At New Hope, we have been journeying through the series, "Just Walk Across The Room".  Today, we were challenged that we all have a story to tell & we need to learn to tell it well. I am so thankful for my before & after story...

    We all have a story - a powerful story! Regardless how old you were when you came to faith, hopefully you're different before Christ than you are after Christ invaded your world & beautifully changed it with things like grace & mercy & love. You see, if we truly have come into relationship with God through his Son, Jesus Christ, then we have a wonderful story of transformation to tell.

 

    In John chapter 9, Jesus heals a man who had been blind from birth. You would think the rejoicing would start right then. BUT, the Pharisees get all up in arms over it because it had happened on the Sabbath and some of them thought that it was work to heal and thus, not allowed.

    So they call in the guy who has been healed for an interrogation about what had happened. He explains exactly how Jesus did it. He told them, "The man they call Jesus made mud &spread it over my eyes & told me, ‘Go to the pool of Siloam & wash yourself.' So I went & washed ..." John 9:11

    They keep questioning him - asking who he thought Jesus was, where he thought Jesus had come from, & whether he thought Jesus was just an ordinary sinner like everyone else. They want to debate theology with him.

    Now let’s take the guy from Luke 5 who once had leprosy. In The Message paraphrase, “one day in one of the villages there was a man covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus he fell down before him in prayer & said, ‘If you want to, you can cleanse me.’ Jesus put out his hand, touched him, & said, ‘I want to. Be clean.’” Then & there the guy’s skin was smooth, the leprosy gone.

Can you imagine what that experience must have been like for that man? What do you think he told every, single person who would listen from that point forward?! “I was a leper. But then I met Christ! And now I’m healed … totally and completely healed. This is unbelievable! My skin was so angry that it was literally … erupting. But now look at it! It’s clean. It’s smooth. It’s healed! Everything about me was rotting, moldy, diseased … but I’ve been recreated. It’s as if I were never sick! This is unreal. Absolutely unreal! Where did my hopelessness go? My helplessness? They vanished with my sores. They’re not here anymore. Jesus fixed all of that. I have hope! I want to live! I finally feel whole.”

 

    When we are telling OUR story, that is what people want to know...What is YOUR before and after story?

    Okay, so here’s what I hope you will do this week. We’re going to write our stories down … our individual before-and-after faith story. We welcome you to post YOUR story as a comment to this blog. It will give you a great opportunity to share your story with others who visit the site. However, if you would rather work on it some more, please feel free to email me a copy at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it  and I would be honored to help you hone your story.

 

    I strongly believe we can do our part to cause our community to say, “The Christians over there at New Hope Christian Fellowship...They know how to tell God’s story. And to hear them talk about what he’s done in their lives … it makes me want that type of thing for my own life!”

 

    Let’s do the One whose name we bear proud as we work hard to hone and shape and sharpen our before-and-after stories.