During the season of Lent this year at IHS we are looking at the Way of Love: Practices for a Jesus-Centered Life. You could say that the way of love is the way in the Episcopal Church we practice our faith. It's an invitation to a set of practices that can guide us on our journey as Jesus-followers.
The first practice in the way of love is Turn. If we listen closely, there is a Spirit calling us to come back to God.
Turn is a choice to choose the way of light and love, the fundamental shift of following Jesus.
The second practice of the Way of Love that is so fundamental to following Jesus and especially appropriate during this time of Lent is Learn. Watch this second video as a primer for the practice of learn.
"The way of love calls us to the practice of learning." Jesus commands us to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Loving God with our whole mind means practicing acts of learning and study. But it goes much deeper than that. The learn practice of the way of love is much more than reading the Bible or studying theology. It is fundamentally learning how to listen, follow, and obey our Lord Jesus.
At the core, being a Christian means studying Jesus as our teacher. It means studying his teachings, but not just as a mental exercise. Following Jesus is about putting his teachings into practice living them. And this is what Lent is all about.
Lent helps us to refocus our lives on following Jesus as our Teacher, Master, and Lord. As Scottish theologian George MacDonald asked, have you done even one thing today because our Lord commanded it? Lent helps us to refocus on that question. We strip away excesses of our lives during this holy season of forty days in order to be able to better answer that question and call.
These two practices in the way of love, Turn and Learn, are at the heart of Lent. How will you practice them these forty days?
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