March 4, 2024

For some reason, this phrase hit me today. “Clear the road for him!” My mind flashed to Acts 15:19, where the Apostle James says, “And so my judgment is that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God.” The realization was that the Jews who believed in Jesus were trying to make the Gentiles who believed in Him go through all the Jewish rituals and follow all the Jewish regulations. Their stubbornness in holding onto the old traditions was actually getting in the way of Gentiles coming to faith. So, they needed to “clear the road.” Once they did, the gospel spread worldwide.
Yesterday I talked about how we “prepare the way.” I wonder what it might look like for us to “clear the road” as well. Maybe that means we have to deal with some of our own traditions and thoughts about people coming to Jesus. For instance, maybe instead of trying to make people Jesus-like before they’ve ever accepted Him, we ought to just let people come to Jesus as they are, with all their baggage, and let Him change them. I remember reading a sign in front of a church in Mississippi that said, “Be fishers of men. You catch ‘em, He’ll clean ‘em!” I laughed when I read that and thought about how backwards we get that. We want to clean up people’s habits, clean up their language, and clean up their behavior BEFORE they’ve even made a commitment to Christ. What if we cleared the road for people to come just as they are to church, or to our groups, to be our friends, and we just loved them as they were and let Christ work in their lives? You can’t make disciples out of people who haven’t even decided whether they want to follow Jesus or not.
Another way to clear the road, and probably a harder one for most of us, would be to let God deal with any of our attitudes or behaviors that get in the way of us connecting others to Christ. Like maybe working on being nicer to folks. Like being more selfless. Like being less demanding. Like not being so negative or complaining or critical. I’m convinced that it’s our attitudes more than anything else that create barriers to letting Christ shine through. Maybe if we cleared the road of our own “stuff” we wouldn’t make it so hard for people who are really looking for Jesus. Maybe that’s a good prayer for us to pray today before we leave the house. “Lord, I know you want to touch the lives of some of the people I’m going to come into contact with today. Help me, by the power of your Spirit, to clear the road.” That’s God’s Word for you today.