Invitation To Joy

One Sunday morning, a preacher delivered a beautiful sermon on Jesus’ love for little children. The next day, he caught a little boy in the act of pressing his foot into the Church’s spanking-new, still-wet sidewalk. He grabbed the lad by the arm, jerked him away from the freshly-paved concrete, gave him a severe tongue-lashing, and sent him home. Minutes later, he received an irate telephone call from the child’s mother. “My little boy just came home in tears,” she said angrily. “When I heard your sermon yesterday I thought you loved little children.” “Indeed I do love little children,” the preacher replied, “but I love them in the abstract, not the concrete.”

“If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up, his cross and follow Me.” In today’s Gospel Lesson, Jesus is saying that His genuine followers love Him not in the abstract, but in the concrete.

The ultimate test of our Christian discipleship, is not what…