This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.
Get Rid Of Jargon!
The New Testament is not written to prove that Jesus Christ is God Incarnate; the New Testament does not prove anything; it simply confirms the faith of those who believe beforehand. Christian evidences don’t amount to anything; you can’t convince a man against his will. …
Creeds are the effects of our belief, not the cause of it. I do not have to believe all that before I can be a Christian; but after I have become a Christian I begin to try and expound to myself Who Jesus Christ is, and to do that I must first of all take into consideration the New Testament explanation. “Blessed art thou, Simon bar Jonah: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in heaven.” …
Jesus Christ did not come primarily to teach; He came to make it possible for us to receive His heredity, to have put into us a new disposition whereby we can live totally new lives. … The Sermon on the Mount is impossible to a man, and yet it is what our Lord taught. Jesus Christ did not come to teach man to be what he cannot be, but to reveal that He can put into him a totally new heredity; and all He requires a man to say is—“I need it.” … Jesus Christ cannot begin to do anything for a man until he knows his need; but immediately he is at his wits’ end through sin or limitation or agony and cannot go any further, Jesus Christ says to him, “Blessed are you; if you ask God for the Holy Spirit, He will give Him to you.” God does not give us the Holy Spirit until we come to the place of seeing that we cannot do without Him (Luke 11:13). …
We have been taken up with creeds and doctrines, and when a man is hit we do not know what to give him; we have no Jesus Christ, we have only theology. For one man who can introduce another to Jesus Christ by the way he lives and by the atmosphere of his life, there are a thousand who can only talk jargon about Him.
From The Shadow Of An Agony
Oswald Chambers is reminding Christians that we only learn more about Jesus by confessing “I need You!” Then the Holy Spirit can begin to reveal real-life truths to us from God’s Word.
Peter reminded us that in order to be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks a Christian the reason for the hope they had, we must first make Jesus the Lord of our life (see 1 Peter 3:15). Creeds and doctrines and theories are of no help to a friend who is in trouble. Let’s not be one of the thousands “who can only talk jargon about Him,” but let’s really know Jesus as Lord, so that we have something real and tangible to pass on to our friends.
Get rid of the jargon! Go deeper in your personal relationship with Jesus Christ!
Craig T. Owens 