Becoming

Experience: that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.

Franklin P. Jones

 

I am writing this short article shortly after Easter. The events surrounding Easter are believed to have followed approximately three years of intense contact with Jesus by the twelve disciples. These men had been witnesses to the miracles, they heard the teaching, they had been privileged to interpretations of the parables that many others had not fully understood, and they had seen the risen Christ.

In our times of doubt, difficulty, or despair we often find ourselves wishing we could stand in the presence of our Lord in the same way the early disciples did. We imagine how much stronger our faith would be if we could witness the same miracles. We marvel at the wisdom and boldness of Peter, John, Timothy, Paul, Silas, James, and others. However, when we read through the New Testament the lives of these men are not always what we would expect. Their lives still seem to be mixtures of death and life. There seems to have been a time when Peter and Paul may not have been on the best terms. Paul parted ways with his first missionary partner over a disagreement concerning whether John Mark should travel with them or not. Peter had doubts and moments of his legendary impulsiveness from time to time. Yes, they are indeed changed men, but they are far from perfected. They were living through that marvelous thing called experience. In the Christian walk, add in the Holy Spirit and we might even refer to it as sanctification, that process of becoming more like Christ as we journey along in faith.

It turns out that our faith journey is exactly that, a journey. Jesus repeated his call to “Follow me!” many times to those first disciples. It was not a one-time offer. It wasn’t a completed work when Matthew left his tax collecting booth, or when Peter, James, and John left their nets and their boats. Those acts of leaving where more like the one step of backing out of the driveway at the beginning of a cross country vacation. There is still a whole big, long adventure ahead of us.

 In one sense, a Christian is not something you became through a call to faith in Jesus Christ. It is something you are becoming. This becoming is a process that will take your whole life, a time filled with tremendous leaps forward, other times when you feel is if you have gone back to the beginning and are starting all over, and still other times when it seems as if you have been marching in place for a very long time. However you look at it, following Christ is the EXPERIENCE of a lifetime and for a lifetime.

Pastor Craig

Having Christ or Experiencing Christ

You will never know the fullness of Christ until you know the emptiness of everything but Christ.

C. H. Spurgeon

There is a difference between having all of Christ and experiencing all of Christ. Jesus Christ never gives you only a portion of Himself. He holds nothing back in a relationship. God loves no one on the face of this earth more than you. There is no one who edges you out when it comes to importance and priorities before the throne. It is probably important to say here that you don’t edge anyone else out either. Our Heavenly Father is probably the only parent who can truly and completely say, “I love them all equally, but differently.”

Our own experience in relationships is somewhat different though. Remember the first time you asked someone out for a date? For most of us that was a pretty scary event. We thought the person would say yes. Our friends had been in contact with their friends and all the signals had come back good. However, there was that nagging doubt, something that may cause the whole thing to fall apart at the last second. It could be anything from some social or fashion blunder to bad breath or not being “in” or “cool”, whatever that might mean!

Jesus Christ is the one who loved you before you ever were conceived. Your face was in his mind; your name was on his lips when he died upon that cross. We do not have to worry about His commitment to us. He will certainly throw all of Himself at us.

It is in our own ability, or willingness, to throw ourselves into that same experience that creates a feeling of difference, levels, or distance from time to time. Jesus says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock, if anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will come in unto him” (Rev. 3:20).

For those who despair, fullness in Christ may be as simple as opening the door all the way. Some of us have always been cautious in our relationships. Christ, who loves without question or hesitancy is asking us to trust him and come as close as we can to returning that love in the same way.

Pastor Craig