Sharon's Poem

[Ben W]

This poem was written by a teenage girl named Sharon when she was searching and checking out Christianity.

Do you know
do you understand
that you represent
Jesus to me?

Do you know
do you understand
that when you
treat me with gentleness
it raises the question in my mind
that maybe He is gentle, too.
Maybe He isn't someone
who laughs when I am hurt.

Do you know
do you understand
that when you listen to my questions
and you dong laugh,
I think,
"What if Jesus is interested in me, too?

Do you know
do you understand
that when I hear you talk about arguments
and conflicts and scars from your past
that I think, "Maybe I am just a regular person
instead of a bad, no-good girl who deserves abuse."

If you care
I think maybe He cares-
and then there's this flame of hope
that burns inside of me
and for a while
I am afraid to breathe
because it might go out.

Do you know
do you understand
that your words are His words?
Your face,
His face
to someone like me?

Please be who you say you are.
Please, God, dont let this be another trick
Please let this be real.
Please.

Do you know
do you understand
that you represent
Jesus to me?

 

[Joseph_Botwinick]

Do you know, do you understand that I am not your savior and that the only way you will come to the Father is if God saves you from your totally depraved free will?


Are you now under the conviction of the Holy Spirit about your sin, and your desperate need for Christ? Has God opened your eyes so you can see, opened your ears to hear the Gospel, opened your mind so you can understand? Do you know, do you understand the grace of God? Or, are you still standing from afar judging and criticizing God based on an emotional understanding of what you think his people are like? Do you know and do you understand the following passage from Scripture:

13This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.[c] 14The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment:
16"For who has known the mind of the Lord
that he may instruct him?"[d] But we have the mind of Christ.

1 Corinthians 2:13-16

I pray that God will reveal himself to you and save you from your sin.

Joseph Botwinick

 

[epistemaniac]

on the one hand she does have a right to judge Christianity by looking to see if it's followers love one another...
Joh 17:22-23 esv The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one,
(23) I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

Francis Schaeffer has made much of this in his excellent little book The Mark of the Christian, a section says "The church is to be a loving church in a dying culture. How, then, is the dying culture going to consider us? Jesus says, "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." In the midst of the world, in the midst of our present culture, Jesus is giving a right to the world. Upon His authority He gives the world the right to judge whether you and I are born-again Christians on the basis of our observable love toward all Christians.
(Francis A. Schaeffer, The Mark of The Christian, The Standard of Quality section)

OTOH, she must also know that our shortcomings in and of themselves do not disprove the existence of God or that Jesus has come.... we are all sinners, and remain so... 1Jo 1:8 esv If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us."

as in everything, a balanced perspective is needed...

blessings,
Ken

 

[Gold Dragon]

Thanks for sharing that poem Ben W.

NIV - Acts 1:8

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

What kind of witness are we?