First thoughts, daily scriptures - April 25, 2007

1 John 5:1-12

I often have people ask me how to "do evangelism." We like many churches, are wanting to grow. We have a New Life team in our church to explore ways to invite people to this encounter with God in community. Most of the activity surrounds mailing campaigns, events at the church, hanging literature on door knobs, and occasional (expensive!) newspaper ad. We're trying to get the web site updated. Sadly, only a few have participated in this.

But the rest of us? Dare we invite people to Church, let alone into a relationship with Christ? Share our testimony? Well these invitations can be awkward; sharing our testimony with others is just, well, too Baptist. We're Presbyterians. We seem to have a different order to evangelism: build the church, hire a preacher and round up Sunday School teachers to teach Bible stories, and they will come, and they will hear. If the music is good and we're friendly enough, maybe they will join. If they do, then we can go on mission trips together, and feed the poor together.

But share personal testimonies? Leave that to the Baptists.

Now I'm messing with some of you, I know. You have not dared speak the name of Jesus at a restaurant as you pray for the server out loud. You'd never think of giving God the glory in public on your child's soccer field. You have never "witnessed" to anyone verbally about the hope that lies in you - which is the Spirit of God, received through the blood of Christ, and the water of baptism. It has intimidated you to speak of the mystery of faith in a world that idolizes knowledge and solutions and reason and human power and privilege. Someone might think you're a Bible thumping, self-righteous, fundamentalist whacko.

Then I read I John: ¹¹And this is the testimony: God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. ¹²Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. It says to me that our faith in Christ IS the testimony, and at risk is death for those who do not come to faith in Christ. If we are not proclaiming our faith in Christ, as we live out our lives, to our friends, family, strangers, no one will come to know that it is Christ who gives all people life and hope and victory. Our testimony is not complete until we declare our faith, sharing with others God's perspectives and meaning to our life, as awkward as it might be. It means telling the truth about our own challenges and victories: that we are nothing apart from Jesus Christ. ALL life is in Jesus, and unless we SAY it, invite others to this relationship, we are fooling ourselves to think that our testimony and the hope for the world is in a fancy building, a slick program, a good preacher, our music program or our nice people.

All through history, God's people have shared their personal stories about their faith in God. In our schools, and offices and stores and neighborhoods, so must we, relying on the Holy Spirit to make our bumbling words effective for salvation. God will be the victor no matter what the church says. But the primary end of the Church is to BE the witness to the world of God's Kingdom and to tell it like it is. All of us.

Daily Bible readings- first thoughts April 24, 2007

Psalm 98:1-9; Daniel 4:28-37; I John 4:7-21; Psalm 66:1-20

God can drive us to places we don't want to go. As Christians, we are taught to expect that - to follow Christ into difficult places when we commit to serve Him.

But God can drive us to other places, where we have no use. Indeed, King Nebuchadnezzar found himself toppled from his throne and driven into the wilderness, just like Daniel told him would happen. God drove him from power and privilege to danger and darkness, to grovel and scrap for survival with wild animals. Of use to no one, powerless for a time.

The evil spirit that possessed the man in Luke's gospel, who manifested itself in him as many, was driven out of him by a few words from Jesus. They too became powerless over the man, driven to oblivion.

John reminds us that God can drive out anything that blocks love from the world - including our selfish ambition, pride, fear. All God wants to dwell in us is love - for God and for others. As the King learned, [God] is able to bring low those who walk in pride. (Daniel 4:37). As God drives out sin and evil from our lives, through Christ, God brings us low. But God does not leave us there.

The King was restored to his throne with humility - now claiming the One true God: ³⁴When that period was over, I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me. I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored the one who lives forever. For his sovereignty is an everlasting sovereignty, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation.

Pride was driven out and replaced by the fear of the Lord. Fear, reverence, honor - the recognition that God is God, not us. God has all the power, not the unclean spirits of this world, that tempt us to think we are god, that we can go it alone, that we have it all together, that our needs matter more than justice and peace. God drives us to our knees, God drives us to consider the wasteland of our lives, God drives us to the brink, but God never leaves us there, to fear. For God sent Jesus into the wilderness to drive us home to God, and to dwell with us in love, by love, for love, forever.

¹³By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. ¹⁵God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. ¹⁶So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. (I John 4:13-16).

The wilderness can be a place where purpose and perspective is shaped. And everything else is driven out. So be it to the glory of God.