“Bring those I contact to decision. Let me not be a milepost on a single road; make me a fork, that men must turn one way or another on facing Christ in me.” Jim Elliot, from his journal.
Yep, I do write titles (like the one above) to grab your attention. Honestly, I am not trying to be cute or clever, but just to say something from scripture that we would normally ignore or yawn at. I think we should constantly look at what God has said to us from a different point of view.
We are disturbing. For real. Or at least we can be disturbing. This is what I mean:
No one who has ever encountered Jesus (or those in whom Jesus lives) has ever been the same after the encounter. Jesus is always a man who disturbs our “peace” to bring us to a decision. Always. The selfishly confident religious leaders of Jesus’ day were never left unmoved by Jesus’ words and presence. They either humbly saw Jesus as the Messiah that their heart’s longed for or the threat to their self-salvation project. Jesus was disturbing to them.
We are not much different than those first century religious gatekeepers. When we encounter the reality of who Jesus is, it is impossible to be left unmoved.
Many of the religious leaders were disturbed by Jesus and rage overtook their religious sensibilities. They became blinded by their desire to guard their self-made goodness…and sought to destroy the One who threatened them.
Others- usually the ones who were disturbed by their corrupt hearts- gladly welcomed Jesus’ disturbance. They saw his presence as a threat, for sure, but only a threat to what is killing them. Those people typically let Jesus’ disturb them with the audacity of his grace towards them.
The question is: which way will the thoughts of our hearts move us? Will we let Jesus disturb our sin and give in to his life-giving grace towards us?
Go I go a little further and ask this too: are we willing to be disturbing for other people’s good? I mean…if we already are disturbing like Jesus we might as well live it out!
Join us Sunday evening as we (together) live out Jesus’ “disturbing” resurrection life.