The Ministry of Jesus, and the Early Church

Greetings All!

     Today's 'thought' is actually the concluding section of my sermon from this past Sunday, a significant portion of which I backed up with quotes from three men: J. B. Phillips, David Platt, and Roger Ellsworth.

     I simply wove their thoughts together to drive home the point I was trying to make about our need, as the Church of Jesus Christ, to have His power and presence actively manifest itself in and through us. It's the idea that we should, to some degree, reflect the nature, passion, power, experience and priorities that were evident in the ministry of Jesus, and the early church, if we are truly to claim a direct connection to Him and them. The selection speaks for itself.  Enjoy.

     “Given what we see of the ministry of Jesus or the life of the early church in the book of Acts, it is more than legitimate for people to ask: 'If we never see the power of God moving among you who claim to be the people of God, can we not justifiably ask where is the Christian faith we see in the Bible? Because in the beginning it was attended with a very noticeable sense of the presence and miraculous power of God.'

     J. B. Phillips points out regarding the book of Acts: ‘No one can read this book without being convinced there is Someone at work here besides mere human beings.’  Yet, the question is: Can that be said of us?  Can it be said of the vast majority of other churches in America today?  Are people convinced that in the church they will discover ‘Someone is at work there besides mere human beings’?  Or do they simply see nice people [not always, but for the most part :) ] doing things that any other human beings could do?

     David Platt brings attention to the need for a power greater than our own when he says: ‘Perhaps the greatest obstacle to the gospel spreading today, is the people of God trying to do the work of God apart from the power of God.’  It’s true.  Without the power of God at work in and through the Church, the world has little reason to pay any more attention to us than any other religious group.  For, no matter how one reads their New Testament, one this is incontestably true: One of the things that caught the attention of people when the early Christians came on the scene was the way that God's miraculous power was at work through them. And because of it, many came to believe.

Speaking to this issue Roger Ellsworth also wrote:

     ‘The people of God have often heard the world tauntingly ask: ‘Where is your God?’ (Ps. 42:3 & 10, Ps. 79:10, Ps. 115:2).  But it is a sad thing when the people of God have to ask themselves that question…  The church, in order to maintain credibility in the world, has to have the power of God!  She is involved in a great spiritual warfare, and only God’s power will enable her to prevail.  Human ingenuity and wisdom are simply not equal to the task. Trying to do this kind of work without the power of God is like trying to break huge granite boulders with our bare hands.

     The problem is that the church is trying to subsist on her own power. She is relying on her own abilities. Human wisdom can produce many things, and the church is trying to pass them off as the hand of God at work, but the world is not buying it. They still bombard us (and rightly so) with the disturbing question: ‘Where is your God?’ And if we will get alone and examine our hearts, we will be driven to admit that the many things we are producing are shabby substitutes for the real power of God… If we are not careful, we can think that pushing all the right buttons will produce lasting spiritual results.

     We can reduce the work of the church to shrewd maneuvering with statistical probabilities and psychological jargon.  We can be guilty of doing the very thing David refused to do – fight in Saul’s armour. We can have polish without power.  We need to realize that God can do more in one minute with His power than we can do in a lifetime with our ‘strategies.’ ’

     He’s right To maintain credibility in the world we must have the power of God!  And how does that power come?  It comes only as we plead in earnest, continual and dependent prayer for the LORD to manifest Himself in our midst for His glory and the health and growth His church.  We need to mimic the heartfelt cry of Isaiah who pleaded with God -- "Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you" (Is. 64:1).

     Will you join me in praying for just that?  Earnestly and consistently praying that His presence and power might be manifest in and through His Church, lest our hands be bruised and bleeding from, 'trying to break huge granite boulders with our bare hands'? ”

     The sermon was based on John 4:43-54.  The quote by Roger Ellsworth can be found in his superb little book "Come Down, Lord," a series of messages on the concluding chapters of Isaiah and dealing with the church's need for revival.  And the quote from J. B. Phillips (which is much more extensive) was taken from his book, "The Young Church in Action - A Translation of the Acts of the Apostles."  Each book deals with what the church was, what it has come to be, and the need to regain much of what has been lost.

Living in the Grace of Jesus, Pastor Jeff

The Comforter

Greetings All!

This week's "thought" comes from someone we haven't heard from for quite a while - Charles H. Spurgeon.  He has been dubbed the "Prince of Preachers" and is considered by many to be the most gifted preacher ever.  This excerpt comes from a message he preached on October 6, 1872 entitled "The Comforter."   Spurgeon began his preaching career in 1850 at the age of 15. By the time he was 19 he had accepted a call to pastor one of the biggest Baptist churches in London.  Within a short time they had to build an addition onto the church to increase the seating capacity from 1200 to 5000 seats to accommodate the weekly crowds. He was an extraordinarily gifted man.
     To those who wrongly believe that Christianity was universally popular back in the mid-to-late-800's in England, this somewhat auto-biographical account should clear up that misunderstanding.  I've been reading this sermon in my devotional time and found it both interesting and true; that's why I wanted to pass it along to you.  Enjoy.

The Comforter

     “In the 15th chapter of John’s Gospel we find the Savior describing His saints in the world as hated and persecuted for His sake, and He bids them expect this. But He consoles them in verses 26-27: “When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth which proceeds from the Father, He shall testify of Me. And you also shall bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning.”

     Now verses 18-27 mean just this—while Jesus Christ was here on earth, if anyone had anything to say against Him or His disciples, the Master came forward to the front, and He soon baffled His foes so that they confessed, “Never has anyone spoken like this man” (John 7:46). At this present time our Master and head is gone from us, so how are we to answer the attacks of the world?  The answer is we have another Counselor who comes to speak for us, and if we had but confidence in Him, beloved, He would have spoken for us much more loudly than He has sometimes done!

     Whenever we learn to leave the business in His hands, He will do two things for us:  FIRST - He will speak for us Himself, and SECOND - He will enable us also to bear witness.  At this present time many questions of doctrine are brought up for discussion, many objections to the truth of God are blocked, and there are many who would lay the axe at the very root of Christianity and cut it down as a rotten tree!  What is our answer?  I will tell you: Nearly all the books that have been written to answer modern philosophies are a waste of time and a waste of paper.  The only way in which the church can hold her own, and answer her detractors is by real power from God!

     Has she done anything for the world?

     Can she produce results?

     By her fruits shall she be proved to be a tree of life to the nations!

     Now the Spirit of God, if we would but trust Him, and give up all this idolatry of human learning, cleverness, genius, eloquence, rhetoric, and I know not what beside, would soon answer our adversaries!  He would silence some of them by converting them as He answered Saul of Tarsus by turning him from a persecutor to an apostle. He would silence others by confounding them and making them see their own children and relations brought to know the truth of God! If there is not a miraculous spiritual power in the Church of God at this day, she is an impostor!  At this moment the only vindication of our existence is the presence and work of the Holy Spirit among us.  Is He still working and witnessing for Christ? I fear He is not in some churches.

     Here in our fellowship we behold Him. Look at His workings in this place.  Nearly 20 years ago [back in August of 1854] our ministry began in this city under much opposition and hostile criticism. The preacher [that is, Spurgeon himself] being condemned on all hands as vulgar, unlearned, and, in fact, a “nine days’ wonder”!  Jesus Christ was preached by us in simpler language than men had been accustomed to hear, and every one of our sermons was full of the old-fashioned gospel. Many other pulpits were intellectual, but we held to the pure Scriptures.  Rhetorical essays were the wares retailed by most of the preachers, but we gave the people the gospel.  We brought out before the world the old Reformers’ doctrines, Calvinistic truth, Augustinian teaching, and Pauline dogma! We were not ashamed to be the, “Echo of a long-dead evangelism,” as some wiseacre called us.

     We preached Christ and Him crucified, and by the space of these 20 years have we ever lacked a congregation? When has not this vast hall been thronged? Have we ever lacked conversions? Has a Sunday passed over us without them? Has not the history of this church, from its littleness in Park Street until now, been a march of triumph with the hearts and souls of men being the spoils of the war and the flag under which we have marched been Christ crucified?

     And it is so everywhere! Only let men come back to the gospel and preach it ardently, not with pretty words and the artificiality of polished speech, but as a burning heart compels them, and as the Spirit of God teaches them to speak it.  Then will great signs and wonders be seen!  We must have signs following—else we cannot answer the world!  Let them sneer; let them rave; let them curse; let them lie—God will answer them!  It is ours in the power of the Spirit of God to keep on preaching Christ and glorifying the Savior.  Just as Jesus always met the adversary in a moment, and the disciples had no need of any other defender, so we have another Helper, who in answer to prayer will vindicate His own cause, and gloriously avenge His own elect.”

     In a world of competing ideas and religious views, something must set Christianity apart from all the rest. Something more than "mere morality" as C. S. Lewis called it.  Something more than mere religious gatherings.  Something that shows our faith to be different from all the rest.  And that "something" (as Spurgeon points out) must be the power of God!  People must be able to see and sense the evidences of God's presence and the supernatural working of the Holy Spirit among His people if we are to truly testify to the reality of Jesus and His gospel (I Cor. 14:24-25 / II Cor. 10:3-5).

     Be it the miracle of an extraordinary and other-worldly love; the miracle of someone turned to repentance and faith; the miracle of a healing or a prophetic word that hits home as if it were tailor made; or the miracle of a regenerate heart -- the greatest miracle of all -- the power of God must be seen if people's objections are to be stifled!  "The only way in which the church can hold her own, and answer her detractors is by real power from God!...  If there is not a miraculous spiritual power in the Church of God at this day, she is an impostor!  At this moment the only vindication of our existence is the presence and work of the Holy Spirit among us...  Only let men come back to the gospel and preach it ardently, not with pretty words and the artificiality of polished speech, but as a burning heart compels them, and as the Spirit of God teaches them to speak it. Then will great signs and wonders be seen!  We must have signs following—else we cannot answer the world!"

     To use the words of Isaiah in his deep yearning for a visible and incontestable manifestation of God's power: "Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you!" (Is. 64:1-2) That's what we need more than anything else -- a fresh outpouring of the Spirit of God in incontestable and saving power!  Not manufactured miracles, but God-given miracles.  Not the stuff of mere human emotion, but the supernatural intervention of a sovereign God.  And it must stem from earnest prayer and the gospel ardently preached, as Spurgeon says, from a burning heart that's moved and compelled by the Holy Spirit.  Our prayer, Like Isaiah's, must be, "Come down Lord!"

     With Prayer for the Renewing of Christ's Church on Earth, Pastor Jeff

Personal Testimony of Dr. A. C. Dixon (1854-1925)

Greetings All!

     I chose this week's "thought" for the sheer honesty and transparency evidenced in the heart of the pastor who penned it.  It is a personal testimony that comes from, Dr. A. C. Dixon (1854-1925), pastor of the Baptist Church in Chapel Hill North Carolina, and then later pastor at the Ruggles Street Baptist Church in Boston. His testimony speaks for itself. Enjoy.

"The hand of the Lord was upon him." 

Ezekiel 1:3

     "While I was pastor at the Baptist Church in Chapel Hill, the university town of North Carolina, I was made to realize that, as a preacher, I was a dismal failure. 

     Parents all over the state wrote to me and requested that I look after the spiritual welfare of their sons in the university. I prepared sermons with the students in mind and was glad to see that they showed their appreciation by attending our Sunday services in large numbers.  At one point we appointed a week of prayer and preaching with the single purpose of winning them to Christ, and they attended the evening meetings.

     About the middle of the week their interest seemed to turn into opposition. The spirit of mischief possessed them. One night they tried to put out the lights. As I walked through the grove around the university buildings, I sometimes heard my voice coming from behind a tree. A bright student had caught a part of my sermon the night before, and he was mimicking me in thought and tone for the benefit of his fellow students who showed their appreciation by applause and laughter.  As I walked by an open window I heard my voice being mimicked in prayer and floating out.  I felt defeated and seriously considered resigning from the pastorate.  No one had been saved.

     After a restless night I took my Bible and went into the grove and remained there until three o'clock in the afternoon. As I read I asked God to show me what was the matter, and the Word of God searched me through and through giving me a deep sense of sin and helplessness, such as I had never had before...  That evening the students listened reverently, and at the close two pews were filled with those who had responded to the invitation. The revival continued day after day until more than seventy of the students had confessed Christ.

     Now the practical question is: "What did it?"   Certainly not I; I fear it was the "I" that kept God from doing it for a long time. There came to me out of the day's experience a clear-cut distinction between [human] influence and [divine] power.  Influence is made up of many things -- intellect, education, money, social position, personality, organization -- all of which ought to be used for Christ.   But power is God Himself at work unhindered by our unbelief and other sins.

     The word "influence" occurs but once in the Bible, and that in Job, where Jehovah speaks to the old patriarch of the "sweet influences of the Pleiades" (one of the nearest star clusters to the earth) -- a good text for a young minister to preach on in the springtime, but not sufficient in dealing with a group of mocking university students.  The New Testament word "power" holds the secret, and the power from on high was no other than God the Holy Spirit touching the soul through the living Word and giving it birth from above. I had been trusting and testing many other good things, only to fail.  The touch of God did in a minute what all my best efforts could not do." 

     His testimony speaks for itself. People may mock and laugh at and easily resist all our efforts.  But when the power of the Spirit attends what we say, even our feeblest human efforts can be used of God to melt the most hardened heart. We may (by our innate natural gifts) be able to influence people in some small and temporary way (and many pastors have been content with that), but only God (by the working of His mighty power) can change a hard heart permanently for all eternally.  Therefore, it should be our earnest desire to seek the assistance of this power, and not be content until our spirit is bathed in it and our efforts are attended by it.

In The Service of the Gospel, Pastor Jeff

A Godward Life

Greetings All,

     This week's "thought" comes to you from John Piper and is found in his book, "A Godward Life."  This selection speaks of the extraordinary gifts of a man named Charles Haddon Spurgeon -- a man who has been called by many, "The Prince of Preachers," or "the best preacher that ever lived."

     After reading of his life accomplishments, it's nearly impossible for any pastor not to envy -- even though the 10th Commandment forbids that!  Yet, even though what Piper shares about Spurgeon's amazing life relate to his work in the pastorate, the things we can learn from our reaction to his accomplishments can apply to anyone we admire who is extraordinarily gifted. Thus I offer it to you for your consideration. Enjoy.

"Mountains Are Not Meant to Be Envied"

 Awed Thoughts on Charles Spurgeon

     "... If you try to make a Minnesota hill imitate a mountain, you will make a fool of your hill.  Hills have their place too. So do the Nebraska plains. If the whole world were mountains, where would we grow wheat for bread? Every time you eat bread say, "Thank God for Nebraska!"

     I'm talking about Charles Haddon Spurgeon. I am warning my wavering self he is not to be imitated.  Spurgeon preached as a Baptist pastor in London from 1854 until 1891 -- thirty-eight years of ministry in one place. He died January 31, 1892, at the age of fifty-seven. His collected sermons fill sixty-three volumes equivalent to the twenty-seven volume edition of the Encyclopedia Brittanica and stand as the largest set of books by a single author in the history of Christianity.  He read six books a week and could remember what was in them and where [on one occasion quoting both the page and paragraph where a quote was found]. He read Pilgrim's Progress more than 100 times.

     He added 14,460 people to his church membership and did almost all the membership interviews himself. He could look out on a congregation of 5,000 and name the members. He founded a pastor's college and trained almost 900 men during his pastorate. Spurgeon once said he had counted as many as eight sets of thoughts that passed through his mind at the same time while he was preaching. He often prayed for his people during the very sermon he was preaching to them.  He would preach for 40 minutes at 140 words per minute from a small sheet of notes that he had worked up the night before. The result? More than twenty-five thousand copies of his sermons were sold each week in twenty-seven languages, and someone was converted each week through the written sermons.

     Spurgeon was married and had two sons (twins) who both became pastors. His wife Susannah (who died the same year as Charles, though three years older) was an invalid most of her life and rarely heard him preach. He founded an orphanage (funded mainly through the sales of his sermons), started a home for poor widows, edited a magazine, and produced more than 140 other books (three of which sold over 1,000,000 copies and one of which is still a best-seller). He responded to 500 letters a week and often preached ten times a week in various churches as well as his own. He suffered from gout, rheumatism and Bright's disease, and in the last twenty years of his ministry, he was so sick that he missed a third of the Sunday's at the Metropolitan Tabernacle. He was a politically liberal and conservative Calvinistic Baptist who smoked cigars, spoke his mind, believed in hell, and wept over the perishing, ten's of thousands of whom were saved through his soul-winning passion....

     What shall we make of such a man?  Neither a god nor a goal. He should not be worshiped or envied. He is too small for one and too big for the other. If we worship such men we are idolaters. If we envy them we are fools. Mountains are not meant to be envied. They are meant to be marveled at for the sake of their Maker. They are the mountains of God. More than that, without envy, we are meant to climb into their minds and hearts and revel in what they saw so clearly and what they felt so deeply. We are to benefit from them without craving to be them. When we learn this, we can relax and enjoy them. Until we learn it, they may make us miserable, because they highlight our weaknesses. Well, we are weak, and to be reminded of it is good. But we also need to be reminded that, compared with our inferiority to God, the distance between us and Spurgeon is nothing. We are all utterly dependent on our Father's grace.

     Spurgeon had his sins. That may comfort us in our weak moments. But let us rather be comforted that his greatness was a free gift of God -- to us as well as to him. Let us be, by the grace of God, all that we can be for the glory of God (I Corinthians 15:10). In our smallness, let us not become smaller by envy, but rather, larger by humble admiration and gratitude for the gifts of others. Do not envy the mountain, glory in its Creator.  You'll find the air up there cool, fresh and invigorating and the view stunning beyond description. So don't envy. Enjoy!" 

     There are few preaching pastors who did not study Spurgeon, and of those that did, probably most have coveted some of the many gifts he had or the things he was able to do.

     He had preached 600 times before he was 20 and had such a booming voice he once preached to a crowd of 23,654 people with no microphone or amplification.  He had a photographic memory, pastored the largest independent congregation in the world in his day, and was not tempted by money, giving most of it away to charity or missions. He worked 18 hours a day, had an uncanny ability to paint pictures with words, came up with phenomenal illustrations from everyday life on a regular basis (many of which I have used), and would frequently ask his members NOT to come to church the next Sunday so that the lines of visitors who waited outside each week might be able to get in to have a seat.

     Yes, it's easy to envy or want to be like Spurgeon (I have often)!  But that would be to question God's sovereignty. That would be to forget that God makes each person just as he desires, not that we may wish we were someone other than who we are, but that we might praise His wisdom and be content to simply be who he's made us to be -- weaknesses and all. The giants of the faith are there to inspire us, and we can thank God for their example. But they can actually be a distraction and cause us harm if we end up idolizing them and lamenting us.  God gives us mountains to admire, not imitate, for as Piper points out, the rolling hills and the flat plains have their particular purposes too! 

In the Bonds of Christian Charity, Pastor Jeff

Holy Sonnet XIV - John Donne (1572-1631)

Greetings All!

Today's "thought" comes from a rather thick book (I'm estimating it has over 1000 pages since it's almost 3 inches thick and the only recent book I have where the pages are not numbered)!  It's called "A Poem a Day -- 365 Devotional Readings Based on Classic Christian Verse" by Philip Comfort and Daniel Partner.  Though I'm no poet, I have found it quite intriguing.

     Today's selection includes a poem by John Donne (1572-1631) followed by a meditation on who he was and why he wrote it. The poem (which is autobiographical) deals with Donne's yearning yet rebellious heart which he knew well enough to know that God must either possess him completely, or he could never be chaste or satisfied -- something which may sound odd to some.
     Even if you're not a poet either, I encourage you to read on.  Consider not just the poem, but the devotional thought that follows -- a thought which reveals the heart of a man who could not settle for complacency or meager handouts in his relationship with God. Enjoy.

Holy Sonnet XIV

"Batter my heart, three-personed God; for you as yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend; that I may rise and stand.

  Overthrow me, and bend your force to break, blow, burn and make me new.

  I, like a usurped town, to another due, labor to admit you, but O, to no end.

Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend, but is captived, and proves weak or untrue. 

 Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain, but am betrothed unto your enemy.

Divorce me!  Untie or break that knot again.

 Take me to you and imprison me, for I, except you enthrall me, never shall be free,

 Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me."

     John Donne was one of the greatest English poets and preachers of the 1600's. His deep intellect and fiery emotions are evident in both his poetry and sermons. A descendant of Saint Thomas More, Donne was raised a Roman Catholic, but in the 1590's became a member of the Church of England. In 1597 he became secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton and fell in love with Egerton's niece, Ann More. They eloped in 1601. Ann's father disapproved of the marriage and caused Egerton to dismiss Donne from his job.  Thereafter, Donne accepted the king's invitation to become an Anglican priest.

     These experiences of poverty and failure caused Donne to rely on God and cherish His love. This poem expresses the poet's desire for God -- the entire Triune God -- to take over his being. Donne compares himself to a captive town that can never be free unless God captures the capturer (the enemy) and sets Donne free. And with pungent, dramatic irony, Donne declares that he can never be "chaste" -- or a spiritual virgin -- unless God ravishes him. Wooing had not worked.  Donne needed God to take violent action and batter down his heart and take it over completely.

     Sometimes we need to ask God to take over our heart and mind in a radical way. In doing so, He will not enslave us or seize us without right, but rather, He will free us. Until God completely occupies us, we will be occupied with everything but God.

     As the prophet says: "I will make you my wife forever, says the Lord. I will show you righteousness and justice, unfailing love and compassion. I will be faithful to you and make you mine, and you will finally know me as Lord." (Hosea 2:19-20)."

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     I would have loved to sit under the preaching of a man so passionate to know and experience the love, presence, and grace of God. It reminds me of another person who also spoke of God in such terms. It brings to mind another person, Annie Dillard, who was also discontent with the common and somewhat apathetic views of God held in the church. For after surveying the contemporary church scene in the 1980's she wrote in her book, "Teaching a Stone to Talk":

     "On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of the conditions.  Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of Power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are like children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake some day and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return."

     Isaiah would have preferred her understanding of God to that which is sometimes put forth in the church.  For very much like her, Isaiah conceived that if God were to, "rend the heavens and come down," then the mountains would tremble before Him, the waters would boil as when a fire is lit beneath them, and the nations would quake in fear before His presence (Isaiah 64:1-5). 

     What a difference it would make to us as individuals, and Christ's Church as a whole, if we captured even the smallest glimpse of God's true greatness and grandeur and majesty.  Even the smallest glimpse of the God we worship would make us, like Donne, passionate to know and be possessed completely by Him.

In His Service, Pastor Jeff

Not a Fan

Greetings All!

     Today's 'thought' comes to you once again from Kyle Idleman's book, "Not a Fan."  This is another one of the testimonies of people who were either not believers at all, or "fans" of Jesus at one point in their lives, but at some point in their lives realized that they yearned for something deeper than the superficial "go through the motions" religion they had been following.  In most cases -- usually as a result of going through sickness, or trauma, or addiction, or coming close to death -- the superficial showed itself for what it was as it could not sustain them in such times.

     These people, driven by pain, or a crisis that drove them to the end of themselves (and showed them their inability to control everything in life), surrendered to the only One who is really ever in control. They ceased being a "fan" of Jesus and became a true disciple and follower of Jesus.  This is Vijay Warrier's testimony - a man raised in India in the Hindu faith who grew up believing that the gods had given him favor.  Vijay was born as a Brahman, the highest caste of priests and had a mother who served as a priestess. Yet later in life, he would meet the Jesus who would change and bring a sense of fulfillment to his soul.  Enjoy.

     "I remember when my wife Girija grew very interested in the Bible and began attending church. It wasn't something I believed in or wanted to have anything to do with. I agreed to drive her to church, but I just sat in the car and smoked a few cigarettes. Sometimes my thoughts would wander to growing up in India, and being raised in the Hindu faith where my mother was a priestess in an Indian temple.

     My marriage had been arranged, but Gurija knew that our marriage wasn't just a forced agreement that was set up by our parents; there was a chemistry between us. I tried to be patient with her interest in the Bible. Gurija had attended a Christian school some years back, and that was how she had learned about Jesus. Our differing religious beliefs didn't help our unity in marriage. Looking back on the first ten years of our marriage, I see mostly conflict and frustration. 

     By 2005 Guija was going to church every weekend. I'm not sure why, but one weekend, instead of sitting in the car smoking and waiting for Girija to get out of church, I decided to go inside for a cup of coffee in the church cafe. There was a small cafe in the church where I sat with my coffee and couldn't help but overhear the sermon that was being broadcast from the sanctuary onto the video screen in front of me. I listened to the preacher for a while, intrigued by his words. From that point on, I sat in the cafe each Sunday morning, drinking coffee and listening to the sermons.

     One week Gurija asked me to come with her into a prayer room. "We have so many problems," she said, "we need someone to pray with us."  Even though I didn't believe in this kind of prayer, I went with her. In the prayer room, we met a husband and wife named Linn and Carol, and they spent some time praying with us.  Full of questions after hearing so many sermons, I began to ask Linn about Christianity. Over the next year, he and Carol answered many of my questions. Linn studied the Bible with me, praying for me often. Still, I wasn't familiar with the idea of just one god. This went against everything I had learned as a boy. Even worse, I knew that if I were to become a Christian, my family back in India would disown me. They would be so disappointed in me.

     But after much studying, prayer, and support from church members, I began to realize something incredible. For forty-two years I had been looking for something, for someone. That person was Jesus. I decided to allow him to work in me.  I needed it.  My marriage needed it -- we'd already had divorce papers drawn up and begun living separately.  It was now or never and I knew only Jesus could save me.

     So the next Sunday I professed my belief in Christ and was baptized. Right after being baptized, I baptized my two sons who also came to believe. That same day I moved back with my family. God has a plan for me, and he can heal all wounds and answer all questions. My name is Vijay Warrier, and I am not a fan." 

     A lot of us get confused and believe we are followers of Christ, when in fact we are simply fans attending church, week after week, lacking true intimacy with Christ. Vijay started to become a fan by believing in one God, and then over time, he began to experience God by engaging in the process of developing true intimacy with Him through God's grace in Jesus Christ.  "Fans" don’t mind making minor changes, or little touch ups, to decorate their lives. But it's not until they are "followers" that they don’t even mind Jesus overhauling, severely interfering, and turning their lives upside down!  And you?

    In the Service of Jesus, Pastor Jeff