One Night Stands With Jesus

I tend to talk a lot of rubbish at times> Those who know me well would understand that at times I put my brain into neutral and just let whatever come into my head flow out my mouth.

I was almost having one of those moments yesterday. Although I was thinking about what I was saying, I was just going with the flow of the conversation when I may possibly have coined a new phrase. I was talking with a friend about evangelism and the different ways that people communicate the gospel to others. I was saying how important it is that we help people to be discipled and become disciples after they have made the initial choice to follow Jesus as their saviour.

As we talked about the pro's and con's of various evangelistic strategies, we started talking about how Christianity is meant to be a relationship with God and how the first commitment for some people in their relationship with God is about as far as things go. It was here I likened it to a one night stand.

I'm sure you know what a one night stand is, even if you have never had one, you may know someone who has or have at least seen it on T.V. One night stands are brief (usually lasting only one night - hence the name), are emotional but at the same time not exactly intimate, and rarely ever lead to a significant relationship. Like real life one night stands, after a one night stand with Jesus, there is the possibility that you may catch something that will change your life, but maybe you can see someone about that.

Our lives shouldn't just be a series of one night stands with Jesus, where we hook up with him at some big event when our emotions are running high, but then forget all about Him the next day. I think God wants to be closer to us than that. I think God desires to know us intimately ( Check out Psalm 139) and to spend quality time with us, even when we aren't in an emotionally hyped state, perhaps especially when we aren't in an emotionally hyped state. Have a look at Genesis 3, we can see here that God, is walking in the Garden of Eden, searching for Adam and Eve, wanting to spend time with them. God desires to be in relationship with us, not an emotional, yet un-intimate (possibly another new word) relationship, but the kind of relationship that grows closer and more intimate as you travel through life together, through the good times and the bad times.

What sort of relationship do you have with Jesus, is it emotional, physical, intimate, consistent or a combination of all of the above?

Bravely Going Where God Has Clearly Gone Before

One of the Ballarat radio stations have segments throughout the day where they play short segments of stand up comedians. Some of these are really quite funny, some are just funny and some are not. I remember hearing one comedian remark that they always found it interesting when they watched the original Star Trek that despite claiming to "Boldly go where no man has gone before" everywhere Kirk, Spock and the rest of them went, there always appeared to be men (and women) there already.

I remembered this point the other night as I was driving home listening to a podcast from one of my favourite authors and speakers, Erwin McManus at Mosaic. It was kind of a side point to his message, but Erwin was talking about how he thought it a bit odd for people to say that they are taking God to a place, because God is already in that place and is moving there already.

This got me thinking a bit.

It never ceases to amaze me how God has moved in my life. On the rarest occasion I am very aware of God directing me specifically in certain ways, ways that require me to make specific conscious decisions and changes. At other times, I am aware of God being active and involved in my life, but my response needs to be one of continued obedience, keeping on doing what I know God wants and being patient and allowing God to work the rest of it out. And then there are times where I look back and am amazed at how incredibly involved God has been in my life, even at times where I wasn't overly aware of it.

If in my own life God has been active without me being aware of it, how much more is he active in the world without many, many more being aware of it??!!

Christian theology talks about preceding or preveninent grace, the grace that God has prepared far in advance that allows us to enter into relationship with Him. Thomas Oden of Drew University defines prevenient grace as, "...the grace that begins to enable one to choose further to cooperate with saving grace. By offering the will the restored capacity to respond to grace, the person then may freely and increasingly become an active, willing participant in receiving the conditions for justification. (thanks to wikipedia)" So even before we choose to accept, believe or even acknowledge Gods existence, God is going before us and preparing the way for us to enter into a relationship with Him.
Throughout the book of Acts, we see many instances where God had prepared the ground for the apostles to reveal Him to others. I think of Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch, Peter with Cornelius and his household, the conversion of Saul who changed his name to Paul and how this Paul revealed to the Athenians the true God through a statue in their city dedicated to an unknown God.

I am without a doubt that God has prepared the way for us to share with others our faith and allow God to reveal Himself to them. And if God has gone before us, and is preparing the way, who are we to sit back and not go??

What could possibly stop us?

INTERESTING CONVERSATIONS

For those of you who have been following this blog over the last week or so, you would be aware that my last post, initially about bullying and the responsibility we have to care for others, not oppress them, sparked quite an interesting debate.

This debate, centred much around the divinity/deity of Jesus; as in, is Jesus God or was he just a human servant of God. I love a good discussion as much as the next bloke, so was happy to enter into the debate with this person for a while. As the debate went on though, it became apparent to me that neither of us were likely to change our minds, and so discussing it further would really prove to be of little value on this blog. I have since received an email from the blogger to which I will respond once I have some time.

This discussion got me thinking though. I thought of all of the places that I have had the opportunity to speak to people about matters of faith and God and religion. One I distinctly remember was while on holidays on the Gold Coast a couple of years ago. I was staying at a backpackers near the beach, and on my last night there a group of people that I had met while I was there had decided to go out to a night club and invited me. being a sociable sort of person and always up for a night out, I tagged along. At some stage during the night I found myself in a deep conversation about grace and God's forgiveness in the middle of the night club with one of the bloke I had met at the backpackers, it was an awesome privilege to be a part of that conversation!!

I have had long conversations with people in Pubs about what it means to talk with God and to hear His voice, and many other places you would not normally associate with talking about God. Although I have never had the conversation that nearly every pastor/minister/preacher seems to have had on a plane where they talk matters of God and faith, I hope that the conversations I have had with people have planted seeds in peoples lives that one day will bear fruit.