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Welcome to OneLife Ministries. This site is designed to lead you prayerfully into a heart experience of Divine Presence, Who is Love. While it focuses on Christian teaching, I hope persons of varied faiths will find inspiration here. Indeed, "God" can be whatever image helps us trust in the Sacred, by whatever means Grace touches us each. Please share this ministry with others, and please return soon. There is a new offering daily. And to be placed on the daily OneLife email list, to request notifications of new writings or submit prayer requests, write to briankwilcox@yahoo.com .
Blessings,
Brian Kenneth Wilcox MDiv, MFT, PhD
Interspiritual Pastor-Teacher, Author, Workshop Leader, Spiritual Counselor, and Chaplain.
You are invited to join Brian at his fellowship group on Facebook. The group is called OneLife Ministries – An Interspiritual Contemplative Fellowship. Hope to see you there. Blessings.
Today's Scripture
28If you are tired from carrying heavy burdens, come to me and I will give you rest. 29Take the yoke I give you. Put it on your shoulders and learn from me. I am gentle and humble, and you will find rest.
*Matthew 11.28-29, CEV
Spiritual Teaching
What were persons in the time of Jesus worn out from? The same thing many are worn out from now - compulsive, restrictive, repressive religion. Creation itself is an expression of the Life of God. God-Life is Expressive. Any religion or philosophy or way of life that represses or depresses Life is anti-Life, is un-godly.
The Jews used "yoke" to refer to the joy and dedication involved in obeying the Torah, or Teaching of God. To bear a yoke could refer, then, to being a student. Our yoke is to learn from Christ, being His apprentices. We learn from Christ in different ways, among them the joy and dedication to the four Gospels and the inner teaching of the Holy Spirit…
12I have much more to say to you, but right now it would be more than you could understand. 13The Spirit shows what is true and will come and guide you into the full truth. The Spirit doesn't speak on his own. He will tell you only what he has heard from me, and he will let you know what is going to happen. 14The Spirit will bring glory to me by taking my message and telling it to you.
*John 16.12-14, CEV
God invites us to draw near to God, as Spirit did through Jesus to the wearied masses. Grace entails responsibly replying. The “come to me” precedes and “I will give you rest.” We are to “take the yoke” that “I give you.” We “put it on [our] shoulders and learn from” Christ. Then, we “will find rest.”
Jesus realized persons needed a saner, gentler, more graceful experience of faith. Jesus embodied that way. In Jesus I myself found rest from fundamentalist, legalistic, restrictive religion. That is partly why I have remained a Christian after struggling for years to discover again meaning in the faith of my upbringing. Jesus offers us inner freedom and inward rest from all that would confine our lives and creative energies and make into faith an oppressive, limiting experience.
Responding
What does it mean for you to have the “rest” of Christ within you? How are you learning from Christ as His apprentice? Have you ever struggled with your faith until arriving at a new-found meaning and freedom in the Message of Christ? How is your church providing direction to persons on the graceful freedom Christ offers persons who are burdened with religion that hinders mature reflection and expression of life?
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*OneLife Ministries is a ministry of Brian Kenneth Wilcox, SW Florida. Brian lives a vowed life and with his two dogs, Bandit Ty and St. Francis, with friends and under a vow of simplicity. Brian is an ecumenical-interspiritual leader, who chooses not to identify with any group, and renounces all titles of sacredness that some would apply to him, but seeks to be open to how Christ manifests in the diversity of Christian denominations and varied religious-spiritual traditions. He affirms that all spiritual paths lead ultimately back to Jesus Christ. He is Senior Chaplain for the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office, Punta Gorda, FL.
*Brian welcomes responses to his writings or submission of prayer requests at briankwilcox@yahoo.com . Also, Brian is on Facebook: search Brian Kenneth Wilcox.
*Contact the above email to book Brian for preaching, Spiritual Direction, retreats, workshops, animal blessing services, house blessings, or other spiritual requests. You can order his book An Ache for Union from major booksellers.
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