Bondslave of the Impossible

Those who know me well know that I adore the story of mother Mary with a towering honor for her spirit. To me she embodies every quality which ought to typify all of Christianity. While Catholicism worships her as a deity and Protestants run the other way, both extremes are sadly in error. For the Catholic to make this beautiful lady a god is to miss the raw power of her humanity. For the Protestant to lightly pay her “honorable mention” pitifully misses the dare of God’s call to us to become as she was; a bondslave of the Lord and His impossible offer.

Luke 1:37,38 Records the summary of Mary and the angel Gabriel’s conversation, “(Gabriel) For nothing will be impossible with God. And Mary said, ‘Behold, the bondslave of the Lord; be it done to me according to your word.’” Does that do to you what it does to me? Let me see if I can unpack this adequately….
Mary is, at most, 16. There is absolutely no precedent for what she is hearing. The closest thing that might have crossed her mind was that of much older, married women of the Old Testament who were given children of promise….along with their husbands!

Mary is on an island in this category. There is no other way to describe this encounter other than astonishing in its reach and stunning in its ramifications. Yet, something in the transcendence of the moment pushes Mary to the conclusion that she must become a bondslave to this impossibility! Hear that again; she happily surrendered herself as a SLAVE of the Lord and His offer of doing the impossible.
My apostolic father, Bill Johnson says it this way, “Our debt to the world is an encounter with God”. To that end, we must become bondslaves of doing the impossible. A people of a covenant to live beyond our means! To do works that transcend my limited abilities to show the world a God of unlimited abilities. If all the church is offering is clean living born out of good doctrine then we have certainly become what Paul warned us about, “…holding a form of godliness although they have denied its power…avoid such men as these.”

We owe our culture a living, visible demonstration of the Kingdom of another world. Jesus told His disciples to heal the sick and define that moment of healing as the Kingdom’s appearance on earth. I’m not batting a thousand on that command, YET….
But all around me are the evidences of the Kingdom’s transcendent supremacy. Just to name a few: A premature baby alive and well. A case of vertigo, gone in an instant. A life time of back pain smashed by Kingdom come. Cancer….GONE. A multiple year stomach ailment removed overnight. Ten new clients in a budding new ministry for the eradication of addictions…delivered by the power of the Kingdom and a Kingdom warrior named Steve. A marriage dragged back from the abyss into abundant living. Mental illnesses erased. An ocean that could not break my son-in-law’s neck. A unbeliever who walks into our gathering and hears the prophetic reading of their heart. Story after story of recent conversions into an irresistible Kingdom that draws humans into an encounter with God not because they were threatened with hell to come but because they tasted Heaven on earth in the Kingdom NOW!

I’m a happy slave of conquering the impossible. I’ve discovered the true nature of Christianity is the presence of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. I’ve heard it said that when we get to heaven “some day” that we’re in for a lot of surprises. While I’m sure that’s true, I’ve decided to take a different path of life that minimizes my surprises tomorrow through discovery TODAY.

Just prior to World War II amphibious landings were deemed impossible due to notable failures in World War I. MacArthur, Eisenhower and other heroes of that day never got their boots wet in basic training for an amphibious assault. A lesser known military officer nicknamed, “Mad (as in mad-man) Smith advised the strategists of his day that the war could not be won without large scale amphibious assaults. “Mad” was told that such an idea was impossible. His answer? “Well, then we are going to do the impossible and we are going to do the impossible WELL.” Mr. Mad was a bondslave to the impossible. World War II was won by heroes who did the impossible.

Mad, Mary, Randy…..any more bondslaves out there?