We sometimes forget just how incredible Jesus is. In our mind's eye, He is nicely and neatly the Saviour of the world; the King of glory, who lives quietly and unassumingly within the confines of our comfort zone.

But, take a fresh look at who He was as He walks through the pages of our Bibles. He was radical. He challenged everything that the religious leaders of the time held dear. He challenged them to live inside out, to abandon their masks, to relinquish reputation and embrace life to the fullest extent.

When He came into a room, the sick found their hearts racing because they knew they were about to be set free. Those who were afflicted by demons knew that it wouldn't be long until they could live whole and healthy lives. Even the dead would suddenly find themselves waking from their final sleep.

Jesus turned everything upside down! He was the kingdom come---this was the original design. God never planned sickness, or invented disease--all of that came because of the fall. God's plan was redemption--and not only of the soul--but of our physical bodies, our mental state, even the environment around us.

What I love about Jesus is that He came to inaugurate this wonderful new beginning--even though it isn't here in all it's fullness yet (but that day is coming!). I love that He didn't decide to leave it all till the end, until it can totally replace the reality we live in now. I love that He lets us in now.

For years I was more comfortable with the 'not yet' of the Kingdom--I'd was disappointed that the sick didn't get healed every time. I became heart-weary of hearing that it was someone's lack of faith that had them in the position they were in with their health or their money. It greatly helped me at that time to realize that the Kingdom had come, but not in all the fullness that it will at the end--the 'already, not yet' tension.

But where I went wrong was to start to believe that more often than not, the Lord wouldn't show up in power. That more often than not, the Kingdom wouldn't burst in on the scene.

I don't believe that anymore.

Life is hard, but God is good! He is constantly ready to break into people's lives to transform them and set them free--we know that because we see it in Jesus. It's never His will that people suffer with sickness or die before their time. That's the stuff of a fallen world.

I recently heard Bill Johnston teach on this, and he reminded us that in John 10:10 it says that the thief (the devil) comes only to steal, kill and destroy, but Jesus came to give us life and life to the full; therefore, everywhere we see something stolen, killed or destroyed, we would know who did it, and it wasn't God!

I'm up for the challenge of what God is about to do next! I'm ready to do away with the box that I didn't even know I'd put Him in--to see Him have His way, however radical and messy that might look. I'm ready to see the Kingdom come in my town, among the people I live with, in the same ways that it did right at the beginning. I'm hungry to go out on a limb for Him and ask the sick if they'd like prayer; to see those struggling with the torment of demonic activity set free when we pray; to see broken marriages put back together; to see teenagers who are running from who they are on the inside suddenly enveloped in peace that can only come from God. It's a risky business this faith thing. But, what if we do it and everything changes?