Radical Sheep

"And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force."

~Matthew 11:12

This verse was one of my favorites for quite a while at a time in my life where, for the first time, I really felt like a warrior for Christ. While I caught on to the concept of fighting, being "violent" against the enemy, I never quite understood much more about what Jesus was saying here until yesterday morning when I read it again.

The footnotes in my New Spirit Filled Life Bible came in handy, stating, ". . . the idea of this verse is that the kingdom of heaven , which Jesus set up as a powerful movement or reign among men requires of them an equally strong and radical reaction. The violent then who take it by force are people of equal enthusiasm and commitment who are willing to respond to and propagate with radical abandonment the message and dynamic of God's reign." The footnotes also stated that Jesus could have likely been referring to Micah 2: 12,13, so I gave that a look as well:

"I will surely assemble all of you, O Jacob, I will surely gather the remnant of Israel; I will put them together like sheep of the fold, like a flock in the midst of their pasture; They shall make a loud noise because of so many people. The one who breaks open will come up before them; They will break out, pass through the gate, and go out by it; Their king will pass before them, with the LORD at their head."

I realize there is a lot I am not understanding in both of these passages, and I am no scholar or eloquent speaker (blogger in this case.) I digress; I totally pictured a herd of loud and radical sheep with Jesus, staff in hand, as their shepherd leading them in a charge to bust out of the gate and go be, well, radical. (Don't try to google "sheep riot," you will not get the image described here.)

We are called to be radical, for Jesus was radical. He didn't start riots in streets and nobody was killed at that time in His ministry but John the Baptist and Him, but what He did for us was radical. We are called to radically love, to let love radically change who we are, serve radically, be radically emptied of ourselves, and radically abandon all He would have us to in order to gain Him. To not seek what we would want, what we would do, but what Jesus would have us do. Otherwise, we will be likened to children sitting and whining about what  one did or didn't do for the other (Matthew 11: 16-27.) So, be loud and radical sheep- loud in love.