Minister’s Note 5 January 2020
You may have received a New Year greeting wishing you every success for the year, or even the decade, ahead. If you haven’t, I will give you one: “may God grant you success in the New Year”. Wonderful! But how do we define “success”? What would Jesus teach us about “success”?
Our Gospel reading for the first Sunday of 2020 (incidentally the last day of Christmas), John 1:10-18, invites us to reimagine what success looks like. Here is the clue “From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ”.
Success is generally understood as something we earn through our own efforts. But God offers grace that enables us to become people we could never become on our own. By grace we are made children of God who know the Father, in a vital, personal, and intimate way. By grace we are full of joy (15:11). By grace we produce the abundant fruit of a life of love (15:8-13). That’s success!
Let us make every effort to receive God’s grace for life in all its abundance (c.f. Jn. 10:10).
God Bless,
Sean.