Saturday, April 20, 2013

Live the Imbalanced Life

Life, for Jesus, was not some balancing act.  Nor should it be for us. Life is not a pie graph cut into pieces, the purpose of which is to ensure that every piece gets equal attention: God, church, prayer, work, kids, play, exercise, paying bills, the golf game, etc. etc. Life is not a check-list of "to do" items. Jesus's "to do" list had one item only: God. If we do that One Thing, all other things shall be added unto us.

Jesus did not come to show us how to "balance our lives." Jesus wants the whole pie, all 100% of it. Life is to be lived from that perspective. "All" is to be given in love and worship and service to God. If your heart was a pie, then love the Lord your God with the whole thing, and not just a slice. Don't save any of it for yourself.

Hebrew culture didn't think in terms of pie graphs. People of that time thought hierarchically. Kings deserve 100% worship and allegiance; women, children, and beggars deserve nothing. Jesus, in what is called the "upside-down kingdom" or "Great Reversal," reverses the hierarchy, shockingly so. The Real King comes to us born an "expendable." The Real King is a non-person dying on a cross. All kingdom Jesus-activity is to be understood, not from the perspective of an equally sliced pie, but from an honor-shame hierarchy. Jesus didn't compartmentalize his life and, in addition, find time to give a sacrificial slice for us. As Greg Boyd has recently written, Jesus's entire lifestyle was an act of revolt against the powers of darkness, done in love, for us. (Greg Boyd, "The Ground-Level Deliverance Model," in James Beilby and Paul Rhodes Eddy, Understanding Spiritual Warfare: Four Views)

Hierarchies prioritize. Prioritize your life. Expend life on the Important Thing. Be pruned of the unimportant. The King has come to you. Give all your heart, soul, mind, strength, life, time, money, talents, in sacrifice to him and the cause of his Kingdom. Live life out of balance.