so thats kinda been a theme in my life the past weekish... on monday night i got in a car accident, it was pretty nuts i was just sitting at an intersection and two cars obliterated each other right there... a minivan flew up in the air landed on its side, rolled over then started sliding and slammed into me, the other car an envoy ended up upside down and backwards... it was one of the most severe accidents ive ever been close to, and although i was fine and everyone else seemed to be fairly ok i recognize that if i was in that intersection i might have died or at least been injured severely.... that really got me thinking about how true it is when the bible talks about our live being a vapor... our lives can be over at any time at all, its crazy to think about...
then this morning i was talking with my friend who is teaching in china and is trying to get me to do the same. i am giving it fairly serious consideration and i was asking him about the ministry of it, like what are you allowed to do, what arent you allowed to do, things like that. so he tells me that you cant talk about jesus, like not at all. so i asked what happens if i do, and basically i would get deported and the person i was talking to goes to prison. the weight of that really hit me; i dont know a lot about chinese prisons, but you know you hear stories, and maybe its not always terrible, but just the fact that there are lives on the line if i share the gospel in china, thats overwhelming. and then i started thinking about it more and lives are always on the line when it comes to the gospel, always. But its more than just lives, its peoples eternity, and yet i handle the gospel flippantly so often. I dont cherish it. I dont think about its power, and even if i talk about it, i dont let it impact my life profoundly...
the gospel is the hope of the world.
why does jesus entrust people like the four of us with the gospel, with His good news... i dont understand that. why does God let me know His truth when He knew before time began how poorly i would handle it. and how i would keep it to myself so often. even though lives are on the line...
the gospel really is the hope of the world, the only hope of the world. and i know that it is, and i want so badly for that to sink in and effect how i live daily. so badly i want that...
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why does he ever entrust the gospel to people like us? sometimes it's so hard to keep my own head above water that helping other people do the same is just crazy talk.
but think about it from a sense of ownership (or perhaps stewardship). since i purchased my iphone, i've been selling everyone on that crap...it really is the best phone i've ever owned. and because of that, it's easy for me to tell other people about it. that doesn't mean necessarily that i'm walking up to random people on the street saying hey you should get this, but whenever someone asks, that joy of owning the phone shines through, plus there is a quality product for me to talk about.
with Jesus, when we share the responsibility of making a difference in the world, of being the gospel, of bringing good news into this place, when we have fully bought into the idea that Jesus is God, that God incarnate offered himself as the sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins, and that through him is the only hope the world could ever know...isn't that something worth being excited about and sharing? And when you feel a sense of ownership for something, and you hold responsibility for it, at least for me-I want to do well with that. I fail too often, but I think therein is the key. If salvation came with a clause of, well, maybe you could tell one person about this, you know, if you wanted to, but you don't really have to, who would buy in to that?
I think it's important that we are entrusted with the message of the gospel. It becomes more important, more tangible, more real. However, it also becomes a way to be more complacent, more disheartened, and opens up avenues to beat yourself up more over.
What a dumb idea. Entrusting to the poor, the broken, the needy, the incompetent the message of salvation. Lending responsibility to the ones who on their own strength can do nothing. Giving a lifejacket to the one who has just been pulled in out of the water. Yet who existentially understands the message of the gospel more than the one who is being saved by it, empowered by it to make a difference in this world for heaven's sake? What a glorious idea.
I agree with KTB, in that every time I talk about the iPhone, I am even more excited about how awesome the iPhone is.
Also, I think it's awesome that God gives us that gift, knowing we will screw it up. Why? because He loves us. He loves us no matter what in the world we do- and in some cases that involves trusting someone that is not trustworthy. "love always trusts"
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