Set Aside

The other day, I shared what God has been reminding me about the word “aside”, it was a little different from what I’d originally thought I’d be touching on when He put that word on my heart (that’s the significance though, reminding me to put aside my own plan for His). I wasn’t sure if I’d get to sharing what had originally come to mind with the word, but as I read my Bible this morning, it all came together.

I’ve been asking God to reveal more of His heart to me. I don’t want to just live a life of experiences where I feel Him without really knowing Him. I’ve been asking Him to show me what He’s placed inside of me so that it could all be used for Him. I’ve been asking Him to break my heart for what breaks His heart. I want to be a passionate person, not for my own things, but for His.

In the process of asking God these things, I’ve been reading Luke. I was in Luke 9 this morning. It talks about Jesus sending out the 12 apostles, feeding the five thousand, foretelling His death. This chapter talks about the transfiguration, healing, the cost of following Him, and about a people that reject Him. And as I read through Luke 9 this morning, the word “aside” kept coming back.

It came back as I read verses 46-48:

An argument arose among them (the apostles) as to which of them was the greatest. But Jesus, knowing the reasoning of their hearts, took a child and put him by his side and said to them, “Whoever receives this child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. For he who is least among you all is the one who is great.”

He’s saying to treat “the least of these” with care, that in doing so, it honors the Father. The people who are looked over, the people who are normally not a thought in one’s mind.

And then if you go on into verses 51-56, it says:

When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make preparations for him. But the people did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But he turned and rebuked them. And they went on to another village.

One of the notes with verse 55 (the verse that says, “he turned and rebuked him”), mentions that some manuscripts add “And He said “You do not know what manner of spirit you are of; for the Son of Man came not to destroy people’s lives but to save them.”

He set His face to Jerusalem. He let nothing distract Him from departing, He was full of passion to complete His mission. These verses show His mercy for the people who refuse His entry. He saw in them a redemptive future.

If you read in Acts 8, you see an entire region of Samaritans receive the gospel.

The hope of the gospel is already here. But will I be someone caught up in my own life that I can’t see the beauty in those cast aside? I don’t want to be someone who gives up on those who seem to be out of reach, those who seem like “outcasts” to the rest of the world. I don’t want to give up on the people who have seemed to count themselves out, or hidden themselves from community.

I want to be like Jesus, full of passion to complete the mission God has placed on my life. I don’t want to push my passions aside for things of the world, but I want to chase after God with the passions He’s placed on my heart, and I want to bring people along with me. It’s not about me, it’s about more.