“But who do you say that I am?” – Luke 9.20.
Have you chased after a red herring before? Something that detracts from your simple understanding, and therefore communication of the gospel?
This is possibly one of the biggest hindrances to the spread of the unadulterated good news of Jesus: the sheer volume of knowledge we have about Him and His word!
I love knowledge and knowing about God and His awesomeness, so don’t get me wrong – without vision (which inextricably means knowledge) people die.
But I come to understand Paul and his statement “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” – 1 Corinthians 2.2. He is speaking about not being distracted by all he knew (and he knew lots) so that his primary message – Jesus’ death and resurrection so we could come back to right relationship with God – was not impinged upon.
It is for us to follow his example and put aside all we ‘know’ for what we KNOW so that a dying world can be reached and brought back to life in Him.
Father, we humbly ask you to reveal You and Your heart to us. Through Holy Spirit may You help us to put all our clever knowledge and arguments aside so that we can make known Jesus and Him crucified so that we may not be confused in our message and be able – once again – to introduce Jesus to those who most desperately need Him. For humanities sake and in the name of Your incredible Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ our Lord, So be it.
Comments
2 responses to “A (Red) Herring”
We make is complicated. We must just believe as a children. Only Jesus and nothing added.
Well said Brother! Keep pointing people to the wisdom that matters most.
I myself am always doing self evaluation to make sure I stick to the basics ( The good news ) Gods love for us , Salvation to all who accept his love and works – His redemption. With this redemption comes reconciliation. This is what God wants most. For us to be with him and have a relationship with him, and he paid a heavy heavy price to have that. We are set free by the only one who has the right to set people free. He paid for that right, which meant death – and only he could pay for it and be brought back to life because death could not hold him. He laid down his life on our behalf, paid the price for our sin , rose again and offered righteousness, freedom and reconciliation to all who would believe he did it for them. There is no other way to the father except through Jesus Christ 😉 This is indeed the most important knowledge in the world. It’s a message of love , a plan executed for eternal hope and unity that go’s beyond the carnal realm..