Right-side up
Yep, you’ve been doing it all wrong. You know you gamble every time you grab the stem (the bottom of a banana) and try to open it. It’s like 50/50 that part of the good stuff will break off and you’ll have a dangling mess on your hands. Why not eat a banana like a monkey? God made them banana-peeling experts! If you watch them, they hold the banana by the stem, pinch the top and then perfectly peel it back. It’s a beautiful thing and a testimony to us to try the top-down approach next time!
The world is doing it all wrong as well. Living and seeing life upside down, there are many who distort and capsize the truth. Calling “evil good, and good evil,” they “substitute darkness for light and light for darkness,” and “substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” (Isa 5:20 NASB). Creation, marriage, sexuality, gender, morality, faith, law, and even the miracle of life itself have all been flipped. Deceived in their thinking, it seems to make sense, but it’s inverted and perverted. “There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death” (Proverbs 14:12 NIV). Wise in their own eyes, they have become fools (Isaiah 5:21).
Jesus came to open our eyes and heart to experience life from a whole new perspective – His. He said provocative things like love your enemies, bless those who persecute you, go the second mile, forgive those who hurt you, the humble will be exalted, you must be born again, the first will be last and the last will be first, you live by dying, you gain by losing, there’s power in weakness, you receive by giving, there’s freedom in serving, and you find your life by actually giving it away. What?! That’s crazy talk…or is it?
We were doing it all wrong. Sin had flipped us upside down, but Jesus came to save us and set us back on our feet with a new heart, new eyes, and a new song. In Acts 17, Paul and Silas were preaching the good news about Jesus in Thessalonica and people were being saved. When an angry, jealous mob attacked the home where Paul and Silas were staying (but couldn’t find them), “they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, ‘These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also!’” (Acts 17:6 ESV).
May the same be said about us! Like Paul, Silas, Jason and the other believers, we should be on a mission to upright the world. The world thinks we are turning everything upside down, but in reality, we are turning it right-side up. We might be seen as threats, but being countercultural is not the goal. We need to engage culture and captivate it one life at a time. True, some will dig in and defend their inverted ways, but others will be converted. As Christ-followers, we need to be living life in remarkable and unexpected ways so people are moved toward the Light and begin to see the Way.
Now, go turn the world “upside down” – Jesus style.
“A pupil is not above his teacher; but everyone, after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher” (Jesus in Luke 6:40 NASB).
© 2015 Tim McKenzie
On Every Word Ministries
www.OnEveryWord.com
