Tina Out Loud!: The Jesus I Know

What’s In The Brown Bag?

2 Timothy 4:2 -“…proclaim the Message with intensity; keep your watch. Challenge, warn and urge your people. Don’t ever quit." (The Message)

I heard a story a while ago which went something like this: There was a man in America who walked into a poor town one day with just the suit that he wore and a brown bag. He decided he would turn the town around. Within a few years this town was economically thriving and the town’s people decided to throw a celebratory party. The man who had turned it around gave a speech which started: “I turned up 5 years ago in just the suit I was stood up in a brown bag and I decided to turn this town around and now we have…….” He gave thanks to all those who worked with him and the party continued. As he left the stage from which he had been speaking he was surrounded by reporters who said that they just had one question: What was in the brown bag? The man replied “$3,000,000”.

Whoever we are (and we may look like a ‘brown bag’ on the outside!) we possess knowledge, insights, words from God that can encourage, correct and change lives around us. This is our $3,000,000.

What’s in your brown bag? What can you share?

I’ve decided to share the contents of mine. Some of it you may think is worth $3,000,000, some $3. However, if it benefits one person then this is good enough.

14 February 2010

The Jesus I Know

'The Jesus I Know' is a book I read recently of collected writings, edited by Adam Harbinson, where people share their thoughts on the Jesus they know. As I read this book I was inspired to write this short piece on the Jesus I KNOW.

The Jesus I KNOW has loved me since before I was conceived in the womb and I KNOW it. Just trying to get my head round that one is extraordinarily hard. My Christian story began at university 17 years ago. At university I met some people who seemed ‘different’ – stereotypically. They took me to hear an evangelist/speaker who made the best appeal any speaker could make for me. He said that if I would take that one step towards God, God would take the 99 steps towards me and prove He is real. ‘Okay’ I thought, prove it. Within weeks I was a completely different person. One guy I had known from the beginning at university said that all the hardness in my face had disappeared and I had softened. Up until that point I knew things had changed, but that one sentence described so well what had happened to me.

The Jesus I met all that time ago has never left me and has never stopped loving me. I KNOW His presence in my life daily. Jesus is real and living. He is not someone who has disappeared and is a legend. He is here now. I KNOW He is in the room with me as I write this. I KNOW I can talk to Him. I KNOW He speaks and intercedes on my behalf to God the Father. I KNOW His guidance, his steering. Every Christian can KNOW this too. I am continually frustrated that I cannot verbally or in written format get this point over so strongly that people would fall backwards under the sheer immensity of this truth. How powerful it is to have Jesus in our lives!

2 comments:

Adam Harbinson15 February 2010 at 13:02
Hi Tina. I'm the Adam Harbinson who edited The Jesus I Know. J John passed your blog to me as an encouragement. Thank you so much for this. It took over three years to compile the book and it has been a great success with very many people being helped and inspired by it. It was a great project and comments such as yours make it all worthwhile. Thank you
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Tina15 February 2010 at 19:11
Hi Adam. It was so lovely to hear from you. Thank you for taking the time to write the comment. I was so blessed reading the book and fully intend reading it again in the future! It's great to read something that gets to the heart of what we should be about - getting to know Jesus and being more like Him. Thank you. Every blessing Tina.
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