The Story of God: Mission
As Dean said this past weekend, when you come to an understanding that Jesus was raised from the dead, it changes everything. There might not be a clearer example of that than Saul, who was later known as Paul. Saul was the main persecutor of Christians until he came face to face with Jesus, and then everything changed. Take some time to read this story in Acts 9:1-31.
After Saul’s confrontation with Jesus, he went on to become one of the most prominent figures in the Bible and Christian history. He literally became a man on a mission as he traveled throughout the Roman Empire telling people the good news about Jesus.
As far as I know, we don’t have people within the Pathways community who are persecuting believers in Jesus, but we do have people who can identify with both sides of Paul’s story and we’d love to hear all perspectives. So, please share your thoughts, as brief or detailed as you want to be, on these questions…
-For those who find themselves resistant to embracing the resurrection of Jesus, what causes your hesitations?
-What can/should a conversion experience look like?
-For those who have been changed by the resurrection of Jesus, how does your conversion story compare to Saul’s? How has it reshaped how you approach life?
May 3rd, 2006 at 7:09 pm
Since there are no home groups this week, there’s no other outlet for my opinions, so here you go.
As a relatively recent convert, I can somewhat talk about the issue from both sides.
For the first question, the #1 reason why it took me so long to go to church were the people who use Christianity to further their own motives. There’s no one specific group, but it does include
- everyday people who use religion to look down upon others
- preachers and ministers that seem to be more interested in donations than helping
- politicians that propogate religions stereotypes (good and bad) for their own politics
For the 3rd question (#2 comes last), there are a couple of subtle but significant changes in my life:
- I don’t have nearly as much stress. There’s a great deal of comfort in knowing that not only is there a plan (even if I don’t know what it is), but also that God has provided or will provide me with all the capability I need to get through things
- I am much more aware of my negative thoughts and actions. Every time I start to get judgemental or unnecessarily upset with someone, I am much better at catching myself and re-adjusting my attitude.
For question #2, I don’t think there is any way that a conversion is supposed to look. If we take conversion as 2 major events, the physical act of being baptised and the ongoing emotional and spiritual act of following Jesus, I don’t think that they always go in a fixed order. God pursues everyone in the way that they need to be pursued. For some, that means being baptised and then beginning to live your life the right way. For others, they get to different points on their path of following Jesus before they make the choice to be baptised. There are even some who unknowingly do God’s work for most of their lives without ever making the physical act until very late. Everyone needs to be allowed to come to God in their own way and time. It’s not necessarily our job to bring everyone we meet to conversion, sometimes we’re just there to help them along the way.