FITTING IN

                                   Read :   Matthew 11:2-10

                                                John 8:12

When Jesus of Nazareth began His work there was something

about the way He did things that set Him apart from every

prophet who had ever come to Israel before.

John the Baptist, for instance, the last and greatest of
the prophets located himself on the bank of the Jordan
River and made people come to him, made the people fit
in with him. This was his privilege as prophet of God.

But Jesus went to where the people were. He bent down to
them. Jesus didn't start by making people fit into His
program. Jesus started by fitting into

- their pain,

- their loneliness,
- their suffering.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me
because he has anointed me to preach
good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release
to the captives and recovering of
sight to the blind and to set at
liberty those who are oppressed, to
proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.

Of course, Jesus didn't fit into people's vanity.

   He didn't fit into the little religious
   games of the scribes and pharisees.

  He didn't fit into King Herod's whims when

 Herod wanted to see a demonstration of
 miraculous power.

He didn't fit into Judas' ambitions.

But always, without any exceptions, Jesus fit into the

heart-cries of broken spirits and contrite souls.

And He still does.

When you get to the end of yourself and cry out to
Him with all your heart, instantly Jesus is there -
every time, He never fails.

Everyone who asks receives, he who seeks

finds, and to him who knocks it shall be opened.

If there's anybody reading these words who's at the
end of his rope, you don't know which way to turn,
the Son of God doesn't just look at you from way off
in heaven and feel sorry for you,

- He comes down to where you are.

- Touches you with the finger of God.

- If your heart is crying to Him for

  forgiveness, Jesus forgives those

  sins right now.

 - If you're yearning for healing, for

   a solution to a personal problem, or

   freedom from some devastating habit,
          or some haunting fear,

Jesus Christ fits in with you just the same as He fit
in with the blind and the lame and the lepers of old.

There are people who are going to look up from these
pages knowing that they have been touched by the finger
of God.

The burden has lifted.
The fear has gone.

The affliction is healed,

But to have Jesus draw near and touch our lives with
healing is only the beginning.   How many people who

experienced that touch in the days of Jesus' flesh-ministry
turned around and walked right back into the darkness.
They were healed,

forgiven,

set free from bondage. But instead of walking

in the light Jesus had now given them, they went

their own way.

Today we see people wonderfully delivered, overflowing
with joy. The flame burns brilliantly for a short while
and then it flickers out. Why?.....As long as Jesus in
His mercy was fitting into their great need, everything
was fine.

But, when it came time for them to fit into the will

of Jesus Christ,

when it came time for them to get up and start
     following the Light which had come to them,
     they began to argue,

and question,
and doubt,
and rebel.

"You're not coming up to my expectations, Lord."

"I'm beginning to wonder whether you're really
the one."

"Are you the One who is to come, or do I have to
look elsewhere?"

There are two things we have to understand if we're going
to stay in that light which has visited us in Jesus Christ:

First, the only reason Jesus could bring life to this
dying race was because He fit into His Father's will at
every point. He could bring God down into our lives
because He obeyed God.

The most important thing for Jesus was not to meet the
needs of men but to do His Father's will.

- Jesus was not a humanist.
- He was not sentimental.

- Jesus was the obedient Son of the Holy God.

My meat and drink is to do the will
of Him who sent me and to accomplish
His work.

I have not come to do my own will,
but the will of Him who sent me.

When Jesus put His fingers on blind eyes, and those
eyes opened, it was not because of His burden for the
blind, but because of His utter and complete abandon-
ment to the will of His Father.

Jesus could call men back from the dead,

feed the multitudes with five buns and a
couple of fish,

command the storm to cease.

He had authority over these things,

- because He was absolutely submitted to
  the authority of His Father,

- did absolutely nothing out of his right
  to himself,

- sought nothing but to please His Father.

- He obeyed.

The Cross was not Jesus' idea.   It was the Father's
command. So He submitted. "Lo, I come to do your
will 0 God." He laid down His life and the curse
that was on this race was broken.

All the time there were those who wanted Jesus to fit

in with their plans, their idea of what Jesus should

be and do. Even His mother -

"Son, why have you done this to us? Your
father and I have been looking for you
anxiously."

"How is it that you sought me?   Didn't

you know I must be in my Father's house?"

John the Baptist -

"Are you the one who is to come, or do we
look for another?"

"Go tell John again the things which you

see and hear.... and blessed is he who is

not offended in me."

The apostle Peter -

Lord, you're not going up to Jerusalem to die!"

"Get behind me Satan. You savor not

the things that are of God, but the

things that are of men."

Never once did Jesus waver from His Father's will to fit
in with somebody's expectations - and so the Father's
purpose was worked out on this earth through Him.

Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and
the Life. No one comes to the
Father but by Him.

The second thing we must understand, if we are going to

stay in the light which has visited us in Jesus Christ,

is that Jesus now calls us to fit in with Him in exactly

the same way He fit in with the Father.

Listen carefully:

The men and women who have the authority of
the Living God resting upon their lives,
through whom God's redemptive power gushes
forth and heals,

restores,

gives life to others, are not
those who claim, with their mouths, to have
this power - not those who make a production
out of the spiritual gifts they say they have -
but those who have given up all rights to
themselves and who fit in, body, soul, and
spirit, to the will of Jesus Christ.

If a man loves me, he will keep

my word, and my Father will love

him, and we will come to him and

make our dwelling in him.

If you love me, you will keep my
commandments. And I will pray the
Father, and He will give you another
Counselor to be with you forever.

Just as God sent His Son to fit into your need,

      to die on the Cross for your

sin, so that you might pass from death to life, so -

if you want to enter into that life,

if you want to walk with Jesus in the power
                                         of His resurrection,
if you want to have the Spirit of the Living
                                         God dwelling in you,

you have to fit in to the will of your Lord!

And, that's the last thing we want to do, especially
when we get to be "spiritual."

We're "spiritual,"

- now we think we know what the Kingdom is
all about,

- now we think we understand what God is doing,

and we're forever trying to make Jesus Christ fit in
with our picture. We're trying to bend the Son of God
to fit our vision. Before we know it we're trying to
use Jesus to fulfill our plans.

And when Jesus fails to fit in with our plans we get
bitter.

"Are you the One who is to come, or do we
look for another?"

Yes, there are men and women by the hundreds who will
gladly take to themselves a false Christ - a Christ
who does not have the marks of Calvary on His body -
but who will fit in with their ambitions. They will
gladly deceive themselves - deliberately evade the

warnings of the Lord and listen to any lying spirit that
comes along in order to have a Christ who will gratify
their vanity and make them successful in the eyes of men.

Once the light of the living God in Jesus Christ has come

down to you and lifted you up, it's no longer a matter of

Jesus fitting in with you, my friend, you fit in with Him

as completely as Jesus fit in with His Father.

If anyone comes to me and does not hate his
own father, and mother, and wife, and children,
and brothers and sisters, and even his own life,
he cannot be my disciple.

Whoever does not bear his own cross and come
after me (fit in with me) cannot be my disciple.

Whoever of you does not renounce all that he
has cannot be my disciple.

So now, the question comes to those who have met Jesus
and have tasted His grace.

Are you still trying to make things go your
way, angry when they don't. Upset even about
the weather - always kicking against your
circumstances.

Or, have you really given yourself over to
your Lord? Day by day - hour by hour
yielding to Him?

I am the light of the world; he
who follows me (fits in with me)
will not walk in darkness but will
have the light of life.

Are you following Jesus? Or, are you still trying to
make Jesus follow you? Are you His, for Him to do with
as seems good to Him, even if He puts you in the wilder-
ness and lets you spend your days shining to the glory
of God, unobserved by any man?

Or, are you still trying to use Jesus to advance your own
little kingdom?

If it's God's Kingdom that we want, then the word of
the Lord to us this day is very simple:

The time has come for us to give

up trying to make Jesus fit in with
us. It's time for us to fit in
with Him.

If you love me, keep my commandments,
                       fit in with my will,
       and I will use you as I please to
       hasten the coming of my Kingdom.