One of the things I love about NT Wright’s writing is he uses phrases that scare the living daylights out of people like me who are used to the abuse of those words. When Wright dares to move into territory that sounds a lot like the old “Kingdom Now” theology I studied in college, I get nervous.
Yet, he refuses to surrender vocabulary because someone else misused it. He wants us to understand what Jesus is proclaiming, these are the words Jesus used, so let’s try to recapture the power of what Jesus is saying, rather than get turned off by the abuse someone has heaped on those words lately.
As we discussed Wright’s book in our staff meeting yesterday, the discussion turned toward what we want to see. What can happen is beyond the “epic” language and “epic” experiences we hear about today. As we were talking, the thought occurred to us, “Think of us meeting here, full of the Spirit, talking about the Kingdom, and then someone walking in and out of this coffee shop. Think of the possibility of someone walking in sick and walking out healed… and we would never know about it this side of heaven.”
Think about it.
But what do we want? Unfortunately, what we want is to know about it, take a picture of it, blast it on Facebook and hopefully get a TV appearance to talk about our “humble” walk with God.
It’s what I want. I’m not going to lie.
What if we gave up the ego chasing? What if we gave up the selfie mentality? What if we simply wanted to be transformed in the renewing of our minds and we allowed the Spirit to radiate from us any way he chose? What IF someone walked right past us and the glory of the Lord graciously healed them and we never knew?
Think if we all held that mentality and thirsted for that kind of walk with Christ… the incredible effect that would have on a city… That we didn’t endlessly write about it or book a service at a megachurch to tell thousands of Christians about it… but we just… lived life… Kingdom life.
Think about it.
Apprentice 2 Jesus 