WHY IS JESUS SO CHALLENGING TO THE HEART?

Jesus is the ultimate of all human challenges.

We tend to believe we've got it.  We've got it figured, measured, and solved as to his disposition as well as ministry.  It seems that a course on the Interactive Gospels pretty much sums up this Jesus who perplexes both law and grace.

But not so.

A problem I seem to have after serious study of him for four decades is that Jesus cannot and will not be summed up in a filing system from even my best thinking.  He is not just bigger than life.  He is Big Life.  About the time I think I have him explained he seems to break out in some sort of knowledge epidemic that I didn't see coming.  And, I don't know how to handle it.

Jesus is different.  All would agree.  Yet, I wonder if  I have reduced him to handleable and manageable.  He must fit our descriptions and our explanations.  Once we have reduced him to our framework of control, then we seem to be off and running with promoting the kingdom of God.

The world of seekers cannot afford to be offered a Jesus who walks our streets but not upon our lakes.  These must have a shot at the absurd Jesus; the one who we believe lived and then died and then was raised again.

We must continue to learn of the man/God.  Our side of understanding will always pale compared to God's staggering truth.  Care must be given to refrain from thoughtlessly dismissing attributes and standards found in Jesus; yet assumed not to be of us.  It serves us well to always be on the grow.

To love deeper and to believe higher, wider, and farther are surely Jesus manifestations.  To speak as if nothing can become something is not normal.  It is faith. Faith isn't normal.  It is the God-zone of Holy Spirit confidence which overrides human inadequacy day in and day out.

Jesus is very challenging to the heart because he will not and cannot be restricted to man's best imagination.  He thrives to walk where man can't; to accomplish wide ranges of impossibility which are, admittedly, very foreign to the flesh side of you and me.

Why is Jesus so challenging to the heart?  We tend to convince ourselves that our very best is what God requires.  This isn't true.  He requires we lean in upon the Master of Life with whole heart without personal justification or restriction to what we might get done.  By faith we transfer our lives over to the Jesus dimension....and this is a whole new world of making the earth trek with true citizenship in heaven....right now.