Bridging the gap

In a recent post I talked about the Scripture declaration that "if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved" (Romans 10:9).

I personally decided I could no longer water down the "confess" half of the verse to a scripted recitation on membership Sunday, or the formal thing we do in worship services. I have come to believe that the Lord means something more earthy and quotidian. That is, "let the redeemed of the LORD say so," as we have opportunity.

One blog commenter then asked a good question. She said sincerely that she would like to be bold with her confession of God's deliverances and help in time of need, but that she cannot really say that she has experienced God or His deliverances in any meaningful way.

I thought about it for days. This is a serious problem. It does no good to exhort one another to be more bold and public with our faith if we have very little sense of the presence and power of God in our own lives. If we say to neighbors, "Come to Christ and He will change your life," and if they then ask a follow-up question about how Christ has changed ours, we had better have something to answer.

One cannot give away what one does not have. Jesus instructed the former demoniac, "Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you . . ." (Mark 5:19), and the man had something to tell. I am not at all saying that our conversions and lives should all be as sensational as the Gadarenes man's. But my impression from Scripture is that we should all have some kind of narrative of the Lord's dealing with us (See Psalm 40:1-3), whether it's more like a Chopin nocturne or a turbulent Wagnerian opera.

The seriousness of our plight becomes evident when we realize that it is the joy of the Lord that advances the Kingdom. King David knew that, and so he was eager that his joy should be restored after the Bathsheba fiasco:

"Restore to me the joy of your salvation . . . then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you" (Psalm 51:12-13).

We can't "teach sinners your ways" if we are not much acquainted with them ourselves. We can't share the good news with a straight face if it doesn't seem so great to us personally, nor can we "confess with our mouth" if we have nothing much to confess. To try to pass off the low temperature spirituality we are experiencing as "deliverance" or "joy" or "fullness" is a waste of perfectly good words. How do we bridge the gap between our theology and our reality?

Any thoughts, readers?

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