B21 I’m Not Talking about God
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B21 I’m Not Talking about God
You may be surprised, now, but please listen very carefully! I usually don’t talk about God with my unbelieving friends, at all! Instead I talk a lot about Jesus!
Under the term „God“, people in our country imagine everything possible. „You call it God, I call it the universe,“ several dozen Czech friends have already told me. I meet a number of people who in some way „believe in something above us“, or even „in some god“, but purposefully or unconsciously pass Jesus, thus passing His sacrifice, of course His forgiveness and the new life with Him…
Too bad… Initially, a lot of people tend to identify my relationship with Jesus with all other religions! I respond simply: “You know, Jesus is different in several ways.
1) First, with his sacrifice on the cross, he paid from his own for the window I broke. (This is my parable, which I like to use; I will tell you in other lesson.) In no other religion do I see a great god or prophet sacrificing himself because of lost people.
2) Second, Jesus is a person, personality, not just a power, energy, universe, or being. The difference is that I communicate with Him: He speaks to me and I speak to Him. Jesus is my great Friend!
3) In addition, I perceive his direct interventions in my life, both in the form of wise practical advice, which I have not read anywhere else, and often in practice. With Him it’s wonderful, personal, real…“
Numerous experiences teach me that the name of Jesus as such does not represent a problem of intelligibility for Czech non-Christians. Only their conception of Jesus is far from reality. To differentiate my experience and gradually build their new idea, I usually call Him „living Jesus“. Most often I use the phrase „I’m talking to Jesus.“ Or phrases like „Jesus, who is here with us right now.“
In other words, I try to dig my Jesus out of the ballast of all their false ideas and show Him to them as someone present at the moment, and if possible I show Him in the biblical light as well.
I do all this in a very informal way, for example with sentences like: „Jesus has helped me so many times in my life and so visibly and practically that I not able even doubt Him.“ When someone asks me, what exactly Jesus helped me with, I have several stories at hand. Alternatively, I help out also with short stories from believing friends, whom I personally know.
I want living Jesus to be the dominant of what my Georges take away from contact with me; not philosophical or pseudo-scientific debates about possible existence of God, let alone moralistic discussions or wrestling of opinions.
Yes, I admit that for some I am a little „exotic“ because of my contact with Jesus; but rather an interesting exotic, having something special, valuable, which is deep and attractive, in a way.
Have you noticed that an unbeliever usually argues about „God“, but seems to be twisting and taking care of himself when he has to say the name „Jesus“ with reverence?
It is very interesting that after a short moment of natural conversation, my George pronounces the name Jesus other way than just as an interjection or an insult! At first, it obviously costs him some effort; He pronounces Jesus‘ name almost as if he had a hot potato in his mouth! But that is my intention! I want him to fight deep within himself with the power of Jesus‘ name. I want to help him reconstruct his view of Jesus and his idea of Him.
When he starts to pronounce Jesus‘ name differently than he used to, it usually has a remarkable retroactive effect on himself! Apparently, it increases his reverence in uttering the Name, and in the next phase I will encourage him to address Jesus and begin to communicate with Him directly.
Although I do not talk about God with my unbelieving friends, I often talk about Jesus with them! It doesn’t my conversations easier, necessarily, but it is definitely more effective when it comes to sharing the Good News.
Lord Jesus, You have made it clear, „Who sees me, sees the Father“. I wish very much that my unbelieving friends would see Your face and be captivated by Your love…