From the YouVersion Bible App, Daily Refresh

Mobile Mountain Communities

Imagine a community where honest people work together to fix brokenness. Every person you meet loves you authentically, and you love them in the same way. How would living in such a community change the way you think, feel, and act?

Jesus invites us into that kind of community. In Matthew 5:14, Jesus says, “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.”

The Greek word for “hill” can also mean “mountain,” and in the ancient imagination, mountains were places where Heaven and Earth intersected—where people could encounter the gods. The ancient Hebrews understood mountains as unique spaces where God meets with humanity and where both dwell together as partners.

Abraham experiences divine testing and blessing on a mountain. God invites Moses up a mountain to receive instruction. And the prophet Isaiah uses mountain imagery to dream of a day when the Heaven-on-Earth space will expand beyond the mountain, filling the world with God’s Kingdom and vanquishing the darkness of evil.

This makes Jesus’ teaching truly wild! He’s saying that Heaven and Earth reunite through people—through us. When Jesus calls his followers a “city on a mountain,” he’s saying they will bring the mountaintop experience to the world. He’s inviting us to become mobile mountains, creating pockets of Heaven on Earth wherever we go.

We do this by letting go of the old ways of fighting our enemies and picking up the practices of Jesus—feeding the hungry, living justly, and loving people patiently. When this happens, the light of God’s way that leads to true life shines through us, piercing the darkness. So let’s find ways to be mobile mountain communities and participate in making God’s Kingdom shine brightly on Earth as it is in Heaven.

My Two Cents

The imagery in this devotional made me think about mountains in the Bible. Moses received the Ten Commandments on a Mountain and Jesus prayed on a hillside garden and then died on a hill, Golgotha. A mountain seems to be a place to meet God, to get direction from Him or to carry out His instructions to us. Instead, I think many of us, including me, have become immovable mountains. We have God’s truth inside us but we don’t go out to share it. We wait for people to come to us. Jesus didn’t stay on the mountainside praying. He left and went out among the people, ministering to their needs wherever He found them. Note that He found them; that means He was always looking, eyes open and heart ready to reach out and help others. I think we Christians are waiting for the sinful world to recognize their sin and come to us. I just don’t see that ever happening. People need to be told the truth before they can believe the truth. People need to know that there is a place to get closer to God before they can even attempt to do so. I like the line above that says we are to be “mobile mountains.” We bring God to people instead of expecting them to come to us and then we will tell them about God. Not many unchurched, unsaved people get up early on Sunday morning and head to church to hear God’s Word. Thus we need to lose our concept that if we make the church inviting enough, with enough programs and appealing worship, that they will come. It won’t happen…they don’t know what they are missing, and even worse, they don’t care. We need to take the gospel to them! Jesus didn’t say, “Sit in the church and wait for them to come.” Rather, He told us to go. We are to be the ones to carry His message to the world, not sit complacently and wait for a dying world to come to us. Tell your mountain to move…and get going with sharing His love and His sacrifice with everyone that God puts in your path. We can make a difference in the world if we will only realize that we are God’s testimony to the lost people; we are the conduit from them to God, until they come to know God personally themselves.

What do you think? Do you agree that we need to be a mobile mountain?