Transformation - Day 3

"This same Good News that came to you is going out all over the world. It is bearing fruit everywhere by changing lives, just as it changed your lives from the day you first heard and understood the truth about God’s wonderful grace.  You learned about the Good News from Epaphras, our beloved co-worker. He is Christ’s faithful servant, and he is helping us on your behalf.  He has told us about the love for others that the Holy Spirit has given you." - Colossians 1:6-8

Paul is in prison, yet he exudes this incredible confidence - the Gospel (Good News) is going out all over the world.  An unstoppable force - changing lives.  It is such a beautiful positive image - I can see a smile cross Paul's face as he visions this wonderful gift of salvation and grace in Jesus Christ changing lives and spreading through the Middle East.  Christianity was a movement - a fire - a wind blowing through the crossroads of Asia, Africa and Europe.   In Paul's day, in conditions far less than ideal - fewer communication options, slower transportation, more persecution -  the Good News grew so forcefully that it eventually overwhelmed the Roman empire.

That was then.  This is now.  How did the Good News become such "bad news" in America?  Why is Christianity such an anemic force in this country?  Why do many perceive Christianity as negative, restrictive, with churches filled with hypocritical people?

Paul reminds the Colossians of how the Gospel has changed their lives - from the moment when they first heard it - this incredibly fantastic gift of grace has given them faith, hope, love  . . .  Suddenly their pagan worship or their legalistic Judaism seems dull, dead, pale in comparison to this shining freedom found in Christ.

How about you?  Have you discovered the fantastical, mystical, magical liberation of Jesus?  What happened to you when you first heard the Good News?

Words from a book (George Hunter's Church for the Unchurched) that I read many years ago still haunt me.  Hunter suggested that too many people, sitting in church pews their whole lives, having heard the Gospel so many times while failing to respond to its winsome message, had become "inoculated to the Gospel."  Have you built up an immunity to Jesus' life changing message and life?  I pray it not so at The Vine.  I see lives changing and people awakening to the freedom offered in Jesus Christ.  King David at one time prayed "restore to me the joy of Your salvation."  If the joy is missing, pray for its return - spend some private worship time just contemplating what Jesus Christ has done for you.

Paul recognized that when someone encounters Christ, his or her life is changed.  Paul's life story was a fantastic witness of conversion and transformation.  His about face is one of the greatest validations to the truth of Jesus' resurrection.  Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus, on his way to persecute Christians, and in that encounter he "blinked."  Such was AND IS the power of Christ.

I have to wonder why would anyone choose legalistic Judaism or Islam,  or turn to paganism and Wicca, when they could have the Real Thing.  Grace is so much better. Grace is freeing - no bondage, no fear of punishment.  Nothing is comparable to the Good News found in Jesus Christ.   Nothing.

So what is keeping the Good News from bearing fruit in America?

Perhaps materialism and distractions?  Jesus in one of his parables said that the worries of this world were like weeds choking out fruitfulness.  And we have plenty of stuff to take care of and plenty of entertainment to distract us.  Are there weeds in your life that God needs to pull up?

Perhaps the church has been sharing bad news in place of Good News.  We jumped into bed with politics thinking that would be how we transform America and it backfired.  Or we've been sharing in language that is losing something in translation - it sounds like bad news to those with no news.

Perhaps we've ruined our witness.  Our lifestyle really isn't that much different than everybody else so we've got no story to tell, no power to share.  Our Good News is just okay news.  Are you living differently because of Jesus Christ?

Or scariest of all - you can't share what you don't have. (But that's fixable - Jesus said ask, seek, knock - do it - now.)

At any rate, we have our work cut out for us to overcome negative stereotypes.  But, like Paul, I do know this - The Good News is Great News! And our greatest task is to make ourselves, as bearers of this Good News, available to our friends, neighbors, coworkers and family.  When God calls us to holinesss, it's not for our benefit, but for the benefit of our world - a shining light, a city on a hill.


I hope that our journey through Colossians helps you to awaken to what God wants to do in you and through you - life change - transformation in you and in others.

I hope you are praying and seeking God's will in discerning your role in the Vine offsite.  Your life will be changed.  And you will have the chance to witness the Gospel changing the lives of others. 

Transformation:  It Starts in the Heart of One.