“What is all This Jesus Stuff About Anyways?”
Monday’s section of this week’s Sabbath School lesson asks, the question, “What is the difference, the crucial difference, between learning about Christ and learning to know Christ?”
This question reminded me of a conversation I overheard at an Oklahoma camp meeting way back in 1991.After recently getting baptized and becoming the first person in his family to become a Christian, an older gentleman brought his 13-year-old son to camp meeting. Jesus, Christianity, church and camp meeting were all brand new to this teenage boy. While most everyone else was staying in tents or a nearby hotel, I was driving back and forth an hour and half every day between Wewoka Woods and my home in Tulsa. So one afternoon, when I was a little tired, my friend let me have her tent to myself so I could take a little rest. Right outside of the tent, her 13-year-old daughter was talking with the young boy who had come to camp meeting with his grandfather. While I could hear them, I had pretty much tuned them out so I could rest, but then the boy asked the girl the question, “What is this Jesus stuff about anyways?”
Immediately my ears perked up. I was very interested to know what this young teenage girl was going to say. Would she begin with Daniel 9 and the 70 weeks? Would she begin with John 1 and how the Word as in the beginning can became flesh?
Image © Pacific Press
As I was now intently listening to a conversation I had previously tuned out, I can remember the girl’s answer like it was yesterday. She said, “Before my mother and I met Jesus, all we did was argue and yell at each other, and I couldn’t stand being home. But now that my mother and I know Jesus, we don’t argue and yell at each other. We love each other and now I love being in my home.”
“Wow!” I thought. My friend’s daughter didn’t just know about Jesus. She knew Jesus. She didn’t have to go to Daniel or John to tell her friend about Jesus, because she had experienced Jesus for herself. Jesus had radically changed her life and as she out off the old life and received the new life like putting on hew clothes.
And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. Galatians 3:27 NLT
In his book on Transformation and Biblical Spiritual Metamorphosis, Dr. Allan Machado shares,
To know the story of Jesus and to live with Christ and for Christ are very different things.- Dr. Allan Machado, Transformation: Biblical Spiritual Metamorphosis, Page 30
My friend’s daughter did not just know about the story of Jesus, she lived with and for Jesus. Thirty-two years later, she still does. To this day she lives with and for Jesus and is always sharing Christ with all those she comes in contact with in her community. She does not just know about Christ; she has put on Christ like putting on new clothes. So, if someone asked you, “What is all this Jesus stuff about anyways?” What would you say?
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