Jordan Rippy

Have you ever heard someone share a story that caused you to step back and even wonder if you are a real Christian?  Lately, I have been so challenged by people who are doing radical things for the Kingdom of God.  So if there existed a checklist of things you had to do to be considered a follower of Christ, what would be on it?  I have no idea.  Okay, so I have an idea.  I know where it would begin.  I am sure that it would begin with experiencing Christ in some way.  That experience would trigger a response and that response would be accepting Jesus as Savior.  Beyond that, where do we go?  Is it really enough to accept Christ and then follow a certain code of morality, attend church, and tithe?

I think it is necessary that we experience God to the fullest extent.  In his book entitled, “The Signature of Jesus” Brennan Manning states that, “We do not need to theorize about Jesus; we need to make Him present in our time, our culture, and our circumstance.”  Manning teaches that the only way we can be sure of our beliefs is to experience God.  He says that, “When we encounter the God revealed by and in Jesus Christ, we must revise all our previous thinking about God.”  This statement is paralleled with the call of Abraham to abandon the comfort of his home in Haran to an unknown destination.  When Abraham was called God was asking Abraham to forsake his polytheistic views about God.  Therefore, the experience with God changed Abraham’s preconceived notions concerning God.

I just know that there is a lot more to faith in God than we generally understand.  Following Christ is not a system of beliefs or a code of morality.  The Kingdom of God is a way of living.  It is an ever present presence of God.  Manning says this about the divide between belief and faith: “For contemporary Christians, there is an essential difference between belief and faith.  Our religious beliefs are the visible expression of our faith, our personal commitment to the person of Jesus.  However, if the Christian beliefs inherited from our family and passed on to us by our church tradition are not grounded in a shattering, life-changing experience of Jesus as the Christ, then the chasm between our creedal statements and our faith-experience widens and our witness is worthless.”  We have to take the journey of faith between knowledge and experience.  For Abraham, it was from Haran to Canaan.  For us the physical journey may not be so drastic.  The Spiritual journey, however, will be just as life changing.