Outrageous

Starving Jesus by Craig Ross & J.R. Mahon:

Christ didn’t walk into Jerusalem – he fulfilled prophecy by riding in on a donkey. It was outrageous. He wans’t born in a nice home with all kinds of assurances he would be okay – he was born in a barn, with a feeding trough for a crib. It was outrageous. John the Baptist baptized the Son of God. Outrageous. Jesus raised people from the dead. Called the religious authority of the day “sons of the Devil.” Told people he was God. Outrageous, outrageous, outrageous.

Why does God use the outrageous? Because he needs our attention.

Any why, when using the outrageous, does he use guys like Simon Peter? Peter was the same guy who rebuked Jesus openly, cut off a guy’s ear, and denied Christ three times. I mean, come on! And with all that, Christ still told Peter, “On this rock I will build my church” (Matt 16:18). Does any of this make sense?

Somewhere along the way, we’ve lost the ability to act outrageously in the name of Christ. If we decided to do a Walk on Water Outreach on Lake Erie, the first people to complain would be Christians. We are very willing to drive outreach from the backseat, but when the hands must get dirty, when the rubber hits the road, we have no opinion and nothing to say.

The church has lost its outrageous edge. Period.

Outrageous acts of faith are not in our best interest anymore, because they require us to talk to other human beings, and communication with people might mean that our precious comfort zone gets breached. Today, outreach is safe, with nicely contained events, controlled by the politically correct. We have become a church chained to itself.

What if you decided to call sin out? What if tomorrow you got up and decided to help? Anyone? What if you just shut your mouth, got up, chucked this book in the trash, and did something, anything short of sin, to end someone’s pain and misery?