Our Revolutionary Jesus

From the Pastor…        Our Revolutionary Jesus    

 

We’ve made elevator music of Jesus Christ. We’ve made Him the most boring, bland, blah person; and He was the most revolutionary man. — John Eldredge

“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” – Jesus, Matthew 10:34

 

Eldredge is certainly correct about Jesus being a radical revolutionary out to change the world.  How many times do we hear Jesus hold up the world’s way of doing things only to reject them in favor of God’s ways?  “You have heard it said, but I say to you…”  He turns the world’s selfish violence upside-down.  He rejects every hurtful impulse and every self-serving attitude and action.  To adopt His mindset is so radical, it’s as if you are born again to a new life, as a new person.  Radical.  Revolutionary.

 

Oh, not in the mode of most revolutions where guns and swords maim and kill in order to establish themselves.  When Jesus speaks of a sword in Matthew 10:34, he is referring to the conflict this new life will stimulate as the world opposes.  And we see how His followers didn’t take up swords, rather they experienced all kinds of swords of persecution.  Family members fought with family members over this business of following Jesus.  Governments tried to crush His followers.  The world fights back against God’s standards and demands.

 

Things are no different today.  The pushback may vary from culture to culture, but the conflict is still there.  Dare we understand that we follow a revolutionary?  Or have we so adopted the world’s ways that we continue to make Jesus what we prefer Him to be: boring, bland, blah? – Read Jesus’ so-called Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 4-6) and look for the teachings of a radical.  They are there! — God forgive us for watering down Jesus, the non-violent revolutionary trying to bring Heaven to earth.

 

 

                          God’s best to you,     

                                   Lee