Eye Witnesses

“For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty.”

It also says regarding our brothers in Christ from the beginning, “That which we have seen, heard and handled, we have made known unto you.”

The thing is, if our relationship with Christ is tied only through the umbilical cord of what others have seen and heard, where does that leave us?
Is our faith really something that is alive because the author and developer of it is making me/us today, eye-witnesses?
It says that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy, in a court of law; the only valid and permissible persons allowed to testify are those who are ‘eye-witnesses.’
I’m often reminded of an exorcism that certain Jews were trying to perform on someone, as they got into it the demon in the person said, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who the hell are you?”

So much stuff so many are trying to do apart from it being what He alone wants to produce within us as us, and that comes right back to making us eye-witnesses .
At different times and places the scriptures say, “Without a vision (of His redemptive purposes in the earth) we perish, or for a lack of knowledge, a similar fate is very real”.

It was the heart cry of the Father made alive in and through our brother Paul who constantly held up his siblings before the Father, that He would give them (us) a spirit of wisdom and revelation, opening the eyes of our heart to see and know the truth of whose we are, and to experientially know what it means to be fully alive because of the life of another in us as us!

If Jesus lived out of, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word the Father speaks” then how much more so for the many sons alive today?

Rich

Apart From Me

Visit my ministry web site at www.allyouneedtoknowandicanhelpyou.org Funny, can you imagine hearing Jesus or Paul saying, “I have produced a wide variety of resources to help you grow in your relationship with me, and if you don’t get them, you will flounder like a fish out of water, so do it just for the halibut.”

Where the early Christians a superior breed of believers without the aid of the plethora smorgasbord availability of ‘grace tools’ we have today, or was it that they simply availed themselves of the grace that was already theirs in Christ?

Was the message of’ Christ in you the hope of glory’ or ‘It is no longer I that lives, but Christ’ something that only became an experiential reality as long as there was some anointed Guru there to lead them in a twelve step program?

Is it possible that the Church Jesus is building would be flushed down the toilet if those with their successful ‘grace’ ministries were no longer able to speak into our lives? What would happen if I was to never read another ‘Christian’ book, listen to another pod cast, scroll down my list of blogs in my reader, or fail to connect with another believer other than my wife, would it look and sound like the wicked witch from the Wizard of Oz when she was splashed by the water Dorothy threw on the Scarecrow, screeching out, “I’m melting, I’m melting.”

It’s wonderful to be able to read, listen and learn from so many avenues, but Jesus said, ‘Apart from me, you can do nothing.’ Is my increased knowledge of grace causing me to grow up in Him or is it retarding it?

Rich