What
happens when a process in finished? What happens at the end of an assembly
line? What happens when a woman has carried a baby for nine months? When you
see big, red, juicy apples hanging heavily on a tree, don’t you just want to
pick one and eat it? When things are at the end of their process, when they
mature and meet their intended design, then they are ready to be fully used.
When
God’s love is fully at work in our lives then we are meeting God’s design for
us. There is a connection that wasn’t there before. We live in Him and He lives
in us. This is something new, something unexpected. And we know this because
God’s Spirit lives in us. We get a taste of intimacy with God. We don’t have
the full measure of God’s Spirit. Our human bodies couldn’t take all of God in
us. I think we would explode. The sin in us would have to be removed. Kapowee!
So
how could John be so confident in what he was writing? That is easy. He had
been any eyewitness to Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. He had been there
on the Day of Pentecost and was filled with the Spirit. The message had been
confirmed repeatedly as he and the other Jesus-followers had scattered and
spread the Good News. Everywhere they went people accepted the message and were
transformed by the power of God. There is no other logical explanation for this
explosive growth other than the reality of Jesus being sent by the Father as
the Savior of the world.
And
yet people still try to explain away the transformation that happens across
time and cultures. They just can’t accept the reality of Jesus. To do so would
require admitting their sinfulness and their powerlessness to stop its ravages.
To do so would mean that their way of living was a lie. The Gospel means dying
to the old way of life and choosing to live in line with God’s character
instead of our own.
Narrow
is the road that leads to life and only a few find it. This dying to self is
hard work. I am sure dying as an innocent for the guilty was pretty tough as
well. But that is exactly what Jesus did. Some call it the Great Exchange. His
life for our life.
How
much are you testifying about Jesus? How much with words? How much with action?