God spoke to me in the form of a math equation the other day (I majored in math, I’m weird already – I know)…..BUT before you write me off as crazy, hear my point.
God speaks to us in ANY way that we are willing to listen. And sometimes, He speaks to us in ways that interrupt us if we are refusing to listen.
But my point is, Jesus called out “religion” when He was on earth because they had made it into a box.
You had to stay “in the box” in order to meet their religious expectations.
You had to follow 25684 rules to qualify to be worthy of “their box.”
Jesus came to smash the box that man built around the access to His presence.
Yes, there are still standards and commandments that we are called to live by. Don’t get it twisted, we can’t just throw out God’s law. It is still very beneficial to us and contains countless lessons and ways for us to draw closer to understanding the character of God. And in a fallen world, we needed Jesus to fulfill the law because we couldn’t do it.
The problem is, they acted like THEY could do it. And that created an arrogance about them. And that arrogance built walls to keep others out. When all God ever wanted was relationship with His children.
So when you think about it, our society is doing the same thing except we look even more crazy cause Jesus already came to tell us that was the wrong way to do it. And yet here we are, with our walls up treating anybody that “doesn’t fit in our box” like someone with leprocy in their day.
Jesus will NOT be confined to “your religious box.”
Literally some of the main things He did while on earth was call out religious people and welcome outcasts (that were labeled as outcast by the religious people claiming to truly know God) by being kind and spending time with them.
I’m not saying you have to support or agree with everybody. But when we feel ourselves getting angry cause someone is operating outside of “our box,” maybe we should check ourselves instead of checking them.
Then, if we interact with them, WITH LOVE – they MIGHT actually be like wow…. That was different. I want some of that. Otherwise, we just out here looking like Oscar the grouch in our own little trash can (I mean box).
And not only that – just telling someone they’re wrong doesn’t do anything.
Why?
At least half of Jesus’s parables were about seeds and plants.
Seeds take time to grow and develop and mature and need nourishment aka LOVE.
Seeds don’t grow because we yell at them.
Seedlings die from shock when we expect them to go from one extreme to another in one day.
Even mature plants need nourishment.
And yes, sometimes we care for a plant and do everything right and it still doesn’t make it. But the only thing you are accountable for is how YOU treated the plant. If you cared for it and something outside of your control happened, okay. But if you simply ignored it or abused it, then the failure IS on you.
It takes time, and a whole lot of love and care, for someone who was once labeled as an outcast by a group of people to believe and understand that label was actually a lie from Satan and that a NEW life awaits them.
So instead of living in a box or a trash can, why not open the lid? Let THE light in, nourish it with some LOVE, and allow space for people to GROW near you. Our lives should look like a garden, not a box. Because “they will know you by your fruit.”
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*as always, this is written as an overflow of God dealing with ME before anyone else*