Devotionals

Living in the Fusion Zone

by Stanley McMahon
07/01/15
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Living in The Fusion Zone

As Christians we are extraordinarily blessed. We are citizens of heaven and we enjoy full sonship rights. We are blessed with every imaginable blessing in Christ Jesus: redemption by His blood, forgiveness of sins and immediate access to the presence of the Father. We have peace with the God of peace, fellowship with the Father and the constant presence of the Comforter in our daily lives. This is our spiritual reality.

As people we are sometimes extraordinarily pressed and pushed and hassled and harried; we have pressures in the workplace, the home, the wider family; pressure from friends and occasionally life events that come along and break into our stability. This is our everyday reality.

The crunch comes when we try to bring the two together in order to make sense of what is going on. The truth is that we are living in tension between two realities in heaven and earth. But that’s not how we were designed and it’s not how the Father expects us to live. There’s a clue in a prayer that Jesus taught His disciples: ‘May Your kingdom come and Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’

There needs to be a coming together of our two realities, a fusion of wills. He wants us to live in the ‘Fusion Zone’ where His words and the reality of His promises and His commands and desires are brought together with our desires and ambitions. And somewhere between our messy lives and the mundane routine, His light challenges and disperses our darkness.

The alternative is a common enough experience where we live in the ‘Confusion Zone.’ That’s where we struggle to appropriate the promises of God to our lives because we fail to grasp the nature of the lordship of Christ. When that happens, there is a clash of wills and the dual nature of co-lordship comes to light. So it’s not Jesus who is Lord, exclusively, but a little bit of give and take – my ambitions, Your priorities; the things I want to do and achieve, the things You want to achieve in me. Something, perhaps, like this:

Jesus, be my Lord, I say

But terms and conditions apply

Yes please be my Lord and Saviour

But I’ll tell You where to pry

You see I’m happy with my life Lord

I just need your salvation

I need to know

Where I’m going to go

When I leave this earthly station

So let’s sit down and talk dear Lord

I have a contract written

Just sign along the dotted line

I’ll explain all the conditions

You can be Lord of my religious life

My Sundays and some evenings

I’ll need Your grace and answers to prayer

And your comfort when I’m grieving

Now don’t expect me to be vulnerable Lord

Or open up my heart

Let’s keep each other at arm’s length

And You know I’ll do my part

What’s that You say, “Depart from Me?”

Lord, we’re only at the start

Don’t walk away and leave me here

We haven’t read the good part!

It’s dark in here, in my private world

I wonder where the light’s gone?

Jesus, be my Lord, I said,

But nothing happened…

So I’ll carry on.

Living in the ‘Confusion Zone’ stops us from fully trusting in the One who has given His all to us to secure our eternal future. It prevents us from becoming mature in Christ and ultimately frustrates us in our desire to become like Christ, however weak or ardent that desire may be.

God calls us to the ‘Fusion Zone’. He calls us to step out and taste the goodness of the Lord and experience the ineffable joy and the incomprehensible Shalom that He affords to the faithful. He calls us to Himself and to abandon our own selfish desires and to be caught up in the glorious, greater good that He has planned for us. God makes all things work together for the good of those who love Him and who are called according to His purpose. Could we amend that last bit with reverence: to those who are called to the Fusion Zone? Your will be done, O Lord. Amen.