The most important change in our lives happens when we experience Christ.
One of the saddest things I see is folks who purport to be followers of Christ living in decay. It really isn’t so much they are “living in sin” (even a broad definition of sin), but they are the “walking dead.” No real life. Existing, but not living.
If Jesus did, in fact, come to give us life to the full (which I believe to be true) and we are supposedly in some way connected to Him (or a Christian), then why do so many Christians live lives that are not full of life, joy and love.
Could it be that one of the biggest missional problems we have is not that we are not mission minded enough (although we probably are not)? It is not that we don’t care enough about people who do not know Christ (although we probably don’t). Could it be that the first and foremost missional problem we have is that our lives do not really reflect Christ in a way that attracts people far from faith?
Our churches try to solve this problem with attractional events, worship services, and projects rather than encountering the Christ in an incarnational way that incarnates him in us and as a result, people are attracted to him in us.
So, how does that happen? What do we do?
I need to experience or encounter Christ in a way that changes me over and over again.
Here are some simple suggestions, humbly offered:
Personal times of –
Word – we need to engage the word (scripture) as a portal to knowing Christ (not just knowing about Christ). John 5:39 reads “You diligently study the scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” The Scriptures point us to Christ through whom we receive life. The goal of our faith is not to know the Scriptures, but to know the Christ. The purpose of the Scriptures is to point us to Christ or to help connect us to Christ. Paul said that he “considered everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ….I want to know Christ” (Phil. 3:8, 10). When we know Christ and continue to know Christ, we will know the Word because Christ is the Word.
Prayer – we need to learn to listen in prayer. We desperately need to move past our consumeristic, vending machine type prayers and learn the discipline of conversational prayer. We need to learn to meditate and to listen in prayer. Could it be that the God of the universe would like to get a work in every once in awhile? Could it be that he might have a word or two for us? We will never know unless we learn the discipline of stillness and listening. There is a prayer that God always answers. Find that and you are deep into the heart of Jesus.
Worship – we need to move past just singing to adoration. What we adore, we will worship. Unfortunately, we attempt to worship him whom we do not know and thus, do not adore. As we encounter Christ, we will know him. The more we know him, the more we will adore him. The more we adore him, then we will worship. Worship is the natural result of knowing Christ.
Service – in serving others, especially the least, we serve Christ. Serving will bring us to prayer, reflection, adoration and rest. Maggie Cobran, a Coptic Christian in Egypt who founded “Stephen’s Children’s Ministry”, said that “when I touch a poor child, I am touching Jesus; when I listen to a poor child, I’m listening to God’s heart for all humanity.” Mother Theresa encountered a poor man lying in the side of the road one morning in Rome on her way to a meeting with the Pope. After being urged to leave the man and make her appointment with the Pope, she admonished her fellow sisters to proceed on to the appointment with the Pope and to tell the Pope that “she is with Jesus.”
Do we see serving others as serving Jesus? If not, we miss an important opportunity to know Jesus.
Rest – most of us are going way too fast. There is a rhythm to a life that experiences Christ. To find that rhythm you will have to say “no” to some things. You may have to make radical changes necessary to eliminate some of the “busyness” of your life in order to provide time for word, prayer, worship and service.
Retreats – I would highly recommend retreats that are structured with lots of times for a person to individually encounter Christ through word, prayer, adoration and rest. I wonder sometimes why we seem to avoid these kinds of events.
These things must become a high priority for our churches. We need to be intentional about this. Most of the stuff churches invest in does not provide these opportunities to encounter the Christ. Not the Sunday morning worship. Not the sermon. Not our classes. That doesn’t mean that these things are not valuable or that we should stop doing them, but more is desperately needed. Further, those things that truly move us to encounter Christ must become the priority and, maybe, some of the things that we have made priorities need to become secondary.
There has been for decades a wave of protest against anything that was “experiential.” When, in fact, “experiential” is exactly what is needed. It takes something that is “experiential” to experience something. Another way to say it is – “if you experience it, then it was experiential.”
We need to encourage the experiential that moves people to experience Christ. When that happens, life-change happens. When that happens, we begin to really live as Christ lived and wants us to live: full and abundant.