus as fully human, we are compelled to learn from him how to love like him and live as him.