Dangerous for Good, Part 1: OrientationExemplo

The Larger Story

All of us desire Life. We all long and search for validation, acceptance, significance, belonging and worth. Who doesn’t want to be seen, invited, encouraged and applauded? Who doesn’t want to belong? This desire is a wonderful thing—it is what we were made for. The one word that encompasses all these longings, wants, hopes, and desires set deep in the human heart is Love. When I say, I love you, I’m saying, I accept you. I want to be with you. You are significant to me. I see you.

We were designed, created, and crafted by God with a longing and a desire to love and be loved. This is one of the powerful ways we bear His image. His invitation is to come to Him for the fulfillment of our heart’s deepest needs and desires.

The Two Kingdoms, the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness, wage war over our hearts because they know if you capture a person’s heart, you capture the person. The rulers and authorities of the Two Kingdoms are advancing on each of us and are in conflict with one another.

One Kingdom offers Life, and the other offers death. It would be wonderful if these two options were as obviously different as they are so obviously opposed. But it isn’t always easy to tell the difference. One is True Life, but the other is a lie, masquerading as life. It is a matter of authenticity versus counterfeit. The kingdom of darkness wants you to accept its substitutes for life and love to keep us from True Love and Life.

What if we could enter the fight and tip the scale of the war by aiding one Kingdom in the battle for our hearts? This is our opportunity, and what the King of the Good Kingdom is offering us. The God of the universe desires that we give him our hearts so that He might fill them with True Love and Real Life.

The enemy of God comes after God’s Image bearers to thwart that. We were made for intimacy, oneness, and connectedness with God. We feel most alive when we are being loved. Our enemy knows this better than we do. He knows where and in whom Life is found. Our adversary is launching an all-out assault to get in the way of our intimacy with God and intimacy with others. In Matthew 22:37, Jesus tells us that the greatest commandment is to Love God and love others as yourself. There is a reason this is called the greatest command, and there is a reason we are never more opposed than when we seek to fulfill it.

Love makes us come alive because Love is the greatest thing in the whole universe. Love is what we were meant for, and love is what God is all about. When we get ahold of this—or when it gets ahold of us—the tide changes, the momentum shifts, and the lost ground of our hearts will be taken back.

The great mission of God is upon us. Becoming dangerous for good is our best way to enter into our part to play.

Like Daniel in The Karate Kid, we need the eyes of our heart to be awakened to what is truly going on, to the deep heart training God is calling us into, to the invitation to be WITH him, in his love, and on mission with him in life. He is calling us up: to be Dangerous for Good with him.

As you ponder all this with God today, consider asking Him:

Father, where are you loving me today, showing me your acceptance, inviting me to belong to you, validating and bestowing worth to me?

Jesus, how has the kingdom of darkness been hijacking my life, blocking me from receiving the love you intended for me? How have I given in, participated in any way, to their schemes to compromise my true orientation as a kingdom image bearer?

Spirit, being loved by you is central to loving others. Would you come for my heart today, in some way to show and tell me how you see me, who I am to you, or what it is about me that you love? I open my heart and my eyes and my ears to seeing and hearing what you want to say.