Person-2-Person - April, 2018

“Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.” – Mother Teresa

The book, Whisper: How to Hear the Voice of God, by Mark Batterson, relates the following story: Once, in 1940, the late evangelist Dr. J. Edwin Orr took a group of Wheaton College students to study abroad in England. One of their stops included the Epworth Rectory, which is now a Methodist museum, but many years ago it was the home of John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement.

One of the rectory’s bedrooms has two impressions in the floor where tradition says Wesley knelt regularly in prayer. As Dr. Orr was shepherding his students back onto their bus, he noticed that one student was missing. He went back upstairs and found a young man kneeling in those same impressions and praying, “O Lord, do it again!” (With thanks to Jim Denison of Charisma News.)

Our God changes lives. During our church wide study of the life of Moses, we read about his shining face (Exod. 34:29-35). When he descended from Mount Sinai with the stone tablets bearing the second set of commandments, Moses’ face was shining because he had been talking to God but he didn’t know it (vs. 29). We often hear about women “glowing” but this was apparently something else. When the people saw him, they were afraid, even his brother, Aaron, who had witnessed miracles up close (vs. 30), and refused to come near him. After Moses spoke to the people, he put a veil over his face (vs. 33), and from then on, whenever he finished speaking with God, he put a veil over his face until the glow faded (vs. 33-35).

The Bible says Moses’ face glowed “. . . because he had spoken with the Lord.” (vs. 29b New International Reader’s Version). I don’t know about you but I speak to God every time I pray, yet nobody has ever told me my face was glowing when I was finished. There aren’t dents worn in the floor of my bedroom. When was the last time someone could tell you or I had been changed by an encounter with God? Or the last time you or I prayed, “O Lord, do it again!”? Or the last time your faith or mine was so vivid, so powerful, it disturbed people? If you’re anything like me, it’s been quite a while, if it ever happened at all.

Matthew’s account says that when Jesus offered to make James and John “fishers of people” (4:19b NIRV), “At once they left their nets and followed him.” (4:20 NIRV). After Zacchaeus, a tax collector, met Jesus (Luke 19:1-10), he promised, “‘Here and now I give half of what I own to those who are poor. And if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay it back. I will pay back four times the amount I took.’” (vs. 8b NIRV). The Samaritan woman who met Jesus at Jacob’s well told everyone she knew (John 4:28-29). Many people from her town came to see for themselves (vs. 30, 39). Nicodemus the Pharisee was both disturbed and challenged by Jesus’ teaching (John 3) and later he defended Jesus to his fellow religious leaders (John 7:50-51). He also helped prepare Jesus’ body for burial (19:38-42).

There are many more names on the list, familiar names and people you’ve never heard of, all lives changed by an encounter with Christ. But as the fourth stanza of the great old hymn “For All the Saints” says, “We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;” (lyrics by William W. How). I confess that I “struggle” more often than I “shine.” But then I remember the next line, which says, “yet all are one in thee, for all are thine.”

Christ makes each of us “a new creation.” (2 Cor. 5:17b). The young man mentioned earlier, whom Dr. Orr overheard praying, “O Lord, do it again!” was named Billy Graham. He became the most widely known evangelist of the twentieth century. According to his biography, he preached to nearly 215 million people over his lifetime. I’d say his prayer was answered. Your prayers and mine can be answered too. God can work through us. It’s never too late for God to “do it again!”

“Aaron and all of the people of Israel saw Moses. His face was shining. So they were afraid to come near him. But Moses called out to them. So Aaron and all of the leaders of the community came to him. And Moses spoke to them. After that, all of the people came near him. And he gave them all of the commands the LORD had given him on Mount Sinai.” (Exod. 34:30-32 NIRV.)