WHEN YOU MEET JESUS (2)

The next day Jesus desired and decided to go into Galilee; and He found Philip and said to him, Join Me as My attendant and follow Me.

44Now Philip was from Bethsaida, of the same city as Andrew and Peter.

45Philip sought and found Nathanael and told him, We have found (discovered) the One Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote about--Jesus from Nazareth, the [legal] son of Joseph!

46Nathanael answered him, [Nazareth!] Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Philip replied, Come and see!

47Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward Him and said concerning him, See! Here is an Israelite indeed [a true descendant of Jacob], in whom there is no guile nor deceit nor falsehood nor duplicity!

48Nathanael said to Jesus, How do You know me? [How is it that You know these things about me?] Jesus answered him, Before [ever] Philip called you, when you were still under the fig tree, I saw you.

49Nathanael answered, Teacher, You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!

50Jesus replied, Because I said to you, I saw you beneath the fig tree, do you believe in and rely on and trust in Me? You shall see greater things than this!

51Then He said to him, I assure you, most solemnly I tell you all, you shall see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man!^(L)   

^{( John 1:43-51 )}

         ^{Good morning dearly beloved in Christ. I hope you had a great night rest. In my previous writeup I wrote about the fact that you cannot be a Christian and not have a change of story. We all came to Jesus damaged so he has got to fix us, that's what he does so there should be proof of that in your life. We closed with a profound question which I believe you should have already answered. If not you are still going to be having a lot of ups and downs in your life as a Christian. Before I continue I just want to ask you , Do you know why God had to go through such great lengths to get you into his kingdom?. I mean just think about it, He created you beautifully and wonderfully, He died for us, cleansed from every sin even though we insulted, despised and mocked Him. Then He gave us the best gift ever, the gift of the person of the Holy Spirit. Ask yourself, why did God go through all this for me ? After all there are trillions of others out there. Answer this question, then you will begin to appreciate and draw closer to God more.}

        ^{Looking at the above scripture, somethings are glaring that am going to be writing about. Firstly, we see that Jesus calls Philip to follow Him and he obeyed. See something that touched me, that same day Philip won a soul for Jesus. You will think that is a coincidence right but Andrew did the same thing ( john 1:40-42 ). The question that pomps up in my mind is WHY ?, I mean they would have waited for one year to learn all the spiritual gymnastics needed or even waited till after Pentecost. But the truth is when you meet Jesus, there is joy, peace and this urgency to proclaim Jesus to the world. This is inherent in every newborn christain, the samaritan woman is another example. Immediately after that powerful teaching session with Jesus, she just couldn't contain herself  she wanted all her townsmen to meet Jesus by so doing prepared the way for a might crusade in that town. Its like announcing the birth of a new born baby.  We come to Jesus and He changes us in ways that the world cannot understand, so we just want to spread the happiness to the rest of the world that do not yet have this peace.}

      ^{I remember when I got exposed to the love of Christ and I truly committed my life to following Jesus, I was so happy that I gathered some of my Christian friends, we mapped out plans on how to go about evangelizing our secondary school. We had saturday evangelism, sunday evening hostel evangelism and two hours twice in a week class to teach and groom junior students to be more like Christ. Some of us couldn't even speak in tongues yet, God hadn't used any of us to work any miracles yet infact the gifts of the Holy Spirit had not yet started manifesting in some of us. We didn't care about those things, all we knew was, we had received such a great treasure and we wanted others to have it. I mean who would win #25 million and an SUV car like Efe and not announce it or even organize such a mindblowing victory party.}

     ^{The next bothering question is, Why then do people find it difficult to proclaim Jesus as King of kings?. To me there are majorly 2 reasons. One is that, we Christians are very greed, we have found something good, beautiful, amazing and we don't want to share. What should we call ourselves if not greed people. Secondly, we don't have a testimony, when Jesus said, go and proclaim the goodnews, what do you think he was talking about? He was saying, go and tell the world of how you were in the kingdom of darkness, a victim of Lord of Sin, afflictions tormented you then you saw me, accepted my invitation and I saved you from all that. I brought you into my kingdom of light, where you are above Lord Sin and afflictions, sicknesses, diseases, failures etc. That's the goodnews, Jesus asked us to proclaim and nothing else. Now, I ask you a question, have you been proclaiming the goodnews?}

     ^{When you meet Jesus amongst other things, He does three things to you} 

^{(1) He purchases you, changes you and makes you a Son of God}

^{(2) He gives you the person of the Holy Spirit} 

(3) An ability and passion to evangelism is ignited 

      Permit me to briefly write about the third one. Your encounter with the master creates this passion to talk about Jesus. Some of us aren't because we are shy or because we have been told that there are five fold ministries, the apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers and evangelist and that we shouldn't operate in a ministry that Christ has not called us into. We forget that the same scripture exhorts us all to do the work of an evangelist. If you are shy ask the Holy Spirit for boldness, He can provide that and more. Remember DO THE WORK OF AN EVANGELIST.

    Do have a beautiful and blessed-filled day, God loves you.

Prayer point

(1) ask for forgiveness for your inability to preach the goodnews

(2) ask the Holy Spirit for the enablement to do the work of an evangelist