“One of the greatest injustices we do to our young people is to ask them to be conservative. Christianity is not conservative, but revolutionary.” ― Francis August Schaeffer Comfort zones often dictate how we view and interpret the world as it ought to be. The labels conservatives, moderates and liberals are the usual lenses used to view and translate the current state of the world according to our own safe havens. The aforementioned interpretation castes not only see things from their slanted perspectives the ears are programmed to hear in the same language as they see. From my biased way of thinking Francis Schaeffer’s quote could easily include liberal or moderate to replace conservative and ring true. The important reality is that Christ was and is a radical revolutionary. He came to transform our entire way of defining the world not revise and edit. Conservative, liberal and moderate is our lens through which we view and decipher the world as we see it. What God sees as sacred we view as common. Too often the blessings God bestows on us are received with an entitlement spirit. They can be viewed as perks or a number of other self centered validations of our significance that justifies our slanted perspective. Such points of view almost always places us in the center of our universe and the blessings that were intended to bear fruit dies on the vine which is the opposite of how Christ revealed himself. What made the Christ revolutionary was that He was not the mere receptacle of God’s blessing rather the conduit, the channel and the extension of all of God’s good intentions for all of mankind. When we consider that the creator became the created, the heaven dweller became a babe born in a metaphoric barn, and the Master became a servant can we consider that His personal comfort zone was not the driving force behind His understanding of this world? The very fact that he was not born in a palace should tells us his approach does not fit the conventional rather turn the standard upside down. Could it be the reason that he said; “if anyone would choose to follow after me must deny him self and take up his cross daily and then walk in my foot steps.” (my paraphrase of Jesus’ words) To love God foremost and my neighbor as myself is a radical transformation of our human instincts that if followed evaporates every comfort zone except the one that leads us into the very presence of the God who has called for a transforming revolution which cannot be defined by man made labels. It is a transformed life that passionately holds not to the truth but the spirit of the truth that was revealed permeated with God’s love and grace. Lord, make me more radical everyday and fill me with your gracious truth each day because you know I leak. Amen
Posted on: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 14:45:20 +0000