Day 114 and today's preach spoke loudly that the Christian faith believes in a Redeemer. His redemption can change your circumstances or change you in the midst of your circumstances.
Maybe I was challenging Bart's comments from last week (although I agree with loads of Bart's thinking) - but core to the Christian faith is solid hope and a solid Redeemer who does change destiny's.
My intentional follow was to represent Christ well. Yes, our choices can thwart his redemptive changes, but Christ is a Redeemer.
Preachers sit and ponder what people will do with your message after they hear it:
Will they walk out, go for lunch and forget it?
Will they leave feeling good but untransformed?
Will they leave and talk about what they heard over lunch and on into the next week (certainly Bart achieved that)?
Will they take action?
To represent Christ well is not to simply teach truth, but teach inspired truth. To have heard the Holy Spirit correctly during the week, crafted your insights correctly and been a vessel that God uses to flow through to bring change not just information.
We applaud many preachers, but truly only eternity will reveal good preaching.
So my intentional follow - maybe I won't know if it truly did until eternity.
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He IS our Redeemer and He can change us and our circumstances. Only when we let him? Does our free will get in the way? I hope not. I have to believe that. Our choices and our circumstances often hold Him at bay. We hold Him at bay, and so He sends his disciples to intervene and drop the kernels and nuggets we need to grow. There still has to be a choice to accept it (right?) On one level, I see the "bad" and I say, there is no hope for these people. They, are pretty much screwed and they know it. They won't ever change their lives. But on the other level, I have to believe that Christ will continue to strive to bring each person back to him, someway, somehow. But, I'm a realist....so now I'm reading Bart's words again and pondering... and yet I'm not down with the concept of Universalism. There are those that will reject Him, refuse him and fail to believe in His existence.
I've put my faith in Christ. I know the work he had done in me because of the "wake up" call in my own life. Was it my choice? (not sure I care) I just want it to continue. I'm getting somewhere. I Hope.... boy you've got me thinking tonight.
Oh yeah and by the way, the Chelsea/Stoke game was overkill, but they needed the point spread. 1 up now. New owners, new coach for us (I hope).
The last comments should change my anonymity. Be Well!
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