Against the Flow

No one could ever accuse Jesus of maintaining the status quo.

From birth, the long-expected Messiah came to the world in the most unexpected of ways. The smelly cow’s stall, the lowly manger, the swaddling clothes barely wrapping his newborn body, the humble audience who received Him — all were eons away from what one would anticipate for the birth of the King and Savior of all men.

His life and death were just as shocking. His complete abandonment to God, his miracles, and his message of forgiveness rocked the religious establishment. He overturned “tables” of all kinds. The cross, although foreseen by the prophets, broke the power of evil’s darkness just at the moment when it looked like all was lost. As one lyricist puts it, “It was a strange way to save the world.”

But save us he did. And he remains in the business of shaking up our positions of shallow comfort and false security. He wants to upset our apple carts from time to time lest we enter into a gradual state of spiritual entropy — that place of watered-down passion where the light that should shine before all barely flickers.

May God look on us and deem us vessels to which he can entrust the radical, unorthodox, sweeping nature of his Son.

Father, thank you for saving us exactly the way that you did, so far beyond our comprehension and expectation. I pray you would help us shine brilliantly for you. May we invite you to enter every part of our lives and shake us up. Grant us the power to let go of our puny thinking in exchange for your thoughts.

Throughout This Day: Commit to enter into the flow of the Holy Spirit this season and always. Look for ways to obey the radical promptings of the Holy Spirit today!