I don’t think Jesus came to connect God to Man only to turn around and disconnect his followers from culture. As the nails pierced his flesh, so the cross pierced the earth. He made a permanent connection between God in heaven and all of humanity on earth. I am continually astonished when I imagine the cross, planted in our world, yet rising towards heaven.
How then, do we forget that Jesus came for us all? I don’t think any of us actually feel this way, but sometimes our words and actions create an Us and Them scenario. We draw a line in the sand: on our side we have Us & God, on their side we have Them & the World.
They do things on their side that we would never think of doing. In fact, we won’t even look out there to see what horrible things they’re doing now. The only time we venture out across the line is to try to drag a couple of them over to our side. But, while we’re over there, we are sure to be covered in prayer before we head out, and when we return we’ll be sure to report back on how awful it was out there, but hopefully we planted some seeds…God will water them, the Holy Spirit will speak to them…
Obviously, I write the preceding paragraph tongue-in-cheek, as so many of the ideals I mentioned here are good and true. It is the disconnected approach that I am addressing. That, and the religious mindset that causes us to draw a separating line between Us and Them. When we do that we become the Pharisee’s of our day, we elevate ourselves above them, those who are in the world.
We can’t forget that we were once them! Jesus came, intermingled with culture, and then drew a permanent line; not separating himself from the culture of this world, but creating a link between it and God.
It is we who create a segregated sub-culture. Of course we want them to come to our side. But with our actions, and sometimes our words we tell them that they’ll have to clean themselves up first! As though the sand on their feet might contaminate the sand on our side of the line.
We need to go out there to their side and let them come over here to our side, unthreatened, learning about them and let them learn about us. We’ve got to be real and honest. Quite often, sharing our faith once a relationship exists is so much more effective than our current evangelism efforts, our “get in, give the word, get out” mentality. Intermingle like Jesus did.
Sometimes we have to take a step back from our short-sighted view and notice that where we draw a line in the sand to separate, He draws a line to connect.
PS: Some of this article assumes that we actually get out of our comfort zones and evangelize, or at least have a conversation with someone, anyone, outside of our circle…This weekend, I took Brandee and our girls out to Kits Beach in Vancouver to take the pictures for this article, and while I had several great opportunities to intermingle with people, I didn’t take them. Just so you know, I write these words for you and me.
Your article got me thinking….so I thought I would write my instant thoughts. I would like to think of my life as a counter culture, I’m not completely out of it (even though my closer friends might think so..ha), nor is my head so far in the clouds that I’m no earthly good. I want my life to be the (oh your gonna like this one) shining light on a hill ………successful and integrity driven……so that people see and realize that you don’t have to eat crap for breakfast if you don’t want to. Just because everyone lives a certain way doesn’t mean we have to keep living that way. Finding new ways to connect with the (oh here I go again) lost….lol…..let me put it this way…culturally programmed is essential for the church to have a massive impact. Its all about how we think vs how “they” think and if we relate on that point we loose the whole impact of what Jesus did. When I read through the historical account of Jesus’ live I find that people said “nobody ever talked this way” He was beyond anything anyone had ever encountered, he was beyond the culture of the day, He operated in a different culture (kingdom), and He has called us to do the same.
Part of me can agree very much with Zane but also I see in the bible and from my own experience, Jesus talking so simple to the hurting saying words like “don’t cry” and letting messed up people love on him the way they liked to (woman crying on his feet…)
It may possibly be easier to share Jesus than we think!
We need to be crazy righteous, powerful children of God but also be gentle to those around us!
The salt of the earth, doesn’t that mean just a little salt makes something tasty? Only a crazy person would dump so much salt on a meal, right! Just a touch of salt can go a long way in bringing out the true flavor of the gospel
Jesus only did what He saw his Father doing , He only said what He heard his Father saying.
Thats what was so attractive about Him, He did’nt have to coax the masses to follow Him , they stood in line for hours to get a touch of what he had.
Paul even said ” my message is not made up of wise sayings and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the SRIRITs power…1 cor 2:4
Our gospel comes to you not simply with words, but Holy Spirt POWER and deep conviction…1 Thess 1:5.
People are going to be attracted to the Jesus in us, we have to practise being atuned to His voice.
It’s time for some Holy Spirit “bling bling”
Momma B you really got me thinking this afternoon. I was mulling this around in my mind and I thought I’d throw this out for some discussion. ( I know there’s a lot of lurkers out there, join in! ) Jesus only did what he saw his Father doing and that’s what was so attractive about him,can’t argue about that. Now,here is what I was thinking about. We could and should be just as attractive to the masses because ‘anyone who has faith in me ( Jesus ) will do what I have been doing. He will do even GREATER THINGS than these.’ I can’t remember the last time I saw anybody doing greater things than Jesus. Maybe that’s one of the reasons we don’t see the masses flocking to ‘our side’. Just a thought.
Great thought, problem is, how do we handle all that power and athority thats available for us to use? Most chistians just shoot off like loose cannons. ( how embarasing for heaven.) God needs to be able to trust us, like he could trust Jesus. If the meek will in fact inherit the earth , we need to understand heavens definition of meek. Strength & Power under control !!!!
Mabey we need to kick it up a notch, and really get on board with what God wants done on the earth….ya think??
If we’re not very attractive mabey the problem is US.
I don’t think Gods to worried or he wouldn’t have given it to us in the first place. Lets start using it. We need to kick it up more than a notch. Hey, where do I get those cool smily faces?
More than a notch…Ya that would be accessing His tangeble GLoRy, His heavy weight of good, Lets pass that around instead of passing judgement on any move of God that we might not understand. Lets lose our reputation as the only group of people that shoot their wonded, and instead take the risk and really step OUT in faith..and let His GLORY cover the earth thru US…
(just colon and then right parenthesis)
The problem with not wanting to sound like your talking Christianise ,is your trying to hard, NOT to talk like the people you are trying to reach. They would not have a clue what you people are taking about. And as far as watering and feeding, have we no patient when some nut trees that are put in the ground!!! It takes 7 years to see a crop ,so the question is, do we really know how to practice patient, or are we really living on our” high horse” thinking that we are really better than those we are trying to reach? Try listening to the one you are reaching out to, instead of flapping your big mouths, maybe this is why the GOOD LORD GAVE US TWO EARS AND ONE MOUTH … just a thought…
We as Christian’s listen to CNN and view society with despair and disgust, we are distracted, and lose sight of the fact that the BLOOD of CHRIST has the power to redeem all of mankind .
His arm is not short, that He cannot save even the vilest of sinner.
If the arm of GOD has touched you-hold it out and touch someone else, even one……
THE KINGDOM OF GOD is within you- release it !