The following article is used with permission from friends in Washington D.C.
There is no person in history who has impacted all of mankind more than Jesus of Nazareth.
Jesus was deeply concerned for the continuation of his redemptive, reconciling work after the close of his earthly existence, and his chosen method was the formation of a small band of committed friends. He did not form an army, establish a headquarters, or even write a book. What he did was to collect a few very common men and women, inspire them with the sense of his spirit and vision, and build their lives into an intensive fellowship of affection, worship and work.
One of the truly shocking passages of the gospel is that in which Jesus indicates that there is absolutely no substitute for the tiny, loving, caring, reconciling society. If this fails, he suggests, all is failure; there is no other way.
He told the little bedraggled fellowship that they were actually the salt of the earth and that if this salt should fail there would be no adequate preservative at all. He was staking all on one throw.
What we need is not intellectual theorizing or even preaching, but a demonstration. One of the most powerful ways of turning people’s loyalty to Christ is by loving others with the great love of God. We cannot revive faith by argument, but we might catch the imagination of puzzled men and women by an exhibition of a fellowship so intensely alive that every thoughtful person would be forced to respect it.
If there should emerge in our day such a fellowship, wholly without artificiality and free from the dead hand of the past, it would be an exciting event of momentous importance. A society of genuine loving souls, set free from the self-seeking struggle for personal prestige and from all unreality, would be something unutterably priceless and powerful. A wise person would travel any distance to join it.
Yes!
A people that don't just have a good positional statement on soteriology or redemption, but a people who are truly saved and a truly redeemed and living the live of love
A people who would see the gospel of the Kingdom realised as a "society of genuine loving souls".
I really think this is the future, as it should have been so much of the past. I feel that there are a growing number of people who really want to make this happen. A growing number of people who really do want to love each other so much and who really do love others that people will be drawn to their gospel. A people whose gospel will be a real-life demonstration of the redemption won for us by Christ, a real-life out-working of the gospel of the kingdom.
It's exciting.
Posted by: Bob Heffernan | June 02, 2006 at 01:23 PM