Encountering Jesus??

My friend Rob Sperti invited me to accompany him last week to an undergraduate class he was teaching entitled, “Strategies of Effective Evangelism and Discipleship”.  As the instructor for this course Rob had asked his students to read a book written by John Stott titled Basic Christianity.  The conversation spurred by this book quickly headed in a direction discussing the difference between a faith evidenced in works and a faith that only believes. 

Questions began to arise for whether faith or works would be the key for an entrance into heaven.  This conversation gets somewhat sticky for many American Christians.  We want to stray from saying that you must produce works to have acceptable faith, but we want to stray from the thought that a belief without action is a true belief.  For a moment I wrestled with the balance between these things, yet I was feeling pulled to a deeper issue.  These words seemed to flow on the page as an indictment against myself:

The American Christian has given the world a definition of Christ that is steeped in a religious dogma rather then an introduction to the literal nature and character of the man Jesus Christ.

What I mean by that is that often we talk about things we have to do to get to heaven rather then a place that God is calling us to.  Instead of the church communicating the beautiful intimacy that is offered, we communicate a type of person we must be or a list of rules we must follow.  The fact that I was debating a duty toward action spoke to an issue of a religious legalism, not an issue of my eternal security.   When I (we) begin to trivialize my (our) response to Christ in an almost “How much can I get away with and still make it to heaven” mindset, there is a deep issue that needs to be addressed.

The issue is this: Have I not experienced an encountered with Jesus?   Once you experience an encounter with Jesus your entire life changes.  The mindset changes from, “how much can I get away with and still make it to heaven?” to, “how much of myself can I give up to experience intimacy with Jesus everyday?”  In that place there are less issues with sin because its not a focus on sin, but a focus on dwelling in the presence of and intimacy with God on earth.  

Knowing that I have on several occasions experienced an encounter with Jesus, my issue was one of spiritual nostalgia.  I had very favorable memories of an encounter of the past, but was not experiencing the intimacy of that encounter in my present circumstances.  My salvation and response to salvation needed to be defined by a list of dos and don’ts, which is religion.  Spiritual nostalgia is not good enough. 

Look at Eli, in chapter three of first Samuel for example.  This passage clearly states that encounters with God were not presently happening, but clearly Eli had experienced God because he was able to recognize and direct Samuel in his personal encounter with the voice of God.  Eli was a corrupt man, and was not encountering God.  God had to remove him from the office of priest because God was looking for a prophet for a nation and Samuel, a young man, was the only one encountering God’s voice.

 Now back to the question that started all of this:  What is the response of our belief (faith)?  Is work necessary? ETC…  Here is my thought: When we REALLY encounter God a natural response is to act.  A real encounter like the one in Isaiah chapter six is what I am talking about.  The question is no longer must I act to prove my faith in Jesus, but if I am not acting am I encountering Jesus?

Just a thought.   



Comments

[Spencer]

Darrell -

I have three observations:

1) good point. I totally agree with you that more effort should be spent on envisioning and communicating the "presence" of God rather than listing the doctrine of God. The presence of God is freedom from all of the "sticky" and unnecessary by-parts of belief.

2) I wonder...would you say then that those who "act" more than they believe are a closer representation of Jesus? Moreover, a better disciple?

and 3) I am submitting a clarification of your last statement since I am a visual learner and needed to diagram your final statement/question to better understand it ["act -> prove -> faith" is less than "encounter -> act -> proof"]. (You will need to posit "faith" somewhere in the second "set"). ...I don't know...this feels a bit "sticky" itself. I could be over complicating it but i'm trying to wrap my head around concepts that are a bit blurry, e.g., encounter, action, faith, belief, etc. I think you need to spend more time defining how YOU are using these terms as my definitions of such might be different...even my interpretations of scripture, and so on.

I think you spending more time clarifying what you mean here would help (me, at least).

Spencer

acting doing dogma and proving faith : presence of God and a freedom to act