Pass it On

In his book, Radical: Taking Back your Faith from the American Dream, David Platt contrasts Christian worship services in Sudan and America.  He describes the Sudanese as people who listen to the sermon in order to translate it and teach it to others.  Americans, Platt says, are generally listening with a different purpose – to better themselves.  No wonder God’s Word rarely makes it outside the doors of the American church.  

So here’s the challenge: listen and learn in order to share.  Let God’s Word pass through me rather than hanging on to it.

And so I pass this on to you:
Jesus has just fed the 5,000 by breaking up a boy’s lunch and passing it around.  The crowd recognizes that Jesus has miraculous powers and is “ready to force him to be their king”.  (John 6:15) Jesus, knowing there is a better plan, literally heads for the hills.

Don’t we still try to force Jesus to do what we want?  Politicians use him to promote their agendas.  Business people use him to appear worthy of trust.  Broken people hide in churches in order to seem whole.  

What if, instead, we let God be God?  What if we start the long process of letting Jesus’ death on the cross change us?  

But how?  When all else fails, go back to the source: see what the Bible has to say.  The book of John is a good place to start.  

More thoughts on the topic can be found here.

And if you learn something, pass it on!