scandalous

As a leader in ministry, sometimes I get discouraged and even frustrated with the people I minister to.

I know. Scandalous.

Maybe you already think I'm a whiner.  But suspend your judgment for just a second until you hear what frustrates me.  Here it is:

Sometimes people give themselves permission to see and judge according to what is on the surface, rather than commit themselves to looking past the surface in the way that God requires, and in the way that God has made them able.

Take a look at this story from John 7:

21 Jesus said to them, "I did one miracle, and you are all amazed. 22 Yet, because Moses gave you circumcision (though actually it did not come from Moses, but from the patriarchs), you circumcise a boy on the Sabbath. 23 Now if a boy can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, why are you angry with me for healing a man's whole body on the Sabbath? 24 Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.

Some of us rob ourselves of being blessed by God by choosing to be ambivalent, discontent, or even angry when God moves and blesses something that doesn't jive with our expectations, preferences, or convictions... as if our expectations, preferences, and convictions are the core of who we are and how God is forming us.

They are not the core of who we are.  Instead, they are surface level things.  They change as we change, grow as we grow, develop as we develop.  They (should) evolve according to how God reveals more of himself to us.  

Our God is the God who delights in breaking our rules.  He revels in leaving our pseudo-godly expectations unfulfilled.  He longs for us to leave behind the boxes we've put him in, and instead venture out into the new and unknown - to follow him not simply as the God who once was, but the God Who Is.

He's the God who works on the day in which we thought it was a sin to work. Scandalous.

So, ask yourself:

Are you worshiping a scandalous God?

If not, you're probably not worshiping the God of the Bible.