Monday, August 31, 2009

Information or An Encounter?

Although I wouldn’t dare compare my life to the life of Paul, I can so identify with his salvation experience that day on the road to Damascus. You should really take time to read about it over in Acts 22… it’s a remarkable biblical picture of what I’m about to share.

Now I’m not like Paul in the sense that I spent many of the best years of my life persecuting Christians and terrorizing the church before I met Jesus (although some of my youth pastors may disagree!). I’m not like Paul in the sense that my conversion was the result of some brilliant light beaming down on me from heaven (although I will never forget the day that I surrendered!).

But I am like Paul as far as having known about God, having had an understanding about what the church of God was all about, and having heard all of the stories about Jesus prior to coming to Christ. I had the privilege of growing up in a Christian home. I spent my childhood heavily involved in church and I learned a lot about God as a child.

Paul also knew a lot about God. After all, Paul, known as Saul before his conversion, spent much of his life persecuting the people of God. He knew everything there was to know about God. He had heard the teachings of Jesus. He was well educated… he heard the stories about what Jesus was doing. He heard about Lazarus. He heard about the woman at the well. He heard about the feeding of the 5000.

Saul had all of the information anyone would need about God. In Acts 22, verse 3, Paul says about himself (referring to his life before Christ), “I was thoroughly trained in the law of our fathers and was just as zealous for God as any of you are today”. Listen closely… Saul had information about God… more information than anyone you or I will ever meet.

But when Saul encountered Jesus that day on the road to Damascus, everything about him changed, the least of which was his name. Saul’s conversion to Paul was a picture of the “new creation” that was described for us in 2 Corinthians 5:17“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” Suddenly everything he knew about God faded into the background as he came face to face with Jesus. The persecutor of God's people became a prince in God's kingdom... and we strive to model his life even today.

The same thing happened to me the day that I realized the difference between information and an encounter. Listen closely… “Hell will be full of good, religious people, who have read God’s word, know the right answers, and sit in church every Sunday”. A genuine relationship with God has nothing to do with information and everything to do with an encounter.

Like many people today, I wasted many of my best years walking through life full of information about God. I even served in ministry. I taught Sunday School, lead students to Christ, and preached God’s word. I can’t even describe to you how hard it is to keep the playing the game and trying live the faith life with a heart and head full of information but no real power.

The great news is that one day I encountered Jesus. I wasn’t walking on the road to Damascus, there were no bright lights beaming down from heaven, and I didn’t hear the audible voice of God. Instead I was sitting on the fourth row on the right side of my home church when God’s servant, Junior Hill, called me out of religion and information and into an encounter with Jesus. From that day forward, my life has never been the same. I became a new creation!

I wonder why we can be so content to sit back and watch other people’s encounters with God and not experience encounters of our own. God’s word is full of stories of all kinds of people encountering God in all kinds of amazing ways, yet we are content to absorb the information and ignore the calling to an encounter of our own.

Information or encounter? The choice is ours to make today!

Whatever It Takes,
Chip

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