Joshu Johnson
Imagine trying to build a relationship with your spouse or best friend by reading biographies about them, studying their habits, and discussing their personality traits—but never actually spending time with them. It would be absurd. And yet, this is often how we treat our relationship with Jesus.
Jesus never said, “Come to me, all you who are weary, and I will give you a lecture.” He didn’t say, “The Kingdom of God is like a well-written dissertation.” He said, Come to me. Abide in me. Remain with me. These are invitations into presence, not just into knowledge.
Experience matters. Without it, our faith becomes a secondhand story—something we believe in theory but have never touched for ourselves. And when hard times come, theory alone isn’t enough to sustain us. But an encounter with the living God? That changes everything.
Jesus and the Kingdom of God: The Home We Were Created For
Every longing you’ve ever had, every ache in your soul, every restless desire that keeps you searching—it is all pointing toward home.
And home is not a place. It is a person.
We were created for life in the presence of God. It is the first thing humanity ever knew—Adam and Eve walking with God in the cool of the day (Genesis 3:8). That nearness, that intimacy, was the natural state of the human soul. And then, through sin, we were cast out, forced to wander in a world that no longer felt like home.
Ever since, the human heart has been searching, aching, grasping for something that feels like belonging. We try to find it in relationships, in accomplishments, in status, in security. But nothing satisfies. Nothing ever quite feels like home—because nothing else was meant to.
Jesus is the way home.
When He says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), He is not just offering a theological proposition. He is offering Himself. He is the path back to the life we were created for. He is the door that leads us into the Kingdom of God—a kingdom that is not merely a future destination but a present reality.
“The Kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21).
Right now, in this very moment, the home you’ve been searching for is already here. The life you were made for is not something you have to wait for until heaven. It begins the moment you turn your heart toward Jesus and step into the reality of His presence.
And when you do, everything shifts.
The loneliness that once haunted you begins to fade. The constant striving that kept you restless begins to ease. The wounds that told you that you don’t belong, that you aren’t enough, that you will always be on the outside looking in—Jesus Himself begins to heal them.
To live as an ordinary mystic is to live as someone who has come home. To wake up each day not as an orphan in a broken world, but as a beloved son or daughter who is already in the presence of the Father.
And once you have tasted that life, you will never settle for anything less.
Every force in the modern world is designed to keep us from turning our gaze toward Jesus. AI algorithms and social media feeds are meticulously crafted to hijack our focus, keeping us from ever sitting still long enough to notice the presence of God. Our pace, our distractions, our obsession with productivity—all of it conspires to keep us from the very life our souls are aching for.
But what if we just turned?
Like Mary in the garden after the resurrection, standing in her grief, unaware that Jesus was right in front of her—until He spoke her name and she turned (John 20:16). That one motion changed everything. She had been looking in the wrong direction, assuming He was absent, when He was with her the whole time.
We can turn our hearts too. Right now, in this very moment. It can be as simple as pausing and saying:
"Jesus, I choose to feel and experience my connection with You."
That’s it. That’s the shift. That’s the invitation.
Psalm 91, Luke 10, and the Temptation of Jesus: Entering the Reality of the Unseen
But what happens when we turn our hearts to Jesus and immediately feel the resistance? What about when anxiety rushes in, when fear lingers in the night, when everything in us tells us this whole thing is just in our heads?
This is where we need to understand the unseen reality we live in.
Psalm 91 paints a picture of refuge, of divine protection: “He will cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you will find refuge… A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you” (Psalm 91:4, 7).
This psalm isn’t just poetry; it’s a declaration of reality. Jesus Himself relied on it when He was tempted in the wilderness. But Satan twisted its words, using them to try to manipulate Jesus into proving Himself (Matthew 4:6). The enemy has always tried to weaponize Scripture, to turn trust into doubt, to distort truth just enough to keep us from experiencing it.
Yet later, in Luke 10, Jesus hands that same psalm to His disciples, telling them, “I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy” (Luke 10:19).
This isn’t just ancient history. We are in the same story. We live in a love story set in the midst of a war. And the war is not against people, but against the spiritual forces that seek to keep us from experiencing God’s presence.
But we are not powerless.
The same authority that Jesus walked in has been given to us. We don’t have to accept the lies that tell us we’re alone, that God is distant, that our prayers don’t matter. We have a refuge. We have a fortress. We have a Father who is closer than our breath.
Becoming an Ordinary Mystic: The Life You Were Made For
This is why we must reclaim the practice of being ordinary mystics—not people who chase mystical experiences, but people who live in daily, intimate communion with Jesus.
An ordinary mystic isn’t someone with special spiritual abilities. It’s someone who simply notices. Someone who turns their heart toward Jesus in the middle of washing dishes, driving to work, walking through the grocery store. Someone who experiences God in the ordinary rhythms of life because they have trained their heart to look for Him.
This isn’t about striving or adding another thing to our to-do list. It’s about recognizing the connection that is already there. It’s about stepping into the beautiful, real, and abundant life we were made for.
And when we do?
Everything changes.
The lies lose their power. The distractions lose their grip. The world no longer tells us who we are—because we have heard our name from the mouth of Jesus Himself.
And we know, beyond a doubt, that we are home.
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