Be Prepared
“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6
You might ask, “Why are you talking about a Christmas event, when you should be talking about the Resurrection this time of year?” There are two very good reasons that have nothing to do with a liturgical calendar or time of year. First, neither of these church holidays would exist without the other, regardless of the time or season in which they are celebrated. Second, both were Christ moments that disrupted everything that the religious world was expecting from Yahweh; when it came to the King He was sending into the earth.
Steve preached last week about “Disruption by Design”, and, for the first time in my life I really hadn’t seen Christ’s birth, death and resurrection as anything but church activities on a calendar. Also, my father as a pastor had told me these stories over and over, year after year. Now, before you think I’m minimalizing these historic and vital Christian occurrences, examine how you, as a Believer saw them yourself. When I recognize that the only way the religious system was going to have the opportunity to see Yahweh’s great power to have His way with the church, was to disrupt everything they knew, or thought they knew.
Now I, as a young Believer(or at least churchgoer) was always trying to disrupt the current church order of things and try to upset the heirarchy in any way possible! The problem with my disruptions(full of zeal), was that most of them were of my own doing and had nothing to do with God, only rebellion.(Hey, it was the ’70’s.) But when I learned that Yahweh was the only one who could disrupt by design, I learned to lean into Him because He was the Designer!
God isn’t asking us to disrupt things in our own mind, because that creates confusion in the very circumstances we want to change. But, disruption in the middle of mediocre religion and tradition by His design will, and has changed the world in a spectacular way. Today, don’t try to create disruption, just be everything God wants you to be and be prepared for every moment of opportunity brought your way. Your very presence will disrupt the “norm” without you manufacturing anything. Just be you!