Saturday, May 15, 2010, from 9am-2:30pm George Fox Evangelical Seminary is holding another of their Ministry in Contemporary Culture Seminars. This time the guest speakers will be Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola. You can register on line at seminars.georgefox.edu. If you've never been to one of these you should check it out.
"Christians have made the gospel about so many things other than Christ. Religious concepts, ideas, doctrines, strategies, methods, techniques, formulas, "its" and "things" have all eclipsed the beauty, the glory, and the reality of the Lord Jesus himself. On the whole, the Christian family today is starved for a real experience of the living Christ. We know a lot about our Lord, but we don't know him very well. We know a lot about trying to be like Jesus, but very little about living by his indwelling life.
In this seminar, Sweet and Viola will introduce a fresh unveiling of Jesus as not only Savior and Lord but as so much more. The seminar will be a prophetic call to restore the supremacy and sovereignty of Christ in a world and a church that has lost sight of him." from the George Fox brochure.
Notice the brochure says in a world, AND A CHURCH, that has lost sight of him. A follower of Christ is a Christian, but how many Christians are followers of Christ? Knowing Christ is not about do's and don'ts, rights and won'ts. Scripture says that Jesus says to some folks, "Depart from me. I don't know you." (Matthew 7:21-23) He says this to those who claim to know him, those who claim to have done great things for him. Would you agree it's foolish to confuse religion with relationship?
Which is most important; what we say we believe, or what we practice? Which is most important; who we say we are or who our actions say we are? Whether we think so or not, most of us where shingles that proclaim who we are, that is, who we think we are. Many of us think we are Christians, but are we? Will Jesus tell us to depart because we have not spent time with him, because we don't know him?
The good news of the Gospel is that God wants to have a relationship with you. It's not about church or religion, dogma or doctrine, it's about relationship. In my favorite verse in the entire Bible (Matthew 11:28) Jesus says, "Come."
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