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Saw a tweet from Exponential yesterday from my friend Jenni Clayville:

“LOVE is to risk. When we play it safe, we aren’t being like Jesus.” –Alan Hirsch

It caused me to reflect on how often we (his disciples) see Jesus in so many different ways. Some may say it’s a reflection of the various aspect of Jesus as he goes about meeting our needs or calling us closer to him, but I would disagree. I think regardless of how we feel Jesus is speaking to us, we always think of it from his perspective of loving kindness. However, in reality, Jesus was a risk taker and game changer! He challenged the authority and even the traditional rules of the holy sabbath day. Jesus was rarely in a place that would be considered safe. So, if we are truly following him, then if we find ourselves in safe and comfortable places, is Jesus really just one step ahead?

I’m reminded of the Nooma Video titled Dust. It’s titled Dust because back in Jesus’ day rabbis had followers that walked with them everywhere in the hopes that they would learn some great piece of wisdom. Rumor has it that they followed so closely that even while going to the bathroom a rabbi could expect a disciple to be at his side in fear of missing out on something if he weren’t there. They had a saying back then:

“May you be covered by the dust of your rabbi.”

Which in essence meant, may you so-closely follow in the footsteps of your rabbi that as he walks, the dust that gets kicked up from his sandals covers you. Pause for a moment and process that. Take any of the gospel accounts of Jesus that you can think of and imagine following him that closely. You’ll realize that Jesus was a very dangerous man in his day, and he has called us to follow him into those areas as he covers us in his holy, loving, empowering dust.

Related posts:

1. Love…it’s not better than the law, it *is* the law
2. Love Letters…
3. Love Letter: I owe so much to you!
4. Love others as yourself
5. Atheist vs Christian: God is Love?

Tags: alan hirsch, faith, jesus, love, risks

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 22nd, 2010 at 10:35 am and is filed under Christianity, Dave (personal), faith, jesus, worship. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.