This blog was originally started as a blog about manhood, but I feel like the topic that I want to cover needs to be expanded on in an entirely separate blog before I can finish the other one (also this gives me the chance to collect all my thoughts as well). The man blog is coming, just not at the moment! The Lord is just really walking me through this aspect of his character at the moment, and this just feels more right to write. Well here it is, I hope you enjoy!
Take a minute to sit and think about Jesus, just really picture him and what he does. I want you to actually do this, so please do so before you continue reading! What did you see, what did our Savior look like to you? From my experience, most people will picture the kind, gentle face of Jesus. You know the one, the one where he has neat hair, a nice beard, perfect skin, looking at an slight angle away from us, and just the slightest hint of a duck face. What did you imagine him doing? Was it him holding the little children, teaching in a synagogue, or maybe even hanging on the cross? We love seeing Jesus this way, as the gentle man who loved to play with children, and who only slightly reprimanded the Pharisees? We see Jesus, and to an extent the Father, as just a nice guy. Don’t get me wrong Jesus was kind and gentle, but what if he was more than that?
The fact of the matter is that we serve a ferocious, wild, and dangerous God. I could play into a lot of cliches here, about how we only think of the OT God as wrathful and dangerous but how he is the same always and we should still fear him. To be fair that is true, but it goes deeper than that. We strip God of a complete aspect of his character, and whole new side of the Father is gone in modern day times! When we strip the Father of his danger and ferocity, we do the same to Jesus. Let me put this straight here, I’m not saying that the Lord is kind and gentle, and he definitely isn’t always ferocious, I just want to make that we’re overlooking an aspect of the Lord. A book that I love dearly, Wild at Heart by John Eldredge, puts it this way, “Now- is Jesus more like Mother Teresa or William Wallace? The answer is . . . it depends.” The Father is gentle kind, and always willing to pull us into his loving arms when we need it. Sometimes though we need something more than that, we need the Lion of Judah.
Let’s take this to Scripture shall we? Let’s take a look at Revelation 19 11-15, where John sees what Jesus shall be when he returns to defeat the enemy once and for all.
“I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but himself. He is dressed in a robe dripped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. ‘He will rule them with an iron scepter.’ He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. (NIV)”
I don’t know about you, but this isn’t the nice face of Jesus that I always pictured as a kid. This is the dangerous God in the flesh, come to take his kingdom and bride by force. Jesus may be gentle and kind, but as we can see above, he knows when to bring force. So you might be saying now, “Well that’s only in Revelations when there is a battle to be fought, he wasn’t that wild in his lifetime!” That isn’t exactly true either, Jesus used force when he had to. There’s the classic table flipping scene at the temple, but I’m going to use another example here. John 18:6 states, “When Jesus said, ‘I am he,’ they drew back and fell to the ground.” This verse is about when all the guards came to arrest Jesus, and he was declaring that he was the Messiah to them. He didn’t say this gently either, he declared it with all the force and power that he had. Which is apparently enough force to knock grown men to the ground with just his voice. That seems pretty powerful to me.
I’ve fallen in love with the Lion of Judah over the last couple of days. Seeing how God is ferocious and wild has been an absolute wonder to me in my walk, and especially in my walk as a man. A huge place I’ve seen this aspect of the Lord is in Hosea, which is a wonderful book that I recommend you read if you haven’t. I see how the wildness and danger of God is combined with his deep heart of love for his people. We serve a jealous God, and when this is mixed with his danger and power, he will literally do anything to have us. This is represented beautifully in the marriage of Gomer and Hosea, and how Hosea literally have to buy his own wife back once she re-enters into prostitution. Hosea went to an extreme that most people wouldn’t even dream of once their wife cheated on them, let alone being a prostitute. But we do the same to God, and he does exactly what Hosea did right back to us. The Lion of Judah does what it takes to have his bride, and that may look like stripping us of all the substitutes and idols we have in place of God. In Hosea it looks a lot like absolutely wrecking Israel for their adultery, they have nothing else to turn back to once the Lord is done with them. God wants our hearts, and he will have them.
This all sounds a little morbid, but it’s all about the context that you view it in. When you look at it from a perspective of the world, it’s a little terrifying quite honestly. But if you change the perspective to one of love, it is tremendously comforting. We have a God that will go to extreme lengths for his people, a God that will do miracles to win our hearts. Quite honestly, love is a little painful and dangerous at times, and the Lord shows that perfectly. Sometimes God has to rip open something inside of us to pull us closer to him, and it hurts like hell. See the thing is though, it’s all about how he loves us. In the moment it’s rather painful, but a little bit down the line we gain clarity. We see how the wild actions that God does in our lives that hurt us in the moment have made us something so much more. The ferocity, danger, and wildness of God all comes together to pull his bride into ever deeper relationship with him. It’s a little bit exhilarating! We have a God that wants his people so desperately that he will do what it takes to have us, and this far surpasses the extent of human love. We are a people that serve such a mighty and powerful God, one that can quite honestly demolish us at any given moment. The thing is though, all this God wants to do is love us. That’s wild and dangerous if you ask me.
Well friends, there you go! This has been what the Lord has been teaching me lately, and it honestly takes my breath away. God is just amazing and deep, and always has something new to amaze me. It is absolutely wild. On to some more update things! I’m the new treasurer for my team, and I absolutely love and adore it! I love getting to combine my love for finance with serving my team and ministry! I am also still in the process of fundraising for CGA, so please take some time to pray about donating! I love and miss you all, and it is only short 40 days till I will be on American soil again!
See you soon,
Tucker Stevens
