Life This Side of Heaven Life This Side of Heaven

It’s surprising how easily it can sneak up on you. You’re doing something you love –gardening, taking a refreshing walk or enjoying an afternoon at the beach– when you’re hit with the familiar bane of summer: the sunburn. There’s another kind of burn that can easily sneak up you and me as God’s children –even as we're busy doing the very things we love.

Long before the words "Shake it off" became the catchy refrain of a song, Jesus said something like it here in Matthew.  He told the disciples, “Shake the dust off your feet.”  And while it sounds like the kind of thing you may tell your kids before getting into the car after a day at the beach, there's actually more to it than that.

“Who gets out of prison and then looks for a way to get back in?” The answer to that question may startle you. As Paul points out, the answer is that quite often ... it’s you and me. So the apostle reminds us how to live in this freedom that Christ has given to us.

You can almost imagine the apostle Paul, shaking his head, like that announcer, when he saw what was taking place before his eyes. The Galatians had it all. Forgiveness of sins and new life in Christ. The victory was theirs through faith in their Savior who had conquered sin, death and the devil at the cross. However, now they were in danger of fumbling the ball and losing it all. It's the reason folks often become disillusioned with church today. However, Paul directs our focus to Christ so that we don't find ourselves running in the wrong direction.

Superhero movies continue to dominate the box office. Many of those heroes, who put right what was wrong, have the power to shoot fire and lightning. And two of Jesus' disciples even requested this power to punish our Savior's enemies. However, He equipped them, and us, with something much more powerful.

When our Savior came across a man afflicted by demons, He was asked “What do you want with me Jesus?” It's worth knowing that this particular Greek phrase is not the easiest to translate into English. If it was someone today, you could almost imagine him snapping at our Savior and saying, “What are you looking at?” But thankfully, Jesus' response had everything to do with what He saw before Him.