Wounded by Jesus

We always here how Jesus healed us and he has many of us in many ways.  The most critical our sin debt that existed.  But I think this sometimes makes us smug.  Yep smug.

We sit in churches feeling good about all God has done for us and we go to our jobs and we make our money and we buy our toys and we hang with our social groups and we go on our token mission trips and we say prayers (sometimes) and we continue in the worlds system with a bit of a better moral compass and a fuzzy feeling that God love us so much.

I just want to be honest.  The more I live down here, the more I feel wounded by Jesus.  Not in a bad way per say.  It just feels bad sometimes.  But I think it's right.  The more we follow Jesus the less comfortable the world and it's ways are to us.

When Jacob wrestles with God he walks away with a limp.  He walks away wounded.  His experience changed him so much that he would never walk in the same way in this life.  And when he did walk, it would hurt.

Following Jesus hurts.  Love of others takes priority over love of ourselves.  Humility becomes more important than pride.  Football becomes less important than the homeless.  TV shows disappear to the necessity of the Bible.  Gaining status falls to pouring your life out daily for the Gospel.  In fact, you kind of disappear in importance.  Money is less about beach trips and vacations and more about giving everything to God and the Gospel.

All of this hurts.  Because when I met Jesus, he changed me, he wounded me.  And the more I fall in love with him the more I understand how little all this matters and how much the entirety of my life is God's.  We walk as wounded men hurting from the pressure and desire of this world.  But the wound is sweet.  It marks us and reminds us that all this is but for a season.

One day we will walk with now wounds.  We have no home here.

Thanks so much to the men and women who have shown me how to walk wounded.  Especially to Wade and Kerrie Williams.  In our weakness (woundedness) his strength is made perfect.  Last Monday as I ran this song came on Pandora.  I worshiped.


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