Making a Mess

On Christmas Eve, I cut my mom off right before she was about to share Jesus with a friend of ours. I threw my hands up between them and told the friend to retreat from the conversation. Why am I afraid of making a mess?

Part of my thinking is I want people to see a different church than the stone they grew up around. A church where they experience freedom and authenticity. A church that's - well - not afraid to make a mess.

What I've assumed about the non-Christians in my life is that they have heard the gospel before. John 3:16 is a tired line that they aren't buying. I’ve been a slave to that assumption.

The reality of Jesus walking on this earth, the profundity of what that means for us, is something they are "happy I feel strongly about" or "glad my faith is important to me." But in processing some of this, I can think of only two friends who have ever asked me what I believe in. And I can think of many more than two friends who I'm not sure *really* have heard about who Jesus is, why He came.

The second part of 2 Corinthians 5 is packed with the gospel message:

Verses 14-15: For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

Verse 17: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

Verse 21: God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Compelling. Convincing. For all. New. So that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

In the same chapter, Paul says "If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you." Maybe you needed to read or re-read those other verses. But that last one is for me today - a call to be out of my mind. A call to make a mess.