Revolutionary Rules for Renegades

I spent all of last week immersed in Los Angeles. On Monday and Tuesday I took part in the Mosaic Church Immersion. On Wednesday it was Origins and on Thursday and Friday it was Catalyst. It was an incredible week of learning, processing, changing and connecting. There were a number of really great speakers at the events but one of the guys (no pun intended) that impacted me the most was Guy Kawasaki. A self-described evangelist for Macs, he is one of the most innovative and brilliant people that I’ve ever met. I just wanted to tell you that, especially since I'm not actually talking about Guy today. Dave Gibbons, in his Origins session, asked the question, “How are we engaging the transition that’s currently affecting the world?”

He proceeded to highlight the fact that as Christ-followers we should see the major global transitions that are happening economically, socially and otherwise, as opportunities rather than stumbling blocks. He explained that many of the greatest miracles in life happen in transition. In Luke 17, Jesus was at the intersection of Galilee and Samaria when He encountered ten lepers who called out to Him for help. Jesus simply instructed them to go and show themselves to the priests. The priests were responsible for pronouncing lepers as unclean. These men were already outcasts from the larger community, living on the fringes of society, in a world without the caress of a human touch. They could have wondered at Jesus’ instructions, especially since they really wanted to be healed. “What good will showing ourselves to the priests do?” they may have reasoned.

Fortunately for them, rather than wonder they obeyed. They began to head towards wherever it was the priests were, not knowing for sure why they were going or what was going to happen. Here’s what the Scriptures record: “And as they went, they were cleansed.” (Luke 17: 14)

Wow! They were healed not when they cried out to Jesus, not when He instructed them to go to the priests, but when they got up and acted on His directives, as 'senseless' as they may have seemed under the circumstances. What if they’d decided not to go because the instructions didn’t exactly line up with their expectations? So what's my point? Wherever you are in your journey during this global transition, just start moving in the direction you’re persuaded God has called you to go, regardless of how ‘foolish’ that might look. What 'foolish' thing is God asking of you during this season that doesn't at all seem to make sense? We’ll pick up this idea again tomorrow.