TELLING THE STORY--by Linden Malki

As we've been studying about being real, there are several things that need to happen. We need to be real about ourselves; who we are, who God created us to be, and how our family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and others that we come into contact with see us. We need to be real about God--who He is, how we learn about Him and experience Him, and how our lives are changed by our relationship with Him. And if we know God and what He has done to change our lives, we have a story to tell. It may be drama, like my great-great uncle who was a merchant seaman who was shipwrecked in an Atlantic Ocean storm and miraculously rescued--and went on to be converted from a nominal Swedish Lutheran to a Baptist missionary who set up the first believers' baptism in Sweden, and organized the first Baptist church in Sweden, and was imprisoned and then banished for preaching outside the state church. On the other hand, some of us were raised in solid Christian families and grew, as Jesus did, "in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man." Our story may be one of obedience and growth, which is not always as easy as it looks. We may have grown up in a family of faith, and rebelled, and had to be rescued and restored. And we may have grown up in a family whose  relationship with God was nominal and not healthy.  And it might have been totally without faith or knowledge of God.

Most of the people Jesus interacted with were Jews, who more or less knew the traditions of their ancestors' interactions with God. He usually was pretty low-key in His dealings with them--asked the people He had healed to not talk about it. There were a few exceptions: He sent out messengers, but there message was one of a coming event, not a lot of information about Jesus Himself. There was the Samaritan women in John 4, who had a religious background that had separated from the Judean tradition 700 years earlier, but shared a basic knowledge of 'God, and Jesus was very upfront with her, and spent several days in her village. The most dramatic incident was in Mark 5, Luke 8, and Matthew 8, when Jesus, in the Greek area east of Galilee, encountered a man seriously possessed by demons. When Jesus told the demons to leave the man, they asked if they could go into the pigs instead of banishment, which Jesus allowed. When Jesus was leaving the area, the now sane man asked to go with him, but Jesus sent him back to tell his story to his friends and family. His story, as well as the Samaritan woman's, were spread in their home areas, and Samaria and also the Greek Decapolis areas were open to the Gospel when Judeans were persecuting Jesus' followers.

As obedient followers, the best stories we have to tell are based our own experiences with God, and our compassion and willingness to show God's love to those we encounter, who are thirsty and open for the Word of God.