Earlier, after I came to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, I thought the Bible was nothing but a collection of good sayings. Then I thought it contained countless magical verses I had to collect like money. Then I began to study those verses especially the ones famous preachers use to tell their amazing and hard to believe stories. It’s like a magician teaching you how to do magic.
During that time, I thought everybody I met and heard from about “Jesus” was the one I needed to listen to and follow. So, I became a faithful follower of pretty much all “renowned miracle working” preachers. Do I need to mention their names? Nah!
I have no one to blame but myself. If people shared with me what they knew to be true, what is their crime? Some people say, “But some of these false preachers knew they were preaching money and material, not Christ Jesus.” Well, I leave that to them to deal with.
Anyways, at the beginning of my Christian journey, the one precious gift I didn’t know I have was the Bible. As I said earlier, I thought the Bible was full of good sayings and miracle working verses. So, I was a faithful disciple of collecting those verses and memorizing them.
As a young new Christian convert (I think I was one month old in Christ), eager to know everything I needed to know about Christ, I was assigned to pick up a minister who travelled a long way to minister to us. I was living with my sister at the time in New Delhi, India, going to school in New Delhi University.
My responsibility was to pick up the minister and show him the city around and bring him back to church to the program. We were poor students, no car, no nothing. So, I took the minister in a taxi – which was a “three wheeler baja.” We went to a shopping mall. Then we stopped at a place where there were lots of jewelry shops. As we passed through those shopping centers, the minister said to me, “Do you see all these gold chains. I claim them all in the name of Jesus Christ so that they come to me.”
I giggled thinking that he was joking. He laughed and said, “You think I am joking? No! You better claim them for yourself. Jesus wants us to own all these. He just wants us to claim them. That is all! These people work hard for us. We are free from hard work. They work hard and amass wealth for us.”
He told me to stretch my hand on the window and claim them all.
I remember everything vividly as if it happened yesterday. I remember the shop we stopped at to claim the gold chains, bracelets and necklaces. I did stretch my hand but my soul squirmed within me and I pulled back my hand. He continued claiming going from one shop to another. Then we went to the program and I couldn’t worship God. My spirit was disturbed within me but I quickly managed to silence my spirit saying, “What do you know? These people know a lot and you better learn from them.”
My Shepherd, my Lord, my Savior, Jesus Christ didn’t leave me to myself nor to any false teachers. Rather He held me fast and Jesus Christ is holding me fast to the end until I see Him face to face. May His name be praised forever!
Now whenever I see or meet young people who see the Bible as a treasure box which is full of magic and wonder working verses and believe that those verses only works for the few selected or elected people, I want to say to them, “Please know Jesus! Jesus didn’t die on the cross so you fall in love with this dying world and the things of this world but to bring you back from death to life. Once He brings back to life, He leaves you here on earth so you know Him through His word and proclaim Him to others. When you finish your journey here, He takes you home, to a place He’s been preparing for you all along.”
What else can I say to them? ///