under arrest….

STOP! HALT! BLUE lights flashing, sirens silenced for a moment, you are still running, maybe not physically but mentally the dash is still on. Words claiming that we have the right to remain silent. There is no way you can silence the inside voices RAGING AND ROARING within. You will physically be placed behind iron bars that are slammed shut, yet the bars you have been behind for years were mental.  The words you digested as truth when that certain someone you wanted to love you just didn’t know how, or refused to and lashed out, and placed you under arrest way before this event.  

The disciples too would find the bars of a prison, they would hear words hurled at them from people who referred to themselves as keepers of the law, religious leaders, teachers…yet the ones who could tell where the Messiah was going to be born refused to recognize Emmanuel, God with us, when His feet hit the ground. Jesus equipped the boys with nothing but a statement, a truth that would cause reactions from the “know it alls” of the day. He sent them into the streets 2 by 2 asking them to let everyone know the Kingdom of heaven is near. Tempers would flare; anger soared to new heights all because Jesus was fulfilling the very law they desired to keep. The new way had arrived. Yet the disciples walked through the verbal assaults. Why?

In our lives we, too, have opportunities to walk through personal times of arrest. Who are the people in your life you’re around when you’rejust not quite completely truthful in all of your statements? It’s the people around whom you seem to package what and how you are saying something in order for them to swallow and still be “good” with you. Or the times when you believe you know where everyone should be emotionally and you forfeit all of your voice in order to “help” others be ok with themselves and then ultimately you. When we do this we are placing ourselves under arrest; we are stopping the true course of who we are. So how can we like the disciples walk through this?

The kingdom of heaven is HERE…this is an active phrase Jesus was instructing the boys with, stating the Christ was indeed on the ground and ultimately live WITHIN us. 

Do you beLIeVE? We find out in each interaction. The more we walk through these, the more comfortable we are in the skin Jesus originally blew life into…the old “fake” self will continue to die as we beLIeVE in the resurrected life of HIM within.