Heart Tracks - Loosed

"They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and He preached the word to them." Mark 2:2....."The Word preached with power and fidelity draws the world, that's clear enough. But it's the the Word loosed, the Word incarnate, the Word speaking our truest names and naming our deepest wounds and ministering God's deepest remedy, that transforms the world." Mark Buchanan

The story in Mark 2 is a powerful one. A great crowd has gathered to hear Jesus preach, so great that a paralytic man could not get to Him and had to be lowered through a hole in the roof. In response, Jesus healed him, and then commanded him to take up his mat and walk.....and he did just that....I think we have become so familiar with this miraculous happening that we miss a great deal of what He would have us know through it.

There are a growing number of voices calling for the full Word of God to be preached in His church. I am among them. However, I think we are missing an exhortation to take the "next step" in that, which we clearly see in Jesus' performing of the miracle. He preached the Word, and then the Word became life to the paralytic, and the paralytic became whole. This is something that must happen in the church, but is it really? We can preach the Word, but does it accomplish transformational results in the lives of those who hear it? We can't be satisfied with just having the Word proclaimed. We must see it bear fruit in the midst of His people. Otherwise, we are in danger of sliding towards a Pharisee kind of lifestyle. They had a reverence for the Word of God, but were unable to recognize the Word made flesh when He was there before them. Likewise, we can "worship" the Word but miss, even fight against the realization of its fullness in our midst.

Some years ago I read a book titled "The Word And Power Church." The author believed that the church had two "camps," one that centered on recognizing and preaching His Word, and the other that was more focused on seeing His power manifested in the midst of His church, and through it to the world. He believed that what the Father was doing was bringing about a merging of these two into one Body where not only was the Word preeminent in all things in the church, but that regular manifestations of His power through that Word were as well. The Word preached in power yielded powerful results. The Word was not just confined to a cherished display case, but was loosed upon and through itself to become, through His people, incarnate in the midst of it all. The Bible says that His Word has power to penetrate to the very "marrow" of our being. For too long we have feared that penetration. We've tried to cage His Word and its power, to keep it under our control. We've tried to tame it, while His intention is that it be loosed, set free to make free, to transform, to upend broken lives and a broken world. That's what happened in the first century church. Is it what is happening in ours?

Francis Chan, in his book, "Letters To The Church," likens the church to animals in the movie "Madagascar." They all lived in caged comfort in the zoo. When an accident renders them loose upon an actual island filled with wild animals, they have no idea what to do. He sees the church as being the same. We've too long tamed Christ, the Word made flesh, and we don't know what to do in the midst of a wild and lost world. We need to re-discover who we are in Him. We need to re-gain and live anew in the power of His Word. We need to be His Word made flesh to a world literally dying for that. We need to come out of our "cages," our fellowships, and allow Him to make His all-powerful Word, all-powerful through us. Word and Power churches yielding and producing Word and Power people and lives.

Do we really want this? Do you? Do we want to see His Word loosed in us, through us, and upon a paralyzed world? Or, do we prefer continuing life in our "cages," honoring His Word, but never realizing the fullness of it's power?

Blessings,
Pastor O