In my office I have a Jesus Action Figure on my bookshelf. It had never been opened, just the way I liked it. But one day I walked into my office to this…
Jesus had been removed from his box. I had no idea where Jesus had gone, nor who had swiped him. I looked up only to discover Jesus posed in the lifted arms posture above the bookshelf.
I wondered, “Who in our church offices would commit such a despicable act?” It didn’t take me long to narrow it down to one suspect, my associate pastor. This wasn’t his first offense. I walked into my office one day only to find my desk chair gone. That was him. That began a weekly prank of things missing and moved around my office. All him. So, I called him to my office and asked him why he’d removed Jesus from the box. He looked at the empty box and said, “Wow! Where did Jesus go?” “Bro? Why you messing around? I know it was you that swiped Jesus!” I said. “Where’d you put him?” he asked again. I pointed up to Jesus neatly perched on top of the bookshelf. “That’s amazing! I’m getting chills right now. What’s Jesus trying to tell us?” he said. “Come on, bro! I know you did it!” I replied. “No, Jesus is trying to speak to us right now! I wonder what He’s saying. Maybe…hmm…maybe He’s saying we need to learn to get Jesus outside of the box!” he said. “No…wait, that was actually pretty good.” I admitted.
I’m afraid our Jesus is too small. Please don’t hear what I’m not saying. I didn’t say Jesus is small. I’m saying our version of Jesus is too small. We put limits on the limitless Jesus. We put boundaries, restrictions on Jesus. We confined Him to our Sunday morning time. Yet Jesus has the ability to bring life to every area in our life. Nothing is impossible for Jesus. I firmly believe that any area of struggle in our life is the area where we’ve limited Jesus’ access. It’s time for us to get Jesus outside of our boxes. Set Him free to revolutionize every area of your life.
Paul put it this way: “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us” Ephesians 3:20 (NIV)
Paul is saying:
· You can ask for what you think is the ultimate and Jesus’ like, “I can top that!”
· You can imagine things beyond your experience and Jesus’ saying, “That’s nothing, I can do more!”
That’s why I’m such a firm believer in corporate worship. The Psalmist says: Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together! Psalms 34:3 (ESV)
We have a natural tendency to magnify our problems instead of magnifying Jesus. Magnifying Jesus will always lead to minimizing your problems. Corporate worship helps us remind each other how great our God is. When we engage our God, our faith in Him grows into this unstoppable monster ready to take down anything the week throws at us.
* If you were wondering: To this day, my #1 suspect proclaims his innocence. And the Jesus Action Figure has “miraculously” appeared in different places around my office. The next upcoming blog entries will cover several strange locations the Jesus Action Figure was found.
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