More Than Evangelism

This mystery has been kept in the dark for a long time, but now it’s out in the open. God wanted everyone, not just Jews, to know this rich and glorious secret inside and out, regardless of their background, regardless of their religious standing. The mystery in a nutshell is just this: Christ is in you, so therefore you can look forward to sharing in God’s glory. It’s that simple. That is the substance of our Message. We preach Christ, warning people not to add to the Message. We teach in a spirit of profound common sense so that we can bring each person to maturity. To be mature is to be basic. Christ! No more, no less. That’s what I’m working so hard at day after day, year after year, doing my best with the energy God so generously gives me. (Colossians 1:26-29 MSG)

This Scripture is vision. It extends the purpose of the church far beyond the just reaching people for Christ. It has poetic overtone of that of a bride being prepared for her groom.  Prepared in the old context. It was a being made holy and presentable. It was a developing the heart, the mind, the physical body for the groom. What if we have missed it as the church. What if we have painted the picture of this glorious thing when you receive Christ.  Our culture interprets good for me as comfortable, as convenient, as pleasant. Funny how Paul never describes it this way. He never invites people to this. As a matter of fact, neither does Jesus. It's not like he was up against that different of a culture. Yet he didn't water down the invitation nor the journey.  Maybe that's why there is such a celebration when a person comes to really know Christ. Because they see with new eyes. They don't receive a convenient Jesus but the leader Jesus who leads them on "paths of righteousness", that leads them to "springs of living water that never run dry;" who leads them through "valleys of the shadow of death.". It's an invitation to life, to mission, to purpose, to meaning, to eternity, to selfless sacrifice that reveals our significance and releases joy. To tell of it is of some use.  To vision cast it necessary.  Both are a deflated balloon that in order to really capture the imagination and excite the soul requires the life of another surrendered to Christ that adds breath and life and makes real the fantasy.

A church full of these people becomes the vision, the means, and the motivation that becomes a portal to the kingdom "on earth as it is in heaven". This kind of church leads people as Christ did.  It walks into the valleys of the lives of people and guides them through the turmoils of life and into the pain of sin their own sin in order to create in them a righteousness that is made only by gazing for long periods into the blinding light of the sun that reveals all and burns the darkness of sin away. For Grace River to be this place we must each be willing to be held ourselves in the fiery gaze of a holy Jesus. We must be willing to stand in the fire of redemption and be made by Him into his likeness where our lives become a blinding reflection of that same glory!  Only then can we be found worthy to hold another there in that same place with the same love, grace, and mercy as our Savior holds us.

In what area of my life am I refusing to turn hard into the direct gaze of the savior?