Following and Discovering
On New Year’s Day this year, like many of you, my phone was abuzz with New Year greetings and well wishes. Among the many texts, photos and gifs, one simple message from a friend struck a chord with me:
May you enjoy deeper and deeper communion with God in 2024,
and receive joyful zeal in following and discovering Who God is.
This simple prayer captured my yearning, because it captures much of what it means to be a disciple of Christ.
Deeper and deeper communion with God means to grow in our relationship with God. It means to abide in Christ, to remain close to him, to know his heart. It means allowing him to work in our hearts, to bring all our fears, anxieties and struggles to him. It means to spend time with him, listening to and keeping in his Word, and thus understanding his will for us.
And as we grow in intimacy in communion with God, we can look forward to receiving a joyful zeal that comes with following and knowing God. It is, as Psalm 28:7 (NIV) declares: “The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise him.”
Beyond just following a set of rules, being a disciple of Christ means following Christ, and in so doing, discovering who God is. As Jesus said to his disciples in John 15:14-16, “14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.”
My prayer for myself in 2024, and for each one of us as Jesus’ disciples, is that we grow deeper in our relationship with God, through Jesus. And in so doing, may we experience the joyful zeal that comes with following him, and discovering who God is.
By Deacon Jan Choo