{"id":1442,"date":"2015-05-20T03:00:53","date_gmt":"2015-05-20T07:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/live-generously\/"},"modified":"2015-05-20T03:00:53","modified_gmt":"2015-05-20T07:00:53","slug":"live-generously","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/live-generously\/","title":{"rendered":"Live Generously"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Melodious Monk<\/p>\n<p>In Eugene Peterson\u2019s Idiomatic translation of the Gospel of Matthew, many of Jesus\u2019 words come alive in a somewhat shocking way.\u00a0 I pause to re-read and re-acknowledge the awesomeness of what Jesus brings us, and the duty that he calls us towards.\u00a0 Near the end of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus told us:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019re familiar with the old written law, \u2018Love your friend,\u2019 and its unwritten companion, \u2018Hate your enemy.\u2019\u00a0 I\u2019m challenging that. I\u2019m telling you to love you enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves\u2026If you simply love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal?&#8230;\u201dIn a word, what I\u2019m sayings is, <em>Grow up<\/em>. You\u2019re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m slow to listen to Jesus\u2019 call to \u201cGrow up.\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019d rather nurse old hurts, take jabs at my enemies and not work to give energies of prayer and peace to others, especially those people or circumstances that I would normally shy away from.\u00a0God desires so much more fulfilment for my life then I can comprehend.\u00a0After re-reading this whole chapter from Matthew, I&#8217;m shockingly aware of how much possibility there is for an outrageously fulfilling, adventurous, and hope-filled life. God offers such a life to us, if we choose to live inside His kingdom.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-4956121\" src=\"http:\/\/of.communityofjesus.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/mary1-285x300.jpg\" alt=\"The Community of Jesus\" width=\"285\" height=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/TheCommunityOfJesus\/~4\/NpO1d7MosjA\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Melodious Monk In Eugene Peterson\u2019s Idiomatic translation of the Gospel of Matthew, many of Jesus\u2019 words come alive in a somewhat shocking way.\u00a0 I pause to re-read and re-acknowledge the awesomeness of what Jesus brings us, and the duty &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/live-generously\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-paraclete-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1442\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}