God is silly. He just doesn't make sense. Every time we think we have something figured out, he just shows us how we've gone and got it wrong. It's because the ways of 'the world' - the ways that are natural to us - are not the ways that God acts and breathes and moves in. Jesus is just always not doing what we want him to do! In the days he walked the earth, the people were frustrated because he wasn't living up to their Messianic image: he wasn't taking the throne and kicking the Romans out. He wasn't uplifting the religiously superior and exalting those who have the Bible memorized inside-out. Instead he did something amazing and said, "Blessed is the person who isn't disappointed in me."
With Jesus' birth, the idea of Kingdom stopped being an idea and became a reality. Sure, God has always been present, but before Jesus, he simply wasn't available 24/7 - you had to go the Temple to meet him. When Jesus came, things took a different direction. When Jesus' refers to the Kingdom of God he isn't talking about Heaven: he's talking about human beings being able to interact with and involve themselves with God!
Kingdom isn't just open to the ministers and priests and deacons and Bible college graduates. No, it's for everyone - and Jesus made this so clear when he offered it no-hands-barred to the physically repulsive, the ones who smell bad, the twisted, misshapen, deformed, the too big, too little, too loud, the bald, the fat, the old, and those not relentlessly engaged in romance, sex, and fashionably equipped physical activities. He offers the Kingdom to the flunk-outs and drop-outs and burn-outs, the druggies and the divorced, the HIV-positive herpes-ridden, brain-damaged and terminally-ill. He offers it to the overemployed, the underemployed, the unemployed. He offers it to the barren and the pregnant-too-many-times and pregnant-at-the-wrong-time. Don't forget the swindled, the shoved aside, the replaced; the parents with children on the street and children with parents who won't die in "rest" homes. The lonely, incompetent, the stupid. The emotionally starved or emotionally dead. Murderers and child-molesters, war criminals and sadists, terrorists, drug lords, pornographers. The brutal and the bigoted. The David Berkowitzs, Jeffrey Dahmers, and Colonel Noriegas. The pederasts and perpetrators of incest. He offers it to the worshippers of Satan, to those who rob the aged and weak, to the cheaters and the liars, the bloodsuckers and the vengeful. Socialists, fascists, Nazis, capitalists. Fundamentalists and New Agers, Wiccans and Muslims, those who grew up in religion and those who know nothing about it. He offers it to the barbarian - and even the barbarian's barbarian. Jesus says that when these people cling to Kingdom, they are blessed!
No wonder Jesus doesn't make sense. Isn't he supposed to be some big religious guy???
**Kudos to Dallas Willard on this one.
With Jesus' birth, the idea of Kingdom stopped being an idea and became a reality. Sure, God has always been present, but before Jesus, he simply wasn't available 24/7 - you had to go the Temple to meet him. When Jesus came, things took a different direction. When Jesus' refers to the Kingdom of God he isn't talking about Heaven: he's talking about human beings being able to interact with and involve themselves with God!
Kingdom isn't just open to the ministers and priests and deacons and Bible college graduates. No, it's for everyone - and Jesus made this so clear when he offered it no-hands-barred to the physically repulsive, the ones who smell bad, the twisted, misshapen, deformed, the too big, too little, too loud, the bald, the fat, the old, and those not relentlessly engaged in romance, sex, and fashionably equipped physical activities. He offers the Kingdom to the flunk-outs and drop-outs and burn-outs, the druggies and the divorced, the HIV-positive herpes-ridden, brain-damaged and terminally-ill. He offers it to the overemployed, the underemployed, the unemployed. He offers it to the barren and the pregnant-too-many-times and pregnant-at-the-wrong-time. Don't forget the swindled, the shoved aside, the replaced; the parents with children on the street and children with parents who won't die in "rest" homes. The lonely, incompetent, the stupid. The emotionally starved or emotionally dead. Murderers and child-molesters, war criminals and sadists, terrorists, drug lords, pornographers. The brutal and the bigoted. The David Berkowitzs, Jeffrey Dahmers, and Colonel Noriegas. The pederasts and perpetrators of incest. He offers it to the worshippers of Satan, to those who rob the aged and weak, to the cheaters and the liars, the bloodsuckers and the vengeful. Socialists, fascists, Nazis, capitalists. Fundamentalists and New Agers, Wiccans and Muslims, those who grew up in religion and those who know nothing about it. He offers it to the barbarian - and even the barbarian's barbarian. Jesus says that when these people cling to Kingdom, they are blessed!
No wonder Jesus doesn't make sense. Isn't he supposed to be some big religious guy???
**Kudos to Dallas Willard on this one.
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