The Main Thing – Jesus and His Crazy Radical Love

By: Jana Greene

If you know me even casually, you know that God has propelled me into a radical spiritual journey over the past couple of years. I use the word “propelled” because that’s what it feels like….like being ejected from a plane that has been shot down. You know it’s for your own good, that the ‘eject seat’ saved your life, but you are still zooming into the stratosphere at a million miles an hour and the G-Force is a bitch.

Still, I asked him to intervene. I asked God to reveal Himself to me. I just have to trust that He has packed my parachute.

And these times are just so incredibly weird. So RADICAL. It’s easy to become unfocused, with all the brouhaha going on in the world. It’s too easy to become divided into camps in the Christian community.

Pro-gay-marriage. Anti gay-marriage.

Pro-abortion. Anti abortion.

Pro/Anti-Feminist, Immigration, Gun Control….

The list is endless, inducing stridency and resentment in even the most pure-hearted. I feel so strongly about some issues that it literally makes my heart hurt.

The unintentional message we often relay to a world when we shut them out is this:

If you are pro-(fill in the blank) – you are separated from God and also you are making me SUPER UNCOMFORTABLE. So, knock it off already. I will be over here with the Good Christians feeling smug about my superiority if you change your mind about your lifestyle. I will be over here ready to help when you get with the program.

Except for there is EVERY hope for whomsoever believes, if you a sinner. While we were still sinners, Jesus came. And hung out with some of the most disreputable folks of the day, loving them where they are.

I was so sure I had it all figured out, before I asked God to take me deeper. I was so sure I knew all of the main things. I knew where the right side to stand was on every issue. The Biblical stand. The 10 Commandment Stand. I expected God to basically confirm that all the things I was focused on were the “correct” things.

And I was right and you were wrong, and sorry. Just sorry, but there is not hope for you if you don’t tow the line, Buddy.

Just tow the line.

Instead, Abba wrecked my heart with compassion for the people and groups I previously considered unreachable. Just wrecked it, I tell you.

Much like a game of Red Rover, society requires us to pick a side or be picked by a side. And link arms with similarly-minded bretheren, sisteren (or gender-neutral-‘ren) so that when the opposing side sends someone to run up against the chain, no one gets through.

Except that when we do that as believers, NO ONE GETS THROUGH.

No one gets to change sides to the team that is destined to win.

Grace gets lost to the object of the game. And that is not what Christ overcame the world for…..to be elusive to people who don’t think or behave the way we think or behave.

It isn’t that these things aren’t important.

It’s not that some of these things are not sin.

It’s just that none of them are The Main Thing.

“Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.” Romans 5:8 (MSG)

This crazy world, the one that pushes through our chains of solidarity? Jesus died for THAT world, not the neat and tidy one we like to disenfranchise from. The world is begging to know The Main Thing.

He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. Being weak and rebellious isn’t The Main Thing either.

Jesus. He is the Main Thing.

Do I have it all figured out? No. I have zero superiority over ANY OTHER PERSON ON THIS PLANET and I know it. I’ve figured out that much.

Am I willing to be uncomfortable? Because my comfort isn’t The Main Thing. That was hard to let go of. Comfort is so COMFORTABLE.

Do I risk having other Christians consider me a heretic? What people think about me isn’t The Main Thing either. (That G-Force is a bitch.)

In these radical times, what is The Main Thing?

Jesus is.

That’s all I have to know and that’s all I have to tell YOU.

So, I’m telling you. Christ came to set you FREE!

Red Rover, Red Rover, let WHOMSOEVER come over.

Amen.

This is an interview with a Pastor I have followed for about the past year. I love her message. I love the rawness of it, the energy she brings. I pray that it might bless you today, as you perhaps try to figure out less, and love more.

Just click the link under her picture.

God bless us, every one.

Lutheran Minister Preaches A Gospel Of Love To Junkies, Drag Queens And Outsiders