M. Craig Barnes, When God Interrupts, pp. 21-23.
It is impossible to follow Jesus and not be led away from something.
That journey away from the former places and toward the new place
is what converts us. Conversion is not simply the acceptance of a
theological formula for eternal salvation. Of course it is that, but it is
so much more. It is the discovery of God’s painful, beautiful,
ongoing creativity along the way in our lives…
M. Craig Barnes, When God Interrupts, pp. 21-23.
The drama of biblical conversion is never limited to
the safe struggle between doubt and belief in Christian doctrines.
Rather, it always involves the extraordinary process
of creating visionary apostles out of fearful disciples…
But the main reason we don’t want to go to the place Christ
would call us is that we know that we will have to abandon
our most cherished images of who we are.
I Chronicles 29:14 (NIV)
“But who am I, and who are my people,
that we should be able to give as generously as this?
Everything comes from you, and we have given
you only what comes from your hand.”
1 Chronicles 29:20 (NLT)
Then David said to the whole assembly,
“Give praise to the Lord your God!”
And the entire assembly praised the Lord,
the God of their ancestors, and they bowed low
and knelt before the Lord and the king.