We've Seen Too Much!

To add to the previous post, I think there is one other perspective we are aiming for at CTK Durango and Farmington. Having our witness of Christ come from our own experience is paramount to reaching the people around us with the Good News.

The "other half" of our witness, I believe, is illustrated in a story in the book of Acts. As Peter and John are going into the temple to worship, a crippled beggar asks them for money. Instead of giving him cash, they heal him! They literally tell him to get up, then help him up and all go inside the temple together. The response of the church leadership is to arrest Peter and John. They don't know what to do with them since the crippled guy is standing there next to them. Finally, they decide to play the heavy with Jesus' disciples. They tell Peter and John that they can leave, but they must never preach or teach in the name of Jesus again. Peter and John basically respond by saying, "after what we've seen God do in the name and under the authority of Jesus, we couldn't possibly stop preaching his Good News.

If you are living in relationship with Jesus, the authority with which you preach the Good News comes from your personal experience with him--like the blind guy Jesus healed. There are times, however, when you are experiencing crisis, or catastrophe, or things just aren't going well. It sounds a little strange to people when your husband just died to be talking about the miraculous things God is doing in your life. Sometimes, we don't have something current to point to in terms of God transforming us--we are in process. It is at these times when I believe the testimony of the maturing Christ-follower is to say, "I don't know what's going on right now, but I've seen too much to not trust God to walk with me through this."

Our goal right now, is to live in balance (tension, maybe) between these two attitudes toward Christ. We either share from the experience of transformation and healing God has extended to us, or we are modeling faith in light of those things we've experienced in the past. The Christian who embraces and lives out these concepts will be miles ahead of the person who "knows" everything there is to know about God.

We Should All Be Blind Guys.

I've been spending a lot of time recently thinking about the idea of witness--using our story to share the Good News. Growing up in church and going to Christian colleges, I've had my share of training on how to share the gospel--all the different reasonings and arguments.

I know that if you filled the state of Texas two feet deep with silver dollars, marking one with an X, the odds that some random guy would wade into it and randomly pick the same coin are the same as the odds that one man could fulfill eight of the many prophecies in the Old Testament about the Messiah.

I've heard compelling evidence for the scientific possibility of Noah actually fitting all the necessary animals on the ark to survive a flood.

I haven't heard much about talking snakes, so Adam and Eve still confuse me to some extent.

All this to say that as fascinating and compelling as some of these ideas are, I'm not so sure they are very effective in leading someone to a place where they meet Jesus. The more I think about it and look at the Word, the more convinced I am that a relationship with God is less about learning his "stuff" and more about meeting him.

Jesus healed a guy who was blind. The guy really didn't even know who Jesus was. We know this because the religious leaders grilled him and his parents forcefully to try and figure out who healed him, how, and with what authority. Finally, the guy blurts out, "I don't know who he was or what authority he has, but yesterday I was blind and now I can see!"

How do you argue with that? What use does it serve to question his theology? Can you further convince this man of his new ability to see by revealing to him the secrets of the true age of this young earth?

At CTK, we are trying to make a move toward being blind guys--or, I guess, ex-blind guys. In our culture in Durango, there is a lot of spiritualism and a lot of compelling intellectia (is that a word?). There are a ton of smart people with good arguments to support their opinions and conclusions. I wonder what a bunch of former blind guys who have been healed by Jesus, even before they know all about him, could do in a culture like that? Maybe we'll find out.