God is big. Creator, blahblah, universe is big. blahblah. You know the lines. But while we are quick to praise God for his bigness, I think that rarely translates into how Christians should do/be big things.
We often relegate Jesus into the small things in life. We want him to show up in the quiet moments (and how often does THAT happen in my life?) We want him to help us with that little temper that makes us cranky all day.
And these things are well and good - but God is bigger than that. Jesus' love does not leave room for just little things, but massive in-your-face OMG I-can't-believe-that-just-happened things. We should be behemoths in our world.
To be sure, its not a power issue. When I say Christians should be big I don't mean we should coerce, manipulate, or opress others. I'm saying Jesus calls us to be bigger servants. Different people have a way of making bigger challenges.
I can't help but think of Jesus' talk with Nick late at night. To be a new creation (or born again) is the biggest change possible. To use Paul's language - we must die to our former selves. Does it get any bigger than that? All the chips are on the table...its bottom of the 9th, two outs and we need to hit a grand slam to win. We are coming around on the home stretch of the race and we have to give every ounce of energy left to run the good race.
Well...you get the idea. God is real big, and we should think about how we can be bigger.
We often relegate Jesus into the small things in life. We want him to show up in the quiet moments (and how often does THAT happen in my life?) We want him to help us with that little temper that makes us cranky all day.
And these things are well and good - but God is bigger than that. Jesus' love does not leave room for just little things, but massive in-your-face OMG I-can't-believe-that-just-happened things. We should be behemoths in our world.
To be sure, its not a power issue. When I say Christians should be big I don't mean we should coerce, manipulate, or opress others. I'm saying Jesus calls us to be bigger servants. Different people have a way of making bigger challenges.
I can't help but think of Jesus' talk with Nick late at night. To be a new creation (or born again) is the biggest change possible. To use Paul's language - we must die to our former selves. Does it get any bigger than that? All the chips are on the table...its bottom of the 9th, two outs and we need to hit a grand slam to win. We are coming around on the home stretch of the race and we have to give every ounce of energy left to run the good race.
Well...you get the idea. God is real big, and we should think about how we can be bigger.
It seems to me that getting big means getting small first. I mean, leaving behind all of the boasting and confidence in ourselves and our limitations...as well as our abilities. Then, after we get rid of that stuff, it's like we're freed...completely freed to simply talk / walk faith. That's F A I T H. Not the belief stuff, but the step off a cliff, free fall, and fly because God wants us to simply trust in him and not at all in ourselves.
ReplyDeleteIt's not fake humility. It's absolute belief in who God really is. So whatever he is calling us to do, we have to start believing it. We have to trust God to support the dream, support the mission.
Dream Big, Trust Big, Do Big. If we trust in God to make it happen, then there is no such thing as failure...there's no real personal success...only the furtherance of the kingdom of God on this earth. The merger of Heaven with earth. The conquering of the evil, the victory of the ultimate good.
May God be praised. Let's kick ass in his name. Amen.
Thanks for the inspiration Jack.
ReplyDeleteWe really have a hard time with acknowledging the bigness of God. God is constantly calling us to things that we cannot do on our own. But those are the things we so often resist. I don't know where we got the idea that God's call for us is supposed to make sense in the moment. Ask the prophet of your choice, the Israelites in the desert, or the disciples on any day.
ReplyDeleteI get tired of hearing that feeding the hungry, healing the sick, or ending poverty are naive, impossible calls. With at least a third of the world claiming to be followers of Jesus, He has already given us what we need to do His work. We just gotta have faith.