Brace yourselves: Time to let Jesus BE Jesus
We don't mean to limit Him.
But we do.
Our personal comfort levels, experiences and expectation of HOW Jesus should be gets filtered and distilled through many years, sermons, and nicely adjusted and adapted versions of 'truth.'
Yet if we are to recognize and honor His movement in the earth today we have to let Him come and 'wreck' us.
He must rock our limited concepts of who He IS and HOW He operates in this world.
He is no less radical today than He was 2,000 years ago.
He is no less a threat to man-made religious traditions than He was then.
He is no less a source of offense to many.
The FIRE that Jesus kindles is often uncomfortable because it is frequently not something we understand and certainly not something we control.
And yet we DO so prefer to understand AND control.
Are we willing to go back to the source material and really, really see who Jesus WAS?
Only then will we discern how He IS moving in the earth today.
I am worn out with watered down presentations of Jesus that present only one diluted or highlighted facet of His Person at the expense of the rest.
But I have my own issues as well.
My personal comfort level wants to screen and dismiss aspects of Him that are uncomfortable: Aspects that I cannot explain or justify in my desperate desire to make Him 'acceptable' to the culture, inside or outside of the church.
But the One who stands at the door of His own church and has to knock to come in (Rev.3) is not some anemic and wimpy Mr. Rogers with a beard.
He is both beyond kind and beyond fierce.
He traffics in LIFE - and that is both a reward and a risk.
Go back to the source material and seek His Face with unmitigated gall and abandon.
Ask God to remove any blind spots you've accepted from your enemy.
Respond to the knock and pry open your door to see the Wild, Wooly and Wonderful One standing there waiting.
Just be prepared to be wrecked for your own good.
LIFE will flow through you to others.
Stephen
Replay of The Deck teaching, click here.
(PS - I reference a teaching from Andrew Wommack on Hardness of Heart. Highly recommend. Go here to listen/download it for free.)
Facebook.com/TheFreedomOutpost Go to the YouTube Channel for The Freedom Outpost for all Deck replays and to subscribe to updates/new videos as they are available.
