Knowing Jesus

I've just finished reading the classic 'Knowing Jesus' by james Alison.

I'll just quote the end paragraph of the book (in may not do justice to the entire book but it's an excellent conclusion):

"... we  become disciples by serving serving that the intelligence of the victim (Holy Spirit) reveals to us, we will find that we have come to know Jesus, and the Father. We will be surprised to discover that what appears to be a road leading only to exclusion, and narrowing horizons, turns instead into a highway of ever increasing diversity, and the richness of learning to be moved by Another, Another who is quite without rivalry or possessiveness. And there we will know without the hidden traps of our self-delusion blinding us; we will know as we are known, and discover that our knowledge of Jesus was nothing at all compared to his knowledge of, and love for, us." James Alison

I appreciate the idea of a highway of ever increasing diversity, knowing Jesus leads us to inclusion instead of exclusion... the knowledge of Jesus gradually leads us into wider spaces...leading us into the knowledge of a God who loves...A God who is defined by love...the Father who loves the world and by imitating the Son, who imitates the Father we will be led to love the world. To receive the releasing of forgiveness that loosens us from  self-victimization, self-loathing, so that we can embrace our human ordinariness so as to immerse ourselves and relate to the world and its ordinariness and realizing that we are in complicity with its faults and violence.
Our sins no longer block us off from others, but are now made healthy in becoming a medium of solidarity instead of a motive of separation. In knowing Jesus we begin to hate our sin, not in a personal self-loathing way, but we hate our sin because of the harmful effect it has on others.

Open up your horizons!