Saturday, January 21, 2017

The Person of Christ.  Do You Know & Offer Him?

Image from localsaints.org

Our oldest granddaughter goes to school in Austin and the other day was selling magazines to raise money for one of her school's projects.  Being very overindulgent grandparents, we bought magazines, of course.  The only one that seemed to interest me was "Ministry Today: Equipping Christian Leaders to Grow."  I got the first issue yesterday and the cover story was called "The Life and Ministry of A. R. Bernard."  I went to that story and read.  Ouch.  It was on page 20.  Let me say that this brother is now the pastor of the largest church in New York City, with 35,000 members and about that many in worship every Sunday.  They are starting to offer several satellite churches around the city.  But the ouch part was this:

"Bernard grew up Catholic but got involved in a youth program at a local Methodist church. 'It was about community and an alternative to being on the streets,' he says, ' I was exposed to the church and Christianity but  not to the person of Christ.'"

Yikes.  It was not until he was a bank executive that his secretary introduced him to the person of Christ.  He says, "She began to share with me the person of Christ, not the institution of Christ.  What got me most was her simple childlike faith."

I have shared with some of you that early on one of the biggest frustrations of mine was serving a church and having kids graduate from high school go off to college and come back and share how they had now found Christ.  I began to question what I was preaching, how I was preaching, and what could I do to offer Christ?  It's a question that I still ask and perhaps one we should be asking about our ministries.  The starting point is of course, do we know the person of Christ?  Thank God I do.  The second is are we offering the person of Christ to those who come to hear us preach and worship with us.  The person of Christ is He who lives and works in and through us; not the out there Christ of Wesley on that ship when he was asked if he knew Him.  "I know him to be the savior of the world," was his reply.  "Do you know him to be your savior?" was Spandenburg's reply.  It wouldn't be until John Wesley's Aldersgate experience in 1738 that he would finally know the person of Christ, as the One who died for his sins and did take away even his sins.

My prayers are with you for an awesome Sunday and may the person and power of Jesus Christ fuel your ministry and bring His kingdom rich and wonderful blessings through you.

Love and appreciate you!

Eradio Valverde