Jim Rayburn's Final Message to Young Life staff in 1970
“By far the greatest job in the world today is just to thumb
the pages of the New Testament, which was written to make Jesus Christ known,
and to do it in the presence of a group of people who are listening, who know
you care about them, and no beans about it; people that you’ve taken the time
and the trouble to prove that you really care.”
When he came to the village of Nazareth, his boyhood home, he went as usual to the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read the Scriptures. The scroll of Isaiah the prophet was handed to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where this was written:
God's spirit is on me
He's chosen me to preach the message of Good News to the poor
Sent me to announce pardon to prisoners
and recovery of sight to the blind
To set the burdened and battered free
to announce "This is God's Year to act!"
Luke 4:18-19 (quoting Isaiah 61:1-2)
The word here that is often used to preach and in the Greek does mean to share the good news. However, in Isaiah the word is BASAR, which is actually "to put meat on, enflesh" the Good News of God.
We don't actually preach at people. Somehow we need to become the Gospel for people to encounter. To do this we need to learn to be cared for and to care for each other. So much we talk about how God cares for others, but do we realize that God cares for all of who we are? We must enflesh the Gospel by first letting it wash over us. Do we let it impact our hearts, our relationships, our dependents, and our vocations? How do we let forgiveness flow into us and out of us? What are you harboring now? Do you let the Gospel be enfleshed to you?
1. What is the care we receive? (Does it impact our core?)
2. What is the care we practice? (Do we make the Gospel about morals, behaviors or truly about Good news?)
3. What is the care we extend to others? (How does that overflow from us?)
