"We are the Family of Christ, growing together in His likeness, through His Spirit, dedicated to praising, loving and serving God and sharing the Good News with others in word and deed."

Happy Easter from our family to yours.

In the beginning God had a burning desire for man to know what He was really like; He was anxious to have something on earth He could point to and say, “This is like me.”

What was it that God wanted?

As one peruses the biblical record it is obvious. It was not only a fleshly Messiah, but one even greater. It was the Messiah portrayed as a living, breathing organism after Jesus left this earth. In short, we call it today the church.

In the twenty-first century God is anxious once more to have something on this earth that shows what He is really like. Once again He desires to say, “This shows me!” Just as it was Jesus and the body of Christ in the first century, so it is Jesus and the church in the 21^st century—it’s just as living, just as rich, just as glorious, and just as practical as she ever was.

The first century wasn’t ready to meet the Messiah. Of course, many in the twenty-first century feel that they have met God…is it ready for the church? Not the church of the last twenty centuries that has more twisted and sordid history than the misguided zealot of a cult. I’m talking about the body that existed in the biblical record. We find it in Jerusalem, Corinth, Ephesus, Laodicea, and many, many cities that are too numerous to mention. Luke recorded the initial reactions, Paul records the history of their development, and John records the initial historical problems and future glory.

Of all of these groups one thing is certain: they understood God’s call as total and uncompromising. He demanded everything of men although their security rested in the very things He stood against. How could He fail to be offensive? He had to offend those who wished to hold onto what they had. “…no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father. From that [time] may of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.” (John 6:65,66, KJV)

Church is one thing, Jesus is quite another. There is nothing like meeting Jesus. Nothing! Meeting Him is a life-changing experience. Meeting His church, which should be HIM, expressed on the earth today, is no less exciting and life-changing!

How do we change the world! #1: Meet Jesus.

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As far as I’m concerned, Christianity, in large part, has missed the point. As George Bernard Shaw once said, “No man ever believed that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means”. Ask any Christian what the main point of the Bible is and you’ll hear patented answers like, “Baptism”, “Repentance”, “Grace”, and an assorted number of other nice, safe answers that our theological positions—via. the pulpits, lectureships, synods, and colleges/seminaries—have led us to. Seldom do we ever ask “why” concerning any assortment of theological puzzles because we think that we don’t have the necessary intelligence; others have figured out the difficulties, and ,thus, we don’t need to look any further. However ignorant, and/or pugnacious we become, and absolutely correct we may think we are, we need only to see how simple our misunderstandings are of God, his word, and our theological positions to see that we need help.

What was it that drew people to God in the first century? It’s really very simple: they saw, in the lives of those who claimed to follow him, a live God that was powerful and active. He was different from the warring, revengeful, fanciful gods of the Greek and Roman pantheons.

“...I will put my law in their inward parts,

and in their hearts will I write it;

and I will be their God, and they shall be my people...

they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them...for I will forgive their iniquity,

and their sin will I remember no more.” (Jer. 31:33-34)

This God was so alive and active that he empowered his followers with strength and resolve that wasn’t seen in the religions of that ancient world. His kingdom was one that no man could touch but that all could become a vital part of.

“I saw in the night-visions, and, behold, there came with the clouds of heaven one like unto a son of man, and he came even to the ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his Kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.” (Daniel 7:13,14)

When the message was on Jewish soil, the center of the message was Jesus because the belief in God was unnecessary to talk about. They had about three thousand years to work out all of the kinks (not to say that they did this perfectly), and their belief was solid: there was a God, and they weren’t him (unfortunately there were a few exceptions to this rule, but those were few compared to the spiritually immature, pagan Gentile masses). Those who believed in Jesus asserted that there was a God, he was their Father, and that the only thing they needed to be sure of was that Jesus was the promised Messiah. Angels would help with any misunderstandings that the shepherds nearby would have concerning this concept with a new baby in town.

“A virgin shall conceive and have a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” (Isaiah 7:14)

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom to establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from henceforth even forever.” (Isaiah 9:6-7)

It’s a message that couldn’t be misunderstood – Immanuel: God was with us. The four Gospels hammer this truth over and over: if you won’t believe in me because of my words just pay attention to what I’ve done. This is the real gospel message. It has nothing to do with doctrine or commandments, for they had no meaning and power without the reality of God being alive and actively showing men himself for who he really was. As Abraham Joshua Heschel puts it, this was God in Search of Man.