Randy Loubier's Blog

Evangelizing Under the Guidance of the Holy Spirit

This makes the fourth post in my series on evangelization, specifically carrying the Gospel message to those who could be considered anti-Christian. In my first post of this series, we touched on the fact that all of us are called to evangelize. You have been rescued to be part of the rescue team. When God created you, this was a part of your purpose.

In the second post, I went into detail about how the anti-Christian sees you, a follower of Christ. What I shared wasn’t information I read in a pamphlet. It was how I felt the first 50 years of my life as an anti-Christian myself. I know exactly what it is like to be an enemy of God and the Gospel message. While this isn’t something I am proud of, the lessons I learned the hard way can be beneficial to those new to evangelizing.

Then, in last week’s post, we discussed learning to share the Gospel message off track. Again, this is something I learned through personal experience. I can’t count how many times I approached someone who visibly needed Jesus in their life, but they turned away because of my approach. They didn’t need someone telling them that they are a sinner who needed to change their life. Instead, they needed to hear a message of love, hope, and blessings from someone who sacrificed to help them.

That’s where we will pick up this week, learning to evangelize off track and being led by the Holy Spirit. If you haven’t done so yet, I encourage you to go back and read the previous three posts in this series. Also, I have recently published a new book, “Sowing in Hard Ground,” ,that can be purchased at this link.

I believe that the Holy Spirit should lead every interaction. There is extraordinary joy and freedom in letting the Holy Spirit guide your conversations. Indeed, it can be so freeing that it is addictive. I walk outside, open my arms up, and say something like, “I’m yours, Heavenly Father. For the next hour, all I have to do is your will. Lead me to the one who you prepared. Take my hand and guide me. Give me the words. I know nothing but Christ crucified. I have no responsibility but to be your instrument of love. Hallelujah!”

Believe that God’s Word is true. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. I have seen His miracles countless times when I am out with no agenda but to be present with the Gospel on my lips. In that time of just you and Him, when you are pure in heart for Him, you will get close to Him, and you will see Him. He will shape the conversation and bless it.

If you are not confident the Holy Spirit will be with you as I have just described, ask God to fill you with the Holy Spirit. Asking for a filling of the Holy Spirit is different from receiving the Holy Spirit when you come to faith. Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit into the Apostles before He died, and they received the Spirit then. But then after Jesus was resurrected, He filled them with the Spirit. The Bible says that if you, as an imperfect being, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask. Please ask the Father persistently while you live in obedience to Him. And if you have access to a Spirit filled elder, ask them to lay hands on you and pray for you to be filled with the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is real, active, and present in the moment. Praying before you go out is excellent, but I have an essential tip: pray unceasingly while you are out. It is not time to catch up with a friend if you are out two by two; chatting diminishes the whole experience. Pray. Out loud or silently. Just keep praying for everyone you see. And if the street is empty, pray for the people who live in the houses. God meets you in your prayers and blesses you further. The Holy Spirit is present with you. You will love your time far more if you continuously pray while you are out.

Getting into a conversation with someone you meet and letting the Holy Spirit take it away is ideal. You following the Holy Spirit is my wholehearted recommendation. Just keep engaging with more people, and He will teach you everything you need to know.

“But,” some of you are thinking, “can’t we get a little more specific? Give me an example. How do you get from ‘Hello’ to a conversation about God?”

Connect: Notice something about them and remark kindly about it. Connect with them in their culture and interests. A piece of clothing, tattoo/jewelry, or something they are carrying are easy connecting points. “I just noticed your bag; it’s beautiful. Can I ask you what brand it is?” “I love your necklace; where did you get that?” “That’s a good-looking bike. I used to have a Kawasaki; tell me about your ride?” Please keep the conversation going by asking questions and let them talk.

Redirect: This seems like the most challenging part, but once you get used to trusting the Holy Spirit, you will find it far more straightforward than you fear. The redirects are nearly limitless in variety, but a couple of examples show how easy it happens. “By the way, I am a pastor/deacon/(wo)man of faith/Christian and was just out for a walk and silently praying for our community, is there anything I should pray about for you or your family later?” “I know this might seem out of the blue, but somehow we connected today, and I don’t think it is a coincidence. Do you happen to have a faith background of any type?” “I noticed while we were talking you have a cross there, is that important to you spiritually in any way?” “I noticed you have a slight limp. Do you have anyone praying for you?” Please keep the conversation going by asking questions and let them talk.

Track: The redirect allows you to ask questions about their faith. Your questions launch you into page one of the track, where you will explore their faith and find common ground.

By the way, there are times when the only thing to do is smile and hand them a track. And if that is all I can get accomplished, I want to make sure I have His message right in the track. This track is my best attempt to say His message accurately as a committed ambassador for our King.

Follow along with the track. Each page has two sections For You (background info that can help you prepare) and For Them (step by step to help them understand the page).

With next week’s post, we will start digging into the seven pages or steps of the track I created to share the Gospel message with others. We will look at how to start a conversation with the individual the Holy Spirit has led us to approach. What questions should you be asking, and what information should you be aiming to learn? This will be the first of seven pages I have used for years to lead an unbeliever to Christ.

Learning to Evangelize Off Track

As a follower of Christ, everyone has been called to evangelize. Evangelization isn’t a responsibility for preachers and church leaders. You have been rescued to be a part of the rescue team. That being said, if you are going to set out to evangelize, you need to be prepared.

This task isn’t for the faint of heart, especially when the mission is reaching out to anti-Christians. That is the point of this blog series, making sure you are prepared for what you can encounter. I want to play a role in preparing you to lead others towards the cross. As Christians, this is something we are in desperate need of. Still, when we aren’t properly prepared for the task at hand, it can lead any Christian to never hit the streets evangelizing again.

Along with this blog post series, I’ve also published a new book, “Sowing in Hard Ground.” If the Holy Spirit has been prompting you to evangelize, I encourage you to take advantage of some of the lessons I have learned the hard way. ,A copy of the book can be purchased here.

How Do We Begin?

How do we speak the truth without being soft on sin, without preaching prosperity, without twisting scripture, without suggesting God’s Word is outdated because the world has changed?

I will use the track You Already Know God, 7 Surprising Facts to illustrate the key points you could make when given a chance. We will look at one of these facts in each post of this series. Let the Holy Spirit lead you in the moment. Don’t stay on a track when the Holy Spirit is leading off the track. The track is simply there to, well, keep you on track if you need it.

Before we get to the track, I have a few 30,000-foot-view thoughts.

Firstly, we must start with an assumption that everyone we speak to about Christ, including people going to church, has some arguments going on in their head that fit last week’s post, How The Non-Christian Sees You. The safest way to speak is to the lowest common denominator. If you can cover the abject anti-Christian, the hardest ground, you will cover every latent doubt in the casual Christian’s mind as well.

Secondly, we need to define our objective. Our job as a disciple of Jesus is to introduce them to a relationship they don’t know exists. That is it. God does the rest. If we can convince them that it’s a good idea to start the relationship, we’ve done our job.

I’m sure you must have questions. What about making sure they repent? What about making sure they understand what Jesus did on the cross? What about…

Most of us want to either preach or teach the person in front of us. Preaching won’t help—don’t kid yourself that they care that you, or anyone including God, says they are a sinner. Society says they aren’t, and they say they aren’t, case closed. And teaching won’t help either. There is enough time for them to get educated. They don’t need a human teacher in the very beginning; they need the Holy Spirit. Education won’t save them. Only a desire to fall in love with Jesus will save them.

The sequence of the average unbeliever/casual Christian becoming born again is simply this.

1. Skeptical about everything anyone says. Doesn’t want to be a “Christian,” as they know them. Not going to believe it until they experience it personally. An emotional decision-maker (despite how logical they think they are).

2. Wants to be heard, not talked at. Willing to tell you what they think about God if encouraged.

3. Willing to hear there is a relationship available that will help them find peace, love, and joy in this life, but the relationship is not easily obtained (few find it). Glad to know it’s their decision and up to them to pursue or not.

4. Made a personal decision to pursue a relationship with Christ by reading/listening to the Bible for themselves.

5. The Word convicts, washes clean, and transforms. They become born again in the only way they ever could, by the power of God.

The Bible is not only the power of God; it opens eyes, is a shield of refuge, a precious seed that can grow to produce 100 fold, and the source of blessings. We are leading them to the Word of God.

The Aren’t-Supposed-To’s

I have a couple of things that I believe are not the job of an evangelist. If you hear these now, you won’t be looking for them in the track and wondering why they aren’t in there.

These are two “aren’t-supposed-to’s.”

1. You aren’t supposed to convict them of sin; the Holy Spirit will do that. Jesus didn’t come to condemn the world, so neither should you. Indeed, nobody ever made it through the narrow gate because they were afraid of hell. Jesus strongly criticized the Pharisees for pushing others to follow the rules out of fear of the consequences. Falling in love (all your heart, soul, mind, might) with your Savior is the only way to eternal life.

And, pertinent to the average westerner who may be skeptical about the afterlife, falling in love with your Savior is the only way to a blessed life now!

Frankly, Jesus talked little about the afterlife. Instead, he spoke extensively about the Kingdom of God/Heaven, which He ushered in 2,000 years ago to be a society of committed followers. Entrance into the Kingdom happens as soon as you are born again. If people know there is value in living in the Kingdom today, only a fool will wait like a thief hanging on the cross until their death bed.

And speaking of value, do you know there is value in living in the Kingdom today? If you call yourself a Christian because you want to save yourself from hell or want to go to heaven to see your relatives, I fear you may not be a Christian at all. If not, please get back to the basics of your relationship with Christ.

Sorry if that sounds harsh, but I trust you are mature enough in faith to hear the truth if you are reading this. Sincerely, please stop right now and ponder, journal, and pray. Why are you a Christian? I pray your answer is something like: “I love living as a follower of Jesus. I love my King! My life is amazing compared to what it was before I fell in love. I will take a bullet for Him. I will do anything for Him because He is my King.” If it isn’t, I fear you may not be on the rock of Jesus Christ.

To recover your first love, “Listen, Learn and Obey”—get in the Word every day, 30 minutes a day, and build/rebuild your relationship and then live it out through obedience. Secondarily, I urge you to continue to read this booklet, so you may know the essential truths of establishing a relationship with Jesus Christ.

If you fell for Satan’s deception that “Life is hard as a Christian,” you have been duped, or you are pridefully patting yourself on the back, or you have no memory of life before salvation. Everyone saved later in life knows the difference: life in the Kingdom rocks! Life without God is a merciless hell on earth.

Many of you know this is true but aren’t willing to say it or believe it because you don’t want to be a prosperity or name/claim believer. But it’s easy to avoid both of those:

You don’t tell people they will get rich if they give money, or tell them God wants them to be rich, or tell them they will never experience bad things again. You don’t tell people God owes them something for being a good child or that He grants their prayers because they demand it. Indeed, God owes us nothing, and we owe Him everything. We serve to glorify Him.

You must tell them the truth. To avoid saying that life is better in Christ than out is tragic! Even the worst that life throws at us, pain, rejection, and torture, is far better in Christ than out. Christ promised it, I’ve experienced it, I’ve watched others discover it, and I’m shouting it from the rooftops! Join me and tell the truth. “Blessed are…” is real, straight from Jesus’ lips, and His born again disciples know it!

2. You aren’t supposed to teach them how to live as a Christian before they are a Christian. They are not a Christian before they get through the narrow gate. They are not through the narrow gate until they are hungering and thirsting for Christ. Therefore, until they are hungering and thirsting for Christ, and even then, only with great delicacy, judge their lifestyles, beliefs, idols, and sins. You are supposed to be modeling trust in the Holy Spirit, yet if you keep sticking

your nose into the Holy Spirit’s job, how much of a Christian are you?

As a Christian, you are a signpost, pointing to Christ, the Word. Trust the Holy Spirit to teach them how to live as a follower of Christ. He will. Just keep pointing them back to a love relationship with encouragement and joy. Be available to answer questions about the scripture they are reading. And be available to hear their journey, their questions, their concerns, their “but, I heard this…”

And even once they are a committed disciple of Jesus, keep letting them know it only gets better and more profound the longer they stay committed. They are heading for joy so immense that even under persecution, Jesus promises we will be blessed. That is a radical promise of living better in the Kingdom! He promises not an avoidance of persecution and hardship, inevitable in this life, but a blessing while in it. This blessing is supernatural grace! Believe!

In next week’s post, we will take an in-depth look at allowing the Holy Spirit to lead us with each evangelizing encounter. If we are going to set out to do God’s work, we need to be willing to allow His Spirit to have His way for us. He is the guide, and we are His servants. Only with this approach do we experience the joy and freedom that comes with pointing others towards the cross.

Evangelizing in an Anti-Christian World

Last week I shared two reasons why I had changed my evangelism message. The evangelism tracks didn’t voice my broken heart for the lost; I wanted to focus on living a blessed life today, whereas the tracks wanted to focus on heaven. And secondly, I wanted to tell the Gospel as Jesus and the Apostles told it; but, the evangelism tracks had adopted a very different message than Jesus.

There was a third reason, too, that was gnawing at my conscience to take a new evangelism approach, especially with anti-Christians.

I know a little when it comes to being an anti-Christian. I spent the first 50 years of my life distancing myself as far from Jesus as I could, as well as those who followed Him. I wanted nothing to do with Christians or their way of life. Looking back, I learned many lessons during that time that have better prepared me for evangelizing. They have given me a way of relating to the people the Holy Spirit leads me to approach. In a sense, I have the opportunity to know what the non-Christian is thinking before they even speak.

Fifty years of solid bias against Christianity doesn’t fade from memory quickly. My dislike for Christian culture was (is) still fresh. I know why I didn’t like you, and I know why I thought you were pathetically duped into believing something silly. Yes, I was anti-Christian.

I have no intention of hurting your feelings. Still, if you never know why people dislike and disrespect you as a Christian, you’ll never become an effective witness for Christ, particularly if you are sowing in hard ground. The list is long, but let’s expose the most important few.

How the Anti-Christian and Non-Christian Sees You

• You are a hypocrite. You tell me I’m a sinner while you sin.

• You are prejudiced. You tell me Jesus loves me, yet you hate gays, liberals, and indigenous people.

• You are superstitious. You think that just because I repeat a prayer, I’m going to heaven.

• You are delusional. You think you can beam your fake happiness at me, and I will ask you why you are different? I already know why you are different—and I don’t like you and your evil club!

Once again, I am not trying to be mean. But better for you to hear it from a friend than wonder why your seeds are not penetrating the hard soil.

You are not living in a Christian country. There are no Christian countries on this planet. I urge you to let go of your view of the past and take stock of today’s culture.

Increasingly, you are living in a country that believes you are the problem, not a solution. Your reasoning and beliefs, the populace say, are the reason for every evil perpetrated against every non-white, non-male. “Freedom from Religion” is their chant because religion is the cause of hatred, prejudice, bigotry, and violence. And the worst one on the list, so the narrative goes, is Christianity. The world, it is believed, would be a far better place if they could eliminate every vestige of Christianity.

As you read these words, you probably think I exaggerate or talk about a limited extreme view. You would be wrong. The anti-Christian perspective is pervasive.

Please do not underestimate the shift in western culture over the past fifty years. It is a powerful current that has swept through every corner of western society. You may think I am exaggerating because you haven’t heard it said out loud, but friendly people don’t say what they are thinking—and even if you ask them, most people will not tell you their true feelings about Christianity. It is best to assume everyone you speak to believes some or all these viewpoints.

Even if you think I am exaggerating, please do not play into their hands. Misguided evangelists are turning the population against Christ every day. There may have been a time when a bull horn and a sandwich sign that reads, “Repent Or Go To Hell!” worked. But if that was effective in the past, the sun has set on that day long ago. And one could argue: if that was such a great idea, why didn’t Jesus and the Apostles do that?

My Conclusion

Therefore, I changed my approach to witnessing through a confluence of practical experience, scripture reading, insider knowledge of anti-Christian views, and the Holy Spirit. The central question I kept asking myself was: Why am I using an approach that doesn’t voice my broken heart, doesn’t fit Jesus and the Apostle’s methods, and worse yet, feeds bullets into their already loaded gun?

Let me be clear. I have never felt any of the evangelism approaches I’ve read were unscriptural (perhaps there are some-I don’t claim to be familiar with every system). But that’s partly my point: there are many ways of presenting the Gospel. I needed a way to breathe the way, truth, and life into today’s western hard ground, into that person standing in front of me.

I am not claiming my way is best, better, or perfect. My purpose in writing this booklet is to give you another perspective. This booklet provides you with my detailed approach and my scriptural reasoning in how I speak love into the broken, model the gospels and Acts (as I interpret them), and make my best attempt to be effective in the culture I live in.

Your approach isn’t wrong because it misses the mark on any of the three above criteria. Those are my criteria, and I might have a different take than you. Furthermore, just because your approach doesn’t match the book of Acts doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

For example, the famous sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (American theologian Jonathan Edwards) was not how Jesus and the Apostles preached. Yet, it worked fabulously well in the 1740’s American culture into which it was spoken. It was the right approach in that culture. In my opinion, however, that same sermon preached on the average street corner in today’s western countries would be misguided.

And there are nearly countless other sermons that are equally scripturally sound but are misfiring, indeed backfiring, in the reality of today’s culture. Without the right approach, it almost seems as if the louder we speak, the louder the anti-Christian response becomes. So let’s make certain we are speaking like Jesus and the apostles!

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, this is part of an eight-week series that will be published every Friday morning. The inspiration for this series came from my latest book, “Sowing In Hard Ground,” which can be purchased through this link. Until next week, God bless!

Are You Evangelizing?

Are you evangelizing? If you follow Jesus, evangelism is a mission you were born into. The Great Commission is a part of our lives.

Most Christians become guilty, nervous, or both when asked if evangelism is a part of how they demonstrate their faith. They either are evangelizing, or it is something that they dread.

If you are someone who dreads evangelism, you are going to be delighted to engage with my new blog series. I will be publishing a post each of the next eight weeks focused on presenting the Gospel the way Jesus and the Apostles did. You are going to find great joy in evangelizing with this approach.

If you already spend time evangelizing, I highly recommend wiping your evangelism slate clean to get the most from my teaching. I’m asking you to allow me to teach you a perspective that might be new to you, one that I spent a decade perfecting while out on the streets leading others to Jesus.

Our society has experienced a lot of change over the last 50 years. Western soil has hardened, leading to an increase in the number of people who dread evangelizing. It can be discouraging believing you already know how people will respond to your engagement. “No thanks, leave me alone.” Even worse, more and more people are starting to respond with, “Don’t push your hate agenda on me.” We are living in a time when the truth of the Gospel is viewed as hating others.

Sadly, the methods some use for evangelism support this thinking. However, I am confident there are blessings to be found in evangelism using a 1st-century approach, especially in the hardest of soils.

I spent the first 50 years of my life disliking Christians and their judgmental culture. When I finally made peace with God, the Holy Spirit made sure I knew that evangelism would be a part of my life. He led me, someone who had been a shy geek my entire life, to hit the streets in a state with some of the hardest soil in the country and engage other people face to face. To say I was challenged is an understatement.

Because I am a geeky guy, I wanted to learn as much about evangelism as I could. This included studying different evangelism methods that were popular at the time. I memorized the Roman Road, Steps to Peace With God through Billy Graham’s organization, Ray Comfort’s approach, and even taught Rick Warren’s Celebrate Recovery program to addicts. There are many other books and articles I have read.

When it comes to evangelizing, the advice I received from the Bible has been the greatest. I follow what He has taught me: to love them because He loves them.

But more specifically than being a minister of love, there are some principles that I learned which caused me to change my evangelism practice over the years. I want to share those with you.

Evangelizing on the streets, exposing my broken heart.

Similar to most practitioners, the experiences that God led me through have been a significant influence. I would frequently encounter strong skeptics while on the streets, people just like my former self. The last thing they wanted was to meet a Christian who couldn’t wait to call them a sinner. I would also run into people who needed spiritual help to untangle the mess that their life had become. When these two intersected, my heart would grow sick as our short conversations would end.

They might have been waiting in line at a soup kitchen, distress written all over their face. So, being the best evangelist I knew how to be, I would pull out a track, start down the Roman Road, or in some other way to tell them that I was a Christian, and the conversation would shut down with the person turning their head and letting me know they were fine. They weren’t interested in hearing about God. “I’m all set. I’m good.”

God would lead me to let the situation go, walk away, and pray for them. But, my broken-hearted tears would overwhelm me as I silently cried, “But Lord, they aren’t all set! Their life is a mess! They need your help, and I want them to have the same joy you have given me!” I would sense a response of something like, “You would have said the same, my son. Just pray for him. I love him, and I will send someone else.”

My greatest desire and motivation was to tell them that they were missing something amazing. Today! I am ashamed to admit, their eternity wasn’t my greatest concern. Instead, I wanted them to live now in the same confidence and love I had found in the Bible.

The problem was, I couldn’t find this message on any track. Most tracks focus on eternity. Eventually, I didn’t bother with the tracks. My goal wasn’t to tell them about a free ticket to heaven. On the inside, I burned with a desire to share the joy that was available in Jesus. For 50 years, I had been wrong and missed out on this joyful life in Christ. I had to share with others what they were missing.

The apostles didn’t use a 21st century track, either!

Along with the experiences I had on the streets, something else made me question the standard evangelism practices. I was, and still am, a voracious Bible reader. Four years into my journey, I started reading the Bible according to Professor Grant Horner’s program. This is a unique and intensive sequence of reading 10 chapters a day. It led to me read the book of Acts every month. I read the Bible like this for three years. I was continuously reading the Book of Acts, 36 times. I paid great attention to the Acts of the Apostles.

During those three years, it slowly dawned on me that the Apostles hadn’t read the modern evangelism books and tracks that we have. The approach they used was nothing like today’s experts write about.

When they were on hard ground, the Apostle’s approach went something like this:

Connect to their culture. Find out who they listen to and who they worship to establish some common ground. They told them they had news. The benevolent uncreated creator God (whom they already knew) sent His Son, Jesus, to establish something they had all been waiting for: a powerful restorative path of access to the Creator and a new kingdom. To prove this, Jesus had done countless miracles and was raised from the dead, witnessed by thousands. Knowing Jesus, therefore, has become critical because He has been set as judge over everyone. Change your mind and believe.

As Christian evangelists, I believe we need to get back to sowing seeds like Jesus and the Apostles.

I have spent the last few months writing my new book, “Sowing In Hard Ground.” ,A copy can be purchased at this link. Additionally, I will be publishing a post for the next eight weeks focusing on approaching evangelism the way Jesus and the Apostles did.

In next week’s post, I will be discussing one of the most important topics we face evangelizing, the general public’s dislike for our Christian culture. Most of our seeds are dying immediately. Let’s discover why and adjust!

Believing May Not Be What You Think

I came to faith after fifty years of being an anti-Christian, so my perspective is perhaps different than yours. I didn’t grow up in a church, therefore I didn’t have a childhood filled with Christian traditions and stories being taught to me as a young man.

Sure, we did Christmas and Easter, but I don’t recall hearing things like—do good and go to heaven, do bad and go to hell, do good because He’s watching, attend church and take communion because you must, believe and you go to heaven, don’t believe and you go to hell, etc.

I came to faith by reading the Bible at fifty years old. My faith grew by reading the Bible. By reading the Old Testament first, I fell in love with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And then I fell head over heels in love with Jesus by reading the New Testament.

During my first read through the Bible I started going to church. I would hear some of the church traditions, and think to myself, “I haven’t read that yet, that must be coming in later books.” By the time I finished my first read through the Bible, I still couldn’t reconcile some phrases with what I had read. I just assumed I was missing something, and it would become clear over time.

I am a voracious Bible reader still, and now thirteen years later, I have concluded that a fair amount of stuff we throw around as truth is not in the Bible.

It isn’t all bad, and much of it is well meaning. But in some ways, I wonder if we have become Pharisees. Jesus said that the Pharisees had become so concerned with rule following they kept people from God. “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.” (Matt 23:13)

Christianity isn’t about being a good rule follower. It’s deeper. Far deeper. Following Christ is a love affair. It’s not in your pores, not in the subdermal, not in the tissue, joints or muscle, not even in your bones or marrow. It’s deeper even than that. The Bible says God placed eternity in our inner man (Ecc. 3:11).

When you allow God to spark eternity in you, you gain something impossible to describe, but overwhelmingly lovely, joyous and peaceful. When you allow God to help you stay, abide, in that peace, you finally understand “Blessed are…”

Jesus’ two greatest commandments clue us in: love God, love people. Fall in love with Him, really truly, head over heels in love, and then you can finally love others as yourself.

It’s your move first though. He honors His free will design so He won’t force Himself on you. You have to seek Him. “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you,” (James 4:8). It’s your move first. “Blessed are…” is waiting for you.

Open your Bible and let yourself fall in love.

Pastor Randy

The Beatitudes and Being a Peacemaker

This makes the seventh post of my series, walking us through the beatitudes. With the last post, our focus was being pure in heart and seeing God. With this week’s post, our goal is to do much more than see God. We want to become a part of His family. We want to become His children, co-heirs with Jesus Christ. For this, we will be looking at Matthew 5:9.

,“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”

To receive this blessing, becoming a son of God, we need to look at four specific areas. We will look at what it means to be at peace with God, being at peace with others, helping other people to discover peace with God themselves, and being a son of God.

Before getting started with the post, I wanted to give a quick reminder that my book, ,“The Tea Room Scrolls: Volume 2,” can be preordered here. This book will guide you through a much more detailed study of The Beatitudes than this blog post series. Let’s get started with this week’s post!

Being at Peace with God

This peace with God is known as shalom. It can be complete or whole. By nature and nurture, each of us is a traitor. We regularly commit treason against an Almighty King. Still, because He is rich in mercy, God lays down His life for His enemy. God the Father reconciles us unto himself through His Son, Jesus Christ.

This Hebrew word “shalom” is much richer than the English word “peace.” Shalom doesn’t just demonstrate an absence of turmoil and conflict. It shows receiving positive blessings when it comes to a right relationship with God. It creates the space where everything is alright in our lives, especially under tribulation and persecution.

Being at peace with God doesn’t mean we no longer have troubles in life. As a matter of fact, this can be just the opposite; Jesus said the way is narrow and hard. Yet, when we are at peace with God, we find amazing blessings in life, regardless of how difficult the situations and circumstances are around us. Despite everything we have going on in our lives, we have peace with God. Our fight is no longer against Him. Our war against God has ended.

Being at Peace with Others

With this beatitude, the ministry of human reconciliation is present. If you are a child of God, peacemaking is both your assignment and birthright. Peace can be hard-won, especially with those who don’t believe in God the Father. Peace cost Jesus His life on the cross. It is not supposed to be easily accomplished for us. It is something we must strive for.

When you become a peacemaker, you will be ok with stepping away from any rights you think you might have. When it comes to living in harmony with other people, you will become willing to do whatever it takes. You can focus on being right, or you can focus on making peace. Unfortunately, you can’t do both.

As followers of Jesus, not only is it our duty to make sure we are at peace with everyone else. It is our responsibility to do what we can to reconcile them to God. Blessed are you when you realize God the Father loves you so much that He has sent His Son on a rescue mission for you. Blessed are you when you realize the moment Jesus rescues you, you become part of the rescue team helping to save others.

Jesus is talking about the believers promoting the messianic peace of God, shalom. They realize they are to extend the love of God, even to their enemies. God’s universal love is available to all people without any discrimination.

This is known by theologians and Bible scholars as common grace. It is distinguished from God’s everlasting love for His elect, but it is still genuine. This common grace is the way we are to approach other people. We don’t distinguish whether they are believers or not. We simply show them God’s love.

Leading Others to Be at Peace with God

As followers of Christ, we are responsible for pointing the lost towards the cross. This isn’t a duty reserved for pastors, ministers, priests, and other church leaders. They have a job already, feeding their flock. As God’s children, it is on us to point others towards Him. This is why I mentioned earlier, blessed are you when you realize the moment you were rescued, you became part of the rescue party. It is now on you to play a role in rescuing others.

Therefore, we have to be willing to share the Gospel message with others. It doesn’t matter if you are a student on campus. It doesn’t matter if you are an employee at the office, a parent at home, or just a neighbor in a neighborhood. It is your responsibility to share the Gospel with others. Being a peacemaker is helping others find peace with God.

This is why we pray for other people, especially those who are still lost. We spend time with God, begging Him to save their souls. We ask Him to open the eyes and the hearts of our family and friends to make them aware of His presence in their lives. Regardless of the need to be blessed or broken, we ask God to teach them how to identify His Spirit.

Because God created them, He knows them better than they even know themselves. God knows exactly what it is going to take to get their attention. We ask Him to do whatever needs to be done for our friends to know Him.

If you believe in Jesus Christ, you must be a part of the movement, part of what was called “the way” during New Testament times. The church is not a building. It is the group of believers making the body of Christ. Church isn’t somewhere we go. It’s something we do.

May we never stop trying to reconcile others to God. I am actively writing another resource which I hope will be helpful in reaching people in today’s culture. Stay tuned.

Becoming a Son of God

Let’s first be clear, this statement isn’t limited to male readers. Language and culture has changed in 2000 years. Better to read this as becoming children of God. I’ll explain more shortly.

I want to shift our attention back to Paul’s letter to the Romans. Let’s look at chapter 8:14-15.

“For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”

Women and men alike are characterized as having a son’s rights. During biblical times, only through sonship could someone have the right of inheritance. The term “sons” refers to both men and women who have been adopted into the family of God, enjoying all the obligations, privileges, and inheritance rights only a son could receive during this time.

You might be someone who loves all children. Still, if you have kids of your own, you know the special place they have in your heart. They don’t have to ask for your attention. They feel no need to seek the king’s permission to be comfortable. They have the freedom to be themselves and enjoy life to the fullest. Regardless of what they do, how foolish they may look, they know that they have your complete love and support.

If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, this is exactly how God sees you. You are His child, and He loves you unconditionally. The battle has been fought, and the war is over. You are at peace with God. Welcome to His family.

Dining with Jesus and the Word of God

The Word of God is not only a history we should be learning from. It is knowledge we should be growing towards. This is the fifth post in my series “Dining with Jesus.” I want to use this week’s post to discuss the difference between reading and studying the Word of God.

This series began with a post determining the Kingdom of God is something we are experiencing right now, not something that will happen after we take our last breath. If you are a follower of Christ, you are already living in the kingdom of God.

In the second post, the first meal we find in the Gospel of Luke, Levi has a great feast for Jesus. We learn that Jesus came to the world on a rescue mission. His purpose was calling sinners to repentance instead of calling the righteous. Jesus told the Pharisees at the feast that those who are well have no need of a physician. Jesus had come for those who were sick.

The second meal we looked at was held by Simon. He has a feast, and Jesus is the guest of honor. The dinner party is interrupted when a woman who is well known for her sin comes in and weeps at Jesus’ feet. She cleans His feet with her tears, dries them with her hair, and anoints the feet of Jesus with a flask of ointment.

Jesus tells Simon that this woman’s sins have been forgiven, and because she has been forgiven of much, she is full of love. Those who have been forgiven for little are only able to love in small measures. Jesus forgives the woman and tells her to "go in peace.”

The last meal we went over was a little different. Instead of being invited to a feast, Jesus is the host. Jesus feeds five thousand men plus women and children, and He uses His disciples, the church, to take the meal to the people who had gathered to hear Him teach. The disciples tell Jesus to send the crowd away so they can go into the surrounding countryside and villages and find lodging and something to eat. Instead, Jesus tells them, “You give them something to eat.”

This week we will be looking at the meal being held at Martha and Mary’s house. While the meal doesn’t actually take place in the passage, preparations are definitely underway. Martha is distracted with all the serving while Mary chooses to sit at Jesus’ feet and listen to His teaching. The passage is found in Luke 10:38-42 and can be found here.

After Martha makes an issue of doing all of the serving herself, Jesus lets her know that Mary has chosen to do the one thing that is necessary. She has decided to sit at Jesus’ feet and listen to Him teach. Mary has placed herself in a position to be discipled by Jesus.

This is just as necessary for us today. If we consider ourselves a disciple of Jesus Christ, we need to be spending time listening to Him teach. While this doesn’t look like it did for Mary, this has to be something we are doing every day. We do this with our Bible. We study the Word of God, Jesus’ teachings.

Studying the Word of God

There is a huge difference between reading content and studying something. We don’t read the Bible as we would a novel or a blog post. The Word of God has the ability to transform who we are. To have this kind of effect, it is something we have to study.

There is more than one way to study the Bible. Each of us has a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Because my relationship with Him is personal to me, you might not study the Bible as I do. This doesn’t mean one of us is wrong and the other right. It means we communicate with Jesus differently. My goal is to give you a few ideas that have been fruitful for me while studying the Bible.

Each book of the Bible was written by a specific human author with a particular audience in mind. Nothing written by Paul was intended for you and me living in the United States in 2021. Because the human authors were inspired by the Holy Spirit, the Word of God should still be a part of our lives today. The Bible wasn’t written for us as we live today. That is why we have to make sure we keep the Word of God in its proper context.

Before digging into a specific book, spend some time answering these questions. Who wrote what you are getting ready to study? Where did they write it from, and when was it written? Who was the intended audience, and what was the specific message the author wanted to convey? By answering these questions, we will keep the Word of God in its proper context, making it more beneficial in our lives today.

What should everyone see?

With the specific text you are reading, what is the message everyone should see? What was the author writing about, and what did God want the reader to understand? This is important for Bible study. We can’t take the Word of God personally without knowing its original purpose. What is the text saying that every one of us should pick up on?

What does the text say to you personally?

Once you have identified what everyone should be reading with a specific text, you will be able to pick up on a specific message God has for you. How does what you are reading apply to your life? What are you currently going through that was similar to the original audience? What was their response, and how can you learn from their situation and circumstances?

Praying in response

Depending on the specific text and how it speaks to you, the Bible should generate an authentic prayer. This gives you a means of developing intimacy with Jesus. One of the most powerful ways we have to pray is by praying the Word of God back to Him. When we can put a personal twist on His Word, this allows God to speak directly into our lives.

What change is needed?

I mentioned earlier that the Word of God can transform who we are. That being said, there is always work required on our part. You have now looked at a portion of Scripture, identifying what everyone should pick up on from the passage. You have made the text personal to you and spent time in prayer about what you have read.

Now, what can you change in your heart, mind, and in your life in general? Every time we spend time studying the Word of God, it should create some kind of change in how we live. How is the Holy Spirit leading you to respond? This is how we spend time with Mary at Jesus’s feet, listening to His teachings. This is the one thing that is necessary if we are one of His disciples.

The Beatitudes and the Condition of our Heart

This makes the sixth post in my series on the beatitudes—a beautiful path to blessings in our lives. We started with what it means to be poor in spirit. Our path of blessed living starts with an attitude, a committed mindset that God is full in spirit and we are poor in spirit. He knows what’s best, we don’t. He is powerful, we aren’t. He is good, we aren’t. He is rich, we are bankrupt. This mindset opens the Kingdom of God to us.

When we realize God is right and we aren’t, we become aware of how often we fall short of His “rightness.” This brings us to a change in our view of ourselves and we mourn for our “falling shortness.” We don’t simply feel bad because we have been caught breaking the rules, and now there is a price to pay. Instead, we mourn because we finally become aware of how much our sin breaks God’s heart, and it eventually begins breaking our own. The blessing is comfort; extraordinarily, God meets the admission of our weaknesses with His comforting grace.

In the third post, I discussed what it means to be meek. This is what happens when we begin following God’s will in our lives instead of our own. We hand over the reins to Jesus and allow Him to be our guide. Jesus has complete control to mold us into what He would have us be. This doesn’t make us weak people, It actually provides us with more strength than we could ever muster on our own.

Then, we looked at what the beatitudes teach us about hungering and thirsting for righteousness. This doesn’t mean we become self-righteous people trying to earn God’s favor in our lives. It means we have finally tasted God’s love for us through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Once we have experienced this, receiving more of it becomes our greatest desire. Jesus is what we hunger and thirst for, and the blessing we receive is a peaceful satisfaction.

Last week, I discussed what it means to be merciful. Once we realize the great mercy of God that we have received, we can’t help but share this with others. Without the mercy of God, living our lives in a relationship with Jesus Christ isn’t even an option. When we become aware of this, it changes how we respond and react to situations and circumstances in our lives.

This leads us to being pure in heart. We will be looking at Matthew 5:8. I will discuss both being pure in heart and what it means to see God.

Before diving in, I want to remind you that my next book, “The Tea Room Scrolls: Volume Two,” can be pre-ordered through this link. It will guide you in a much deeper study of the beatitudes than this blog series. Let’s get started with this week’s post!

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

The Condition of Our Heart

To fully comprehend being pure in heart, I think we need to look at Ezekiel 36:26.

“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”

If you are a Christian, if following Jesus is what you live for, this verse should be important to you. There should be feelings of great joy and contentment while reading verses such as this. Being pure in heart is something you will strive for because you don’t want to miss the blessing of seeing God!

This process is known as sanctification. Without the Holy Spirit, sanctification doesn’t happen. That being said, there’s also work on our part. Changes have to be made to our daily lives, all the way down to the thoughts occupying our minds. We are given a new heart, but it doesn’t always work.

The evil age we presently live in can threaten those of us who belong to Jesus. We have to resist the pressures of the world we live in. Because our minds are made new, our lives will start to change. This is what enables us to discern the will of God. We are justified the moment we surrender our lives to Jesus Christ. However, the process of sanctification lasts the rest of our lives. Every day, our priority becomes being more like Christ than we were the day before. And at this stage in walking the path of blessed living, we are seeking a pure heart: a peaceful, blissful, Christ centered heart of love.

This can be a constant, daily struggle when it isn't approached correctly. Keep in mind, our journey on this path is both progressive and subject to momentary change. If we are struggling we return to the beginning and walk the path again: a mindset of being poor in spirit, mourning for our weakness, listening intently to His guidance, thirsting after righteousness, being merciful to others, and now once again seeking a pure heart.

When it comes to being pure in heart, living more like Jesus in our daily lives, we don’t think our way into acting differently, nor do we act our way into thinking differently. God gives us both a new heart and a transformed mind. It’s on us to use both of these as He would have us. Jesus has given us this path of blessed living to direct our new minds and hearts to find extraordinary blessings in our lives.

What it Means to See God

When Jesus says, “they shall see God,” He’s saying they will see Him manifested in their current lives and in His glory in Heaven. This means we will see visions of Him, His miraculous works in our physical, emotional and spiritual lives and after we have finished living our lives here on earth, we will be face to face with God for eternity.

Jesus makes seeing God face to face possible for us. In fact, Jesus tells His followers, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” Many conversions have happened after waking from vivid dreams or daytime visions of seeing Jesus. In my own experience, I’ve had only a few visions from God but one was of the face of Jesus hovering over a Jewish temple as I ministered out on the streets.

In additions to visions, Jesus is seen in every rebirth, every miraculous healing, every manifestation of love given to the loveless, every moment of relief to the pained and every moment of hope to the despaired.

Through nine years of rescue mission and street ministry, I’ve watched God work in my midst, literally changing people’s paths to collide with mine so He could give them the message they needed. I’ve seen him heal countless physical, mental and spiritual maladies. I’ve seen Him change minds, hearts, addictions and relationships.

Most of the time I’ve seen God was when I was pure in heart. I was dedicated to His Gospel for that timeframe. I was out on the streets or in ministry with a commitment to being His servant. I had no other distractions, no grocery list, no other agenda but to watch Him work ahead, with and behind me. I had the Gospel, the living agape love, dripping from my lips, with a ticket to the greatest show on earth.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will indeed see God. Most Christians live their entire lives content to not see God in this lifetime, waiting only for heaven. I encourage you, there is more to this amazing life in the kingdom of God. Take Jesus’ invitation to live a blessed life; walk with Him on this path of blessed living and enjoy His truth in action.

The Beatitudes, Receiving Mercy, and Being Merciful

This is the fifth post of my series on the beatitudes. So far, we have looked at what it means to be poor in spirit. Not only are we spiritually broke, but we are also spiritually bankrupt. We can't measure up to what God commands His people without the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

We have also discussed the blessing that comes with mourning over our sins. When we finally recognize how much our thoughts, words, and actions have broken the heart of God, it begins breaking our own. We notice the depravity of our sins and start living a life of repentance.

We not only repent, but we also become meek. In the post I published two Mondays ago, I discussed surrendering our lives and will to Jesus. By living off of His strength instead of our own, we become stronger than we could ever be by ourselves. We make Jesus the focus of who we are, allowing Him to guide us where He wants us to go. We hand the reins of our lives over to Him.

Last Monday, we looked at what the beatitudes tell us about hungering and thirsting for righteousness. Jesus wasn’t talking about being self-righteous. He was referring to us having a right standing before God the Father, through His Son. If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, His righteousness has been imputed into you. When God sees you, He sees Jesus Christ.

This week, we will be digging into the beatitudes and Matthew 5:7.

,“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”

Without the mercy of God, we can not experience a relationship with Jesus. He is fully aware of how sinful our lives can be. God knows where we fail and the personal struggles that tempt us. Still, knowing the sinful lives we live, God wants us to know who He is. His mercy towards us makes this possible.

The Beatitudes and the Mercy We are Given

If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, congratulations. You are filled with mercy. You simply have to learn how to share the mercy you have been freely given with others. I want us to look at chapter two of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. We don’t need to look at the entire chapter. The first seven verses will help me make my point.

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience - among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved - and raised up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

We can not read this and fail to see what mercy is. Let’s break this down a little and chew on what Paul writes to the Ephesians.

We are not bad people who need to do better. Each of us is dead in our sins. Not bad, dead. Every one of us has walked in our sin, choosing to follow this world. Not some of us. Not just a few people here and there. ALL of us. Think about what Paul calls us. “Sons of disobedience.” That’s a statement we don’t hear enough in the church today. Jesus told a crowd of followers, “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires.”

If you are reading and are a parent, when is the last time you called your kid a child of wrath? Would you ever look at your kid and call them that? Who would be that mean and cold-hearted? Paul would. Yes, for the record, your children, you, me, the people of the church at Ephesus, we are all children of wrath. By nature and nurture, we are sinners, dead in our trespasses. Get ready. Here it comes—my favorite two words in the entire Bible.

But God…

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved - and raised up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

If you are new or newer to the Bible, this sounds complicated. We’ve already looked at just how wretched we are. We’re children of wrath, dead in our sin. But God.

Because of His great love for us even before we were capable of loving, God the Father sends us a Savior to take our place on the cross. Jesus didn’t belong there. We do. While we were dead in our trespasses, God brought us to life in His Son, Jesus Christ.

God’s message isn’t “go to church every day for a year and then come back to me when you act right.” He doesn’t tell us, “go memorize the Bible word for word, and then you will have a chance.” Instead, Paul tells us that while we are still dead in our sin, God the Father makes us alive together with Jesus. God doesn’t give us a list of prerequisites. Instead, he loves us so much that He acts first and then lovingly waits for a response to His love. That is mercy.

Being Merciful Towards Others

I will make this very short and straightforward. Forgiven people forgive people. If you are having trouble forgiving someone else, this demonstrates that there is something you need to address within your personal relationship with Jesus. As mentioned earlier, the moment you put your trust and faith in Jesus Christ, you become so full of mercy that your body can’t contain it all. So you can’t help but let it overflow and share it with others.

Merciful is a compassionate, kind, sensitive, and sympathetic word. It combines action with tendencies. If a person has this quality, they will discover outlets for the merciful nature of God.

When we are merciful towards others, we are the ones who benefit, not only them. It is a way for us to show God that we realize what has been done for us, and we are willing to share it with others. There is freedom in showing mercy towards others, one we could never experience with anger and resentment. The ability to show mercy to others is a blessing from God to us. It does more for the freedom of our soul than we could imagine.

Mercy is like a well inside of us that never runs dry. God puts it there. We give it away. In return, He makes sure the mercy is replenished. As long as we are willing to give it away whenever needed, God’s mercy is something we will never run out of. It will always be there.

The posts for this series on The Beatitudes is a preview of my next book, “The Tea Room Scrolls: Volume Two.” If you would like to take even a deeper study of the beatitudes than this series of blog posts, ,the book can be preordered here.

Our Role in Dining with Jesus

This is the fourth post in my series, “Dining with Jesus.” In the first post, we answered whether the Kingdom of God is something we will experience in the future or a kingdom we are currently living in. In the second post, we looked at the feast that was thrown at Levi’s house when Jesus let the Pharisees know that it was those who were sick that needed a physician, not the people who are well. Jesus had come not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.

With last week’s post in this series, I discussed the meal that Simon held for Jesus. A woman that was well known as a sinner causes a disturbance, cleansing Jesus’ feet with her own tears and drying them with her hair. She then anoints the feet of Jesus with a flask of ointment. Jesus perceives what Simon is thinking and tells the woman her sins are forgiven because she has loved much.

The meal we are looking at this week is different. In both of the first two meals, Jesus was a guest at a feast thrown by someone else. Then, in Luke chapter 9:10-17, Jesus hosts the meal for those who have come to hear Him teach about the Kingdom of God and to be healed by the power of God. This needs our attention. When we look closely, there’s a sequence here that too quickly goes unnoticed.

With our first meal, Jesus invites someone to repent from their sin. With the second meal, following repentance, there is forgiveness. Those following Jesus experience reconciliation when the woman is forgiven for her sins. With this third meal, there is an advancement of the kingdom. Jesus’ disciples take the meal to those who have been drawn to Jesus. As a follower of Christ, through repentance, we are called to take place in this same series of events.

We start at the moment when we receive our salvation. We invite Jesus to be the Lord of our lives, our Savior. As we invite Jesus further into our lives, surrendering more and more of who we are to Him, we experience this same reconciliation. Our sins are forgiven. Through the Holy Spirit's work, the process of sanctification, we begin to act more like Jesus as we experience the forgiveness of our sins. Eventually, we grow close enough to Jesus that we desire to advance His kingdom ourselves. Let’s take a deeper look at each of these three steps.

A Call to Repentance

I think repentance is one of the most commonly misunderstood words for those new to following Jesus. For many, the word repentance sounds similar to failure. Because you are wrong or not good enough, you need to repent. The word is associated with discipline too much instead of love. We see the word repentance as a punishment instead of the loving hand of God.

Repentance is not a punishment. It is an invitation. Because of God’s great love for us, He invites us to repent of our sin, growing closer to Him in the process. Think about your childhood for a few seconds. Every one of us had a few rules we had to follow that we couldn’t stand.

These weren’t rules our parents established because they despised us and wanted to be mean. These were rules that were being enforced because our parents loved us. Because they were able to see through some things we were unable to understand at the time, they refused to let us do certain things because of our own well-being.

As a Christian, a child of God, we go through this same love, the love of a Father. Because He is able to see through situations and circumstances and knows what is best for the big picture, God has established specific rules for us to follow. Not because He wants to be mean and ruin the party, but because of His great love for us. He doesn’t push us out of the family when we make a mistake. Instead, we are invited to repent of our sins.

Reconciliation

As we become more and more aware of God’s great love for us and begin living a life of daily repentance, we partake in the process of reconciliation. Just as we saw in last week’s post, we are forgiven for our sins. Now, be careful with this. This reconciliation isn’t a get-out-of-jail-free card to be used over and over again. God’s grace isn’t an opportunity to continue living in sin. Instead, it’s an invitation to live more like Jesus in our daily lives.

According to the Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary, reconciliation means, “Bringing together of two parties that are estranged or in dispute. Jesus Christ is the one who brings together God and man, with salvation as the result of the union.”

Before accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior, every one of us are enemies of God. We are in dispute against Him, whether we want to admit it or not. Once we receive salvation through Jesus, we become children of God, heirs of His great family. Not only does God forgive us for our sins, but He also adopts us as His children, making us a part of His great family. When God the Father looks at us, He sees His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus’ righteousness is imputed onto us.

Expanding the Kingdom

From the meal we are looking at this week, Luke 9:10-17, one verse, in particular, grabbed my attention. Look at verse 9:13.

But he said to them, “You give them something to eat….”

The “he” mentioned here is Jesus. The “them” He is speaking to is the disciples. They have asked Jesus to send the crowd away because they don’t have food to eat. Jesus’ response is, “You give them something to eat.”

The disciples have what I want to call an evangelism happy meal. They have two fish and five loaves of bread, not nearly enough to feed the 5,000 men, plus women and children who have come to hear Jesus teach and be healed. Yes, Jesus is the one who gives the blessing and performs the miracle. Still, He has the disciples take the food to those who are in attendance. Jesus is the one who saves the day and gets all the glory. That being said, the disciples play a crucial role in making things happen.

The same is to be said of Jesus’ followers today. If Christ is the one thing that drives everything else in your life, once you encounter the great love of God, our only response is to share this love with others. We expand the Kingdom of God by taking His love and His message into the world.

The moment you have been rescued by what Jesus has accomplished on the cross, you become part of the rescue party. It is now both your blessing and your responsibility to point others towards the cross. This is how we go about enjoying a meal with Jesus. We carry the meal out into the world.