I have actually been more joyful since The Chapel started this series on joy. It is not something that I focused on as much as love and peace. It seems to revolve around where I focus my thoughts. We were asked yesterday to consider whether things we think about bring us closer or further from God. If we are further from God than we wish, we might associate that with where our time and our minds are spent.
John 17
- What does Jesus pray about when his time to die has come?
- What is eternal life?
- What did Jesus reveal?
- How does Jesus’ prayer help to give him the strength to die?
- Do you start each of your difficult days by disciplining yourself to think about God, eternal life, and your brothers and sisters?
Going Deeper
Instead of working through some questions, go to www.chapel.org and listen to a sermon from the present series Joyride. Think:
- What is the main idea of this sermon?
- What is the passage for this sermon?
- What does the pastor say that I can acknowledge?
- What does the pastor say that I still question?
- What should I do as a result of hearing this sermon?
Plymothian 
Jesus prays for unity. Let me tell you from personal experience (and from the personal witness of others), there is joy where members of Christ’s seemingly fractured body reach out in love to each other, and reach out to a broken love with hands held and arms outstretched.I used to be staunchly anti-Catholic (I didn’t even know there was an Eastern Orthodox or Anglican church). I was brought up in a school that was like that (which school, fueled as it was by the “A Beka Book” curriculum, has now died) by parents who are still like that. Not until my ex-girlfriend told me that Catholics were Christians did I even begin to consider that it could be true.Gradually, I came to see that the RC church is more than peppered with real Christians (as is every denomination), it is actually a denomination and not a cult. My cousin Josh talked to me about it once. When I asked him what he thought of the RC and EO churches, he said wistfully (but authoritatively):’I love ’em. They’re Christian.’I was not hoping for said answer. He went on to describe how the gospel is embedded in their liturgy (then a swear word for me, before I realized that every single church follows a liturgy). He eventually became Orthodox, and is now studying to be a priest.I came to Moody fully prepared to learn more about the various large denominations and to find my place in the diverse spectrum of Christian tradition. My experience here has bolstered my belief that Catholics (and others) are really Christians, and I have slowly been learning of the various strengths and weaknesses of their various traditions. Every Christian tradition, Protestant or otherwise, is full of both strengths and weaknesses.Now, I’m a passionate Christian ecumenist, and reading Christ’s prayer always re-energizes me to engage the difficult world of anti-ecumenical Christians with simultaneous good biblical exposition (which all anti-ecumenists seem to love) and an impassioned, but not uncritical, defense of high-church traditions.What do you think?
@Jordan McDaniel – Oh, and, by the way, I’m going to study to be an Anglican priest after Moody. I don’t know what that will do for my ecumenical relations with anti-ecumenists (my parents are very unhappy).