I was reading Matthew 9 the other day and had an interesting thought. In verses 1-8, Jesus tells the paralytic that his sins are forgiven. The scribes don’t like this and call it blaspheming. Jesus looked at them and told them that He said this so that they would believe that He had authority and then told the man to rise up and walk.
The chapters of Matthew are full of the miracles of Jesus. Something that was impressed upon me in chapter 9 this time was how unignorable Jesus is. He was with the people and doing things and people were forced to deal with what He was doing. He was a non-neutral force. He was polemic. He was someone that had to be dealt with.
The interesting thing to me is the reason why. Jesus had to be dealt with because he was helping people. He was doing good. He was healing the sick, helping the poor, and eating with sinners. As Christ put it, He was about the work of His Father. This is why He had to be dealt with. He was not arguing for the sake of arguing. He was not being needlessly divisive. He was not trying to be offensive.
Thinking about the impact that I want to have with my life, I want to be someone who has to be dealt with, but I don’t want to do it in a way that causes people the wrong kind of trouble. Christ caused people trouble because He lived the standard of heaven and loved them to the same standard. Christ was holy, which made Him odorous to the sons of hell. This is the kind of impact that I want to have. I want to be holy unignorable.
The world should have to deal with us Christians. If no one is opposing you, think about that. If someone is opposing you, think about why. Is it because you are acting like Christ or are you saying Christian things that would get other Christians mad at you even? The truth is a hard pill to swallow. We don’t have to make it worse.
Consider your impact.
Be unignorable.