Boom!

When you open the Bible, you never know.

I am dead serious.

You never know when it's going to reach out and grab you by the heart and shake your soul.

For me, it really doesn't matter why I wound up opening the it, or whether I do it in a modern translation or ancient - in print or on a screen. There are times when I am just slayed by the power of the Story, of the "rightness" of the way Jesus acts, of the reaction of those who rejected Him, and of those who didn't.

For example -

He put a child in the middle of the room. Then, cradling the little one in his arms, he said, "Whoever embraces one of these children as I do embraces me,

and far more than me--God who sent me."

The picture I get of this is Jesus taking a little boy and placing him on His lap. The GK word indicates an embrace in the crook of the arm. I can see the little boy snuggling closer, Jesus looking down and smiling, maybe taking his other hand and tousling the boy's hair. People who were listening to Jesus teach but kind of hanging back, move closer. Holding the boy seems to make Him less of a threat to the status quo.


Then He speaks, and they realize that Jesus would turn their world upside down. He's changing reality. What mattered before, doesn't. What didn't, does.

But look back with me.

Years later, Jesus has been killed and has risen again. Christianity is spreading. The world is changing.

And someone in Capernaum,

now a young man, takes his little boy into his lap -


and suddenly

he remembers the day 
when 
he was held 
in God's arms.

WOW! 

One day, we all will know how that feels. Until then, we'll have to love one another.


18 My dear children, let's not just talk about love; let's practice real love. 19 This is the only way we'll know we're living truly, living in God's reality.
1 John 3:18-19 (MSG)