I was chatting with my friend Phil about what it's like to have been raised in the church your entire life. We agreed that while there is often difficulty in relating to our parents' generation in how they have chosen to live out the words of Jesus, we admitted that even in our confusion it is very difficult to walk away from Jesus' words altogether.
As Simon Peter says in John 6:68:
"Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."
What is it about the words of Jesus that make it nearly impossible to forget our upbringing?
I live in a region that prizes the love of Jesus, if only on the surface. It is very popular to attend church. In this way the words of Jesus, which admonish us to love each other, find a very natural place.
But this can be misleading, because many of Jesus' words aren't that lovely! This is because they are about True Christian love, the kind that often requires us to give up our comfort for the sake of someone else.
This love, while uncomfortable in the moment, has greater rewards than those that come when people simply think we're "good people."
You can't forget your roots. And in this case, for me, that's a good thing.
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