Thursday, October 9, 2014

A personal relationship with Jesus: Listening to your heart

In my reading yesterday, I encountered a blog that spoke into my thoughts for sermons and blogs this week as we ponder Why Christianity.

The blogger pointed out that Rob Bell in his book Love Wins says that Christians today emphasize having a personal relationship with Jesus even though (and this is true) the phrase never occurs in the Bible. Bell then asks the question, "How is that the thing we find most important about our faith even though it is never mentioned in the Bible?

The Blogger continued by pointing out that the Apostles never "asked people to invite Jesus into their heart of to have a personal relationship with him."

And there you have it. The single most problematic idea I had about the New Testament when I was outside the church.

Why?

I kept asking, in response to all this Jesus living in my heart things, how can I have a relationship with someone I never hear from, never see and never have experiences with?

Then, I had one, and things cleared up rather quickly.

In fact, when things are going poorly, what I've learned is I listen much more intently and much more deeply and listening to him is a wonderful thing.

Some say that the experience with Jesus has to be corporate. That the body of Christ must be present for him to be present, that old two or more thingee.

But I say that in my times of greatest exposure, when I am most aware of Him, I am along with Him. 

Granted, if we were in the Garden together, I in all likelihood would be one of those who went to sleep. Still, I am at my best when I slow down and wait for that still small voice to let me know it's going to be okay.

Is that a personal relationship? Yep. I don't see how it could be anything else. Simply slow down and listen, to your own heartbeat, to the pulse in your brain, to the silence around you, to the bumping of streetcars (as I write this), to the sound of cars passing by, to life itself.

It's all deeply personal.

And that's Christianity at its best. A deep, heartfelt love of Christ. A deep, heartfelt love of neighbor. And all of it wrapped, like bacon around anything, in the love of the creator.

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