Now, when it delights God, Who severs me from my mothers womb and calls me through His grace, to unveil His Son in me that I may be evangelizing Him among the nations, I did not immediately submit it to flesh and blood.
Galatians 1: 15-16, Concordant New Testament
The more I've thought about it, there seems to be a process in the church when it comes to learning about Jesus. We read about him and we sit and we hear sermons spoken about Him. However, it's the final step in the process that always had me flustered. How is it that one leads someone to Christ? Believe me, I've tried. I've sat in on many a discipleship class where we were taught that we needed to put ourselves out among the people and speak of Jesus to them. But then what? What happens when someone isn't receptive to what you're speaking about Jesus? Are they a lost cause? Has God destined them to not know His Son after all? That would indeed contradict one of the most famous verses we as Christians have come to know. For John 3: 17 clearly tells us that the Lord dispatched His Son that "The world may be saved through Him" {Johns Account 3:17}. Clearly, our Fathers desire and purpose is that all of His children will be reconciled again to Him. Yet how is one to be reconciled to the Father without knowing Jesus? Have we been speaking Christ Jesus to others in the wrong way all this time? What have we been missing? Obviously, the mainstream church is pretty big on "Leading others to Jesus." Yet through all these years of sending church goers out to speak Jesus to the masses, we seem to be no closer than when we began. What gives? Do I need to attend more discipleship classes? What am I missing? Could it be that despite all my time sitting in church pews I was no closer to knowing Christ than when I began? If so, how is it that someone who has not known the truth of Christ Jesus himself speak Him to others? How will he be able to lead others to One he himself does not know? I believe that is the heart of the issue which we face. For once we know Christ Jesus as He is, we can more freely engage others in conversation. Of course, someone could know the truth of Christ and still not succeed in leading others to Jesus. For the revelation I received of Christ in me did not come from someone speaking Jesus to me, but from the Father revealing Him in me.
How, then, should they be invoking One in Whom they do not believe? Yet how should they be believing One of Whom they do not hear? Yet how should they be hearing apart from one heralding? Yet how should they be heralding if ever they should be not commissioned? According as it is written: How beautiful are the feet of those bringing an evangel of Good!
Paul To The Romans 10: 15-15, Concordant New Testament
Here is a quick question for all believers out there, who is it that led the man Saul to accept Christ Jesus? You know Saul, one of the biggest persecutors of the early church of the followers of Jesus. A man who, while on his way to persecute another church, was blindsided by the very One he had been persecuting. Having been raised in the practices of the Jewish religion, Saul knew all too well traditions of men. He had "Heard of" Jesus, but he did not know Him. What Saul knew of Jesus he learned from the lens of his religious leaders. That all changed on that road to Damascus. There, Jesus introduced Himself to Saul. Was it one of the members of the early church who converted Saul? No! Paul himself admits that it was the Father who revealed Christ in him {Galatians 1:15-16}. So, why would it be any different for us? I believe that how I was introduced to the knowledge of Christ in me is how the Father will reveal His Son in others as well. All the church classes in the world will never prepare you to speak Christ Jesus unto others if the Father has not revealed Him in you. Knowing Christ in me as I do, I can speak to what He has done in me, but it is the Father who will ultimately reveal His Son in others. The leading comes from Him.
In this was manifested the love of God among us, that God has dispatched His only-begotten Son into the world that we should be living through Him.
First Epistle Of John 4: 9, Concordant New Testament
~Scott~
No comments:
Post a Comment