Following the Way of Love and Justice in this New Year
Dear Friend of Renewed Heart Ministries,
Thank You for Your Support of Renewed Heart Ministries in 2025
As 2025 has come to a close, I want to personally thank you for your generous support of Renewed Heart Ministries this year. Your commitment and generosity make our work possible, and we are deeply grateful for the trust you place in this mission.
Because of you, Renewed Heart Ministries continues to challenge injustice, amplify voices too often ignored, and encourage people of faith to follow Jesus in ways that are courageous, compassionate, and transformative. Your support allows us to create resources, foster conversations, and nurture communities committed to love, dignity, and liberation for all, especially those pushed to the margins.
In a time when injustice can feel overwhelming and hope fragile, your partnership reminds us that meaningful change is built together. Every gift, large or small, is a tangible act of solidarity and a powerful statement that justice, mercy, and radical love still matter.
As we look ahead to the coming year, your support gives us the strength to continue this work with clarity and resolve. We are excited about what lies ahead and honored to walk this journey with you.
Thank you for standing with Renewed Heart Ministries in 2025. Your generosity truly makes a difference.
With gratitude and hope,
Herb Montgomery
Director
Renewed Heart Ministries
renewedheartministries.com
Following the Way of Love and Justice in this New Year
Herb Montgomery | January 23, 2026
If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:
Our reading this week is from the gospel of John:
The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.”
The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter). (John 1:29-42)
As we shared two weeks ago, I have found it deeply healthy in my own interpretations of the Jesus stories to remember that the Gospel of John is distinctive among the four gospels for both its style and its theological focus. John’s gospel doesn’t begin with Jesus’ birth or even his baptism by John. The gospel of John opens with a cosmic prologue that presents Jesus as the pre-existent Word or the Logos of the ancient world. These high claims come into tension when we get to John baptizing Jesus. Unlike the Synoptic Gospels, the Gospel of John notably omits a direct account of Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus’ baptism marks the public beginning of his ministry and affirms him as God’s beloved. John’s Gospel, however, shifts the focus away from the act of baptism itself and toward John the Baptist’s testimony about Jesus. John identifies Jesus as the Lamb of God and the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. This omission reflects John’s high Christology, emphasizing Jesus’ pre-existence and divine identity rather than a moment of commissioning by John or social repentance through John’s water baptism.
What does it mean to follow Jesus today?
John the Baptist’s ministry defined religious fidelity not as private piety but as concrete social justice rooted in communal responsibility. Preaching in the wilderness, John did not call people to heightened ritual observance or inward spiritual refinement. Instead, he announced a public reckoning: faithfulness to God would be measured by how people treated one another, especially the poor and vulnerable. When crowds asked John what repentance looked like, his answers were unmistakably social. Those with excess clothing were to share with those who had none. Those with surplus food were to do likewise. For John the Baptist, repentance meant redistribution, not introspection.
John’s message was especially pointed toward those with institutional power. Tax collectors were not told to abandon their profession but to stop exploiting their neighbors. Soldiers were instructed to reject extortion and false accusations and to be content with fair wages. These commands exposed the systemic injustice embedded in everyday economic and political practices of John’s society. John’s call to “bear fruits worthy of repentance” located fidelity to God in ethical transformation that disrupted unjust systems rather than in personal moral purity alone.
Baptism, in John’s ministry, functioned as a public sign of alignment with this justice-oriented vision. It marked a break from exploitative patterns and a commitment to a new social order shaped by equity and compassion. John’s critique also confronted socio-political leaders who relied on ancestry or ritual status for legitimacy. It was not enough to claim descent from Abraham; as the Hebrew prophets of old also preached, justice was the true marker of covenant faithfulness. God, John insisted, was impressed not by pedigree but by practice.
By framing repentance as economic sharing, honest labor, and nonviolence, John positioned social justice at the heart of religious life. His ministry announced that devotion to God could not be separated from pursuing justice in the world. People would prove their faithfulness not in prayer alone but in transformed relationships and restructured communities. In this way, John the Baptist laid the groundwork for a prophetic tradition that measured spirituality by its social impact, and prepared the way for Jesus’ movement, where love of God and love of neighbor were inseparable.
Jesus’ ministry emerged out of the movement John the Baptist started, and carried forward its core conviction: faithfulness to God is expressed through concrete love for others. So Jesus did not appear in a religious vacuum. He began his public life by aligning himself with John’s baptism and signaled continuity with John’s call to the kind of repentance that was social transformation rather than private piety. Whereas John announced justice as a way to prepare for God’s reign, Jesus embodied and expanded that vision in word and deed.
At the heart of Jesus’ teaching was the inseparable relationship between love of God and love of neighbor. It was not a sentimental ethic but a radical social demand. Jesus defined love of neighbor through practices that challenged economic inequality, social exclusion, and religious boundary-making. Feeding the hungry, healing the sick, welcoming those labeled unclean, and restoring dignity to women, the poor, and the marginalized were not secondary acts of kindness but the very substance of how Jesus defined devotion to God. In Jesus’ ministry, worship and love of neighbor were one.
Jesus’ parables also redefined neighbor beyond ethnic, religious, and moral boundaries, making compassionate action the true mark of faithfulness. Teachings about wealth exposed systems that enriched a few at the expense of many. Through his parables, Jesus called for generosity, debt release, and mutual care. His proclamation of the “kingdom of God” named an alternative social order where the last are first, power is shared service within a community, and community is structured around equity and mercy.
Like John, Jesus confronted those who relied on religious and political status while neglecting justice. Yet Jesus went further by forming a community that practiced this ethic in daily life: sharing resources, breaking bread across divisions, and embodying God’s love in public, visible ways. In continuity with John the Baptist, Jesus defined true fidelity to God not by religious performance, but by love enacted as social justice, transforming relationships, and challenging unjust structures at every level of society.
And this brings me to this week’s passage. As I read the Gospel of John’s account of the first disciples called to follow Jesus, I’m struck with what it may mean to follow Jesus today. Following Jesus in this new year means more than private belief or personal spirituality; it requires a renewed commitment to social justice. From the beginning of his ministry, Jesus announced good news to the poor, release to the captives, and liberation for the oppressed. To follow him today is to take those words seriously in a world still marked by inequality, violence, and exclusion.
Jesus consistently stood with those pushed to the margins of society. He challenged systems that concentrated wealth and power in the hands of a few while leaving many behind. His teachings confronted economic exploitation, ethical hypocrisy, and political arrangements that benefited elites at the expense of the vulnerable. Following Jesus, then, calls us to examine our individual behavior and also the structures that shape our communities and nations.
In this new year, commitment to societal justice means listening to the voices of those most affected by injustice and allowing their experiences to shape our priorities. Right now, that means advocating for our migrant communities, affordable access to healthcare and education even for the poor, policies that protect, rather than scapegoat, our trans friends and family, dedication to caring for our environment, and so much more. These are not distractions from faith; they are expressions of it. Justice work is sacred work and the needs of people are holy.
Lastly, Jesus’ way of love was costly. Last month’s recommended reading was Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship. Jesus’ way of love led him into conflict with powerful interests and ultimately to the cross. To follow him today may likewise involve risk, discomfort, and resistance. Yet it is precisely in this costly solidarity that hope is born. When we stand with those who are being harmed, we participate in the healing and restoration that Jesus envisioned.
As we step into this new year, following Jesus means choosing justice over comfort, compassion over indifference, and action over silence. It means committing ourselves, again and again, to the work of transforming our world so that it more fully reflects the values of love, compassion, and the liberation at the heart of Jesus’ life and message.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. How is societal justice work sacred and holy work for you? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
My latest book Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political and Economic Teachings of the Gospels is available now on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and also on Audible in audio book format.
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Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
New Episode of The Social Jesus Podcast
A podcast where we talk about the intersection of faith and social justice and what a first century, prophet of the poor from Galilee might have to offer us today in our work of love, compassion and justice.
This week:
Season 3 Episode 4: Following the Way of Love and Justice in this New Year
John 1:29-42
Jesus’ ministry emerged out of the movement John the Baptist started, and carried forward its core conviction: faithfulness to God is expressed through concrete love for others. So Jesus did not appear in a religious vacuum. He began his public life by aligning himself with John’s baptism and signaled continuity with John’s call to the kind of repentance that was social transformation rather than private piety. Whereas John announced justice as a way to prepare for God’s reign, Jesus embodied and expanded that vision proclaiming that reign had drawn near. Like John, Jesus confronted those who relied on religious and political status while neglecting justice. Yet Jesus went further by forming a community that practiced this ethic in daily life: sharing resources, breaking bread across divisions, and embodying God’s love in public, visible ways. In continuity with John the Baptist, Jesus defined true fidelity to God not by religious performance, but by love enacted as social justice, transforming relationships, and challenging unjust structures at every level of society. As I read the Gospel of John’s account of the first disciples called to follow Jesus, I’m struck with what it may mean to follow Jesus today.
Available on all major podcast carriers and at:
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery
Available now on Amazon!
In Finding Jesus, author Herb Montgomery delves into the profound and often overlooked political dimensions of the gospels. Through meticulous analysis of biblical texts, historical context, and social discourse, this thought-provoking book unveils the gospels’ socio-political, economic teachings as rooted in a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of the marginalized. The book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, presenting a compelling argument for a more socially engaged and transformative Christianity.
Finding Jesus is not just a scholarly exploration; it is a call to action. It challenges readers to reevaluate their understanding of Christianity’s role in public life and to consider how the radical teachings of the gospels can inspire a renewed commitment to justice, equality, and compassion. This book is a must-read for those seeking a deeper understanding of the social implications of Christian faith and a blueprint for building a more just and inclusive society.
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