Mind-blowing

Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, ‘This is what is written: the Messiah must suffer and must rise from death three days later, and in his name the message about repentance and the forgiveness of sins must be preached to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.’                                                             (verses 45-48)

Read Luke 24:44-53

Jesus doesn’t just open their minds, he blows them! Just before this story, Luke describes how the disciples’ eyes were opened and how their hearts burned within them when Jesus talked with them (verses 31,32). When the living Jesus engages you and me, he wants that experience to be mind­ blowing. He wants to touch the whole of us – mind, body, heart, soul.

These men knew their Scriptures. They just didn’t understand them fully. Or maybe they had become a bit too blasé about them.

It can be like that for you and me – so familiar with God’s word that we don’t always understand or treasure it as fully as we might. Or perhaps we have been around that word so long that we think we have it all sorted out, and our minds become closed to its exciting greatness and mystery.

So, living Lord Jesus, come to me, again and again. Open my mind. Blow my mind. Give me bright eyes and a burning heart.

Too much passion for you? Well, that’s what happens when you hang around the living Jesus!

Thank you, Lord Jesus, for the joy of knowing you. Amen.

by Bob Kempe, in ‘New Strength for each Day’ (LCA, Openbook, 1998)

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