Someone [sorry, I fortget who], years ago, wrote a book entitled something like: "If Jesus is the Answer, What is the Question?" In a similar vein, Len Sweet talks about Jeopardy churches: churches that think their job is to answer every question.
I know people like that... they have to have the answer to every question... they are also very annoying!
Because life isn't like that.
& I know because I said that there will be some people who will be very upset with me... some probably no longer read my blog... other may just get steamed.
But I believe that most people in our culture are not looking for someone who will give them answers to all their questions. They don’t need to be given a thousand answers. They need to be invited to follow the One who is himself the Answer/the Way. They need to be invited to a life that is other than self-obsession, self-preoccupation, and self-preservation. This is the way of the cross. That is the answer.
Some people have put it this way: "it’s not about knowing the answers to all the questions, it’s about knowing Him." More than anything I want to know God more. I’ve found that everything else - mission, fruit, acts of love and kindness - come out of this one thing, intimacy with the Father.
I am not saying that we dumb down the gospel. That we reduce the gospel to a simplistic: be people of compassion; be kind.
But that we as limited human beings are on a journey. We can know God... but we are learning more of him & his ways. Jesus is the way, the truth & the life. But we are learning and growing all the time what this means.
I don't have the Father or the Son or the Spirit all figured out... because God is God and I'm not.
I know people like that... they have to have the answer to every question... they are also very annoying!
Because life isn't like that.
& I know because I said that there will be some people who will be very upset with me... some probably no longer read my blog... other may just get steamed.
But I believe that most people in our culture are not looking for someone who will give them answers to all their questions. They don’t need to be given a thousand answers. They need to be invited to follow the One who is himself the Answer/the Way. They need to be invited to a life that is other than self-obsession, self-preoccupation, and self-preservation. This is the way of the cross. That is the answer.
Some people have put it this way: "it’s not about knowing the answers to all the questions, it’s about knowing Him." More than anything I want to know God more. I’ve found that everything else - mission, fruit, acts of love and kindness - come out of this one thing, intimacy with the Father.
I am not saying that we dumb down the gospel. That we reduce the gospel to a simplistic: be people of compassion; be kind.
But that we as limited human beings are on a journey. We can know God... but we are learning more of him & his ways. Jesus is the way, the truth & the life. But we are learning and growing all the time what this means.
I don't have the Father or the Son or the Spirit all figured out... because God is God and I'm not.
Comments
Well said bros!
This has been my experience as well.
I find myself answering some people who have questions by replying:
'I don't know - but I do know one who does - why don't you ask Him (Jesus) for the answer'
I have found my role as a believer simply this:
'a pointer' (like the dawg)
...I simply point to Christ who is my life!
That is evangelism in a nutshell...nothing more...nothing less.
I will continue to read your blog-bra..it is Christ-centric...what else is there?
Bob over at his blog "In the clearing" wrote a post kind of on that topic... So God's used you both to give me a very good reminder of what He doesn't want me carrying.
So thanks again.
~~ Ned Flanders (after his house was destroyed in a storm)