Wednesday, August 11, 2004

The Kingom of Heaven is like this..
So when exactly did Jesus tell the Parable which symbolises people coming to faith by praying "the sinner's prayer"?. Or when did he first meet someone and insist that they think about becoming "saved" by accepting him into their heart and praying the prayer of repentance. When exactly did he force people to make some outward symbol that they would follow him? Well, I guess he kind of did from time to time- but what we often seem to forget is that he did that a long time after people started following him. Look at Peter's confession of Jesus. Really look at it. At it's context.

At the time Peter confessed who Jesus was (Matt 16:16; Mark 8:29) He had already been sent out with the other 11 Disciples (Matt 10; Mark 6:7-11), and according to Mark's version they had seen many miracles and deliverances from demons (Mark 6:12-13), Peter had walked on water (Matt 14:29) even if he slipped up after a few seconds. He spent a good deal of his time with Jesus himself. And yet up until that point, he hadn't even confessed who Jesus was. Let alone prayed some prayer by which he would accept God into his heart. And yet he was Jesus' disciple.

And what did Jesus say? "Go and make disciples of all nations". Somehow when we insist that people accept who Jesus is, that they are really a "sinner", and ask for forgiveness all in one, I get the feeling we're really missing something. Jesus did not say to everyone he encountered "your sins are forgiven"- to some he said "come follow me", and others "I have not seen faith like this in all of Israel". And yet the primary message we always seem to give to people is "you are a sinner but we forgive you". Well let's get this straight here and now- Jesus didn't just come to forgive- he came so that we would repent. He didn't just come so that we would realise how bad we are- but that we might live better lives. FULLER lives.

He said he would give us life, and life to the full at that. He brings us on a journey into a great battle. He provides all we need. He heals, He delivers, he does all sorts. He doesn't just forgive.

Don't get me wrong on this- forgiveness is an important part of what Jesus came for. But what is equally important is that a lot of the time, we're meant to give out the forgiveness generously, not try to get our "evangelees" to beg for it.

We pray for our own forgiveness, and the forgiveness of those who have done us wrong- just look at the Lord's prayer. And a lot of the time, people can be more touched by us forgiving them, than us trying to conceptualise God's forgiveness that they seem to have to ask for.

Many people came to the Lord in acts, and it is expressed in many different ways- but to my knowledge, not one of them is recorded as praying the Sinner's prayer. In fact, Jesus gave us THE example on how to pray, and he didn't say "Weeeelll.. first you start off with the SINNER'S prayer, and then after that you move onto the Lord's prayer".

Now I'm not saying the Sinner's prayer isn't useful.. all I'm saying is that it's not as vital a thing as we make it out to be. We need to stop stressing about whether or not someone has prayed some prayer which is supposed to get them into heaven and instead do what Jesus did- make disciples.

Of course, in Acts things all go a little bit haywire and we get droves of people coming to the Lord all at once- but the question is, did they even pray that prayer, or did they simply come to know Jesus so tangibly- be so touched by his spirit that there was no doubt whether they had encountered him or not.

The truth is that however they encountered him, we have become far too restricted in the way we evangelise. We think people have to become "Christian" in order to know Jesus- that they have to have prayed some sinner's prayer in order to be saved. In previous times I'm sure the model that we have today actually worked- but today it is no longer a completely effctive way of bringing Jesus to people.

Lastly- that's exactly it. We're bringing Jesus to the people. Not the other way around. We are sent out to spread the message, not told to draw people in to recieve it. Seeds which are not scattered far and wide will not grow fruit far and wide.
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