Meeting with God…
02.03.25
(This week’s devotional is a collection of thoughts from Having the Mind of Christ by Ben Sternke and Matt Tebbe: Chapter 4. “God Meets Us In Our Messy Reality.”)
“Most people in the Gospels, it seems, approached Jesus with ulterior motives and hidden agendas. They tried to test or impress Jesus, or hid from him, or recruit him for a self-justification project. We call this a “hustle” because this dynamic is best identified by two definitions: busy movement/activity and a fraud/swindle. To “hustle” in a spiritual sense is to expend lots of energy to try to gain something from God (and others) by hiding, performing, or pretending instead of recognizing and expressing our actual state of being… The entirety of scripture reveals that hustling is prevalent in humanity’s interactions with the divine.
But we can take heart that God looks like Jesus- fiercely committed to unveiling our hustle and calling us to get real about our messy reality, because it’s the only way to grow.
When we say “our messy reality” we aren’t talking about how things are out there in the world as much as we are talking about the internal state of our hearts, and our willingness to be aware of and present to it, instead of pretending or denying. Paul at one point admonishes the Thessalonian church to “keep awake and be sober.” (1 Thes 5:6) Jesus uses the word “hypocrites” (which means theatre actors) to describe inconsistencies between the external and internal world of a person.
Jesus is a master at helping people meet with him right where they really are in their messy reality. He uses questions, stories, miracles, and object lessons to help others drop their pretense, stop hiding, posing, and just be where they really are and say what they really mean. Why? Because he knows God most fully meets us in our messy reality.
Those who encounter Jesus find that they must choose:
Stay committed to the hustle… or meet with God.
Wish they were somewhere/someone else… or meet with God.
Demand God be other than God is… or meet with God.
Impress others… or meet with God.
Be right… or meet with God.
Recruit Jesus to be a part of their project… or meet with God.
Maintain their power or status… or meet with God.
We can just be HERE. And we can meet God HERE. This is how we avail ourselves, in fiath, to communion in love.”