(This Post strays from the Tozer discussions we’ve had previously in the Mid Weeks – we’ll get back to Tozer next week I bet. But for now chew on this idea that I picked up in a message I heard preached last week…)

So this title is a little “tongue-in-cheek” and those of you who attended RYM last week know what I am referencing. John Stone, an RUF Pastor, was our guest speaker and he came right out and told 1300 individuals that Jesus crushes our dreams. Let that sit for just a moment. If you are like me (and like many of the high school students @ RYM) this just sounds “off” to our ears. Jesus is “love” in human form so how could he be a crusher of dreams, since that doesn’t sound very loving… But the question is, from whose perspective? From ours, having our dreams crushed doesn’t seem loving, but from the perspective of Christ, our dreams are keeping us from him. He is love and to love us he must crush our selfish dreams. He loves us with vigor and power, and his is not a passive love.

Jeremiah 17:9 – The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

Without Christ, this is the heart from which we draw our dreams…

Christ cannot enter our lives and we be unchanged, so it should come as no surprise that our dreams must be changed in the process. What dreams are you hanging onto that stand in need of crushing… (hint: if you’re like me you’re gonna have to think hard about this question because you’ve probably spent a good long time covering over and hiding this dream under excuses and justifications for it’s importance; if it were easy to identify and eradicate we wouldn’t call it dream “crushing” but instead dream “removal”) I would start with the one you just thought of and immediately said, “well there’s no way that he means X because no one would ever consider X to be a selfish dream…” think through X and pray that God will help you be honest and pray that he’ll crush what needs crushing, whether it be X &/or Y.

It’s not easy to follow Christ, and he never said it would be… but consider this parting thought as encouragement:

God loves us the way we are but He loves us too much to leave us that way. – Leighton Ford