John, from
Wichita, KS:
In the fall of 2003, my wife (Jenifer) and I were in Kansas visiting
her parents. The family had bought Jenifer's Dad a small stereo
for his birthday, and he asked me to build a shelf to put it on.
Jenifer, my father-in-law, and myself were out in the garage
visiting as I was staining and finishing the shelf; when an older
gentleman came up the street, up the driveway, and right up to the
three of us as if he belonged there. (My in-laws live on a
culdesac off of a non-busy street.) Jenifer and I thought that
her Dad knew him, and Jenifer's Dad thought that we knew him, but none
of us had ever seen the man before.
The man introduced himself as John, and we in turn
introduced ourselves. We got into some small talk to break the
ice for probably 10 or so minutes and then John asked what we did for a
living. The door was just swung wide open. We started
sharing who we are and what our ministry is about. We told John
about who Jesus is and what Jesus taught while He was on the earth, we
told him how the Jewish laws and the religious leaders were always
hounding him for teaching the truth, offending the Pharisees,
Sadducees, Sanhedrin, and the Jewish officials among others.
We shared with John why Jesus was hated by the
religious leaders and loved by the true worshipers. We shared how
Jesus tried to reach the religious, how Jesus loved the religious
enough to set them free from the religious spirit. We shared
about the miracles of Jesus raising the dead, healing the sick, driving
out demons, restoring the faith, giving sight to the blind, and on and
on. We shared with John that even though Jesus was doing these
miracles, the religious became even more angry and hateful toward (Him)
Jesus, insisting Jesus must die before more were to follow Him.
The religious were livid because Jesus claimed He was in the Father and
the Father was in Him. We explained that Jesus did not come to
abolish the law but to fulfill it; to make the law complete.
We shared how there is no difference between today
and the day Jesus walked and taught among the people. We
explained to John that the religious of today have kicked Jesus out of
the churches to follow their doctrine and traditions established by
man. How the truth has been changed to suit the liking of one
group or another. How it’s offensive to adhere to the truth that
Jesus lived and taught, thereby changing who Jesus is into who they
want Jesus to be, ignoring the truth to satisfy their own selfish
desires.
Jesus never conformed to the box that the Jewish leaders tried to put
Him in, and Jesus will not conform to the box that the religious try to
put Him in today. Judgment will be the same whether we agree with
it or not.
With tears in his eyes, John told us that he had
something he wanted to tell us. He told us he was going to tell
us something that nobody else knew except for his wife. He
proceeded to tell us how he met Christ and fell in love with Him when
he was a young man. (He’s 81 now.) He was so moved by God
that he felt called by God to be an evangelist. He figured this
meant he needed to become a missionary. He started talking with
others who pointed him to seminary. He went to seminary and then
figured that preaching in a church was how he was supposed to do
it. He ended up pastoring one church and then another and then
another. He struggled as he pastored because he read the bible
and knew the truth. But the church told him that he was to do
things a certain way--not the way he was doing them. Because of
his choice to follow God, his Dad disowned him and removed him from his
will. John’s eyes were full of tears when he told us how he had
chosen Christ over his own father. He proceeded to tell us how,
when his Dad died, he indeed did not receive any
inheritance. John told us how he proceeded to struggle to
live for Christ, even though what he was being told by the church was
living for Christ did not line up with what he believed the bible said
living for Christ was. He struggled so much that he would try to
do things as God desired in the churches he pastored, but the people
(the church) would tell him he was doing things wrong and end up
sending him to another church. He told us he progressively lost
his faith. Finally in the early to mid 70’s he walked away from
the church and from God. He figured that if that was what God is
about he didn’t want anything to do with it.
As tears were rolling down John’s face we told him
man’s religion is not of God, and Jesus had no part of it, that was why
the religious were out to kill Him. It is all about Jesus, not
man-made rules or doctrine. We gave him a sheet of the “Galilean
Church.” We told him that he can still live for God and that he
didn’t have to have the approval of “man’s religion” to do it.
John asked us “you mean I can still preach and teach the gospel?”
We told him, Yes! We told him he could preach and teach right
there where he lived. He didn’t have to give up God nor the truth
of Jesus Christ’s word. Then he asked us, “You mean I was right
all along?” We told him, “Yes, you were!” He got a big
smile on his face and realized that his wife might be looking for him
(since we had been talking for over 3 hours). We hugged him and,
as he left, he asked “I can do just as Jesus did?” We told him
“yes, do as Jesus did, not what man says to do. God made the
rules and those are the rules we are to live by--not man’s.”
We gave John a ”NO RELIGION JUST JESUS” bumper
sticker, and he left with a spring in his step and a smile on his
face. Jesus had just set John free.
--Gary
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