Following Jesus is a radical thing…

I mean, really…if we really, really follow him, as in if we use his life as a model for living…living a lifestyle like Jesus, he leads us to do radical things…because that’s what he did.

I love in Luke 6 when he strolls into Galilee…by the “Power of the Spirit”, mind you, and to begin his ministry he drops a spiritual atom bomb into the laps of these poor folks. His message was clear:
He said…first of all…I’m the Messiah…YES! the one you have been waiting for…and second of all, this is what I’m going to do – I’m going to PROCLAIM…the good news to the poor, release for the captives, sight for the blind AND freedom for the oppressed.

And that’s what he did. The rest of Luke is a beautiful picture of this happening…heaven meets earth in the person of Jesus and the kingdom of heaven begins to invade peoples lives…story after story after story.

The truth is, if we really follow Jesus, I believe he will most definitely lead us to the poor, the blind, the sick, the captives, the oppressed…because that’s where he goes and that’s the places that need to be made new. And in making things new through us, he also makes things new in us.
He takes those oppressed parts of our hearts and makes them new…setting us free.

And he sets us free and makes us new by his amazingly overwhelming redemptive grace…