{"id":21941,"date":"2022-12-27T07:36:51","date_gmt":"2022-12-27T12:36:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=21941"},"modified":"2022-12-27T09:56:08","modified_gmt":"2022-12-27T14:56:08","slug":"21941","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=21941","title":{"rendered":"<strong>Jesus\u2019 Person-to-Person Ministry<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-embed-handler wp-block-embed-embed-handler wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Matthew West - The God Who Stays (Lyric Video)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/KHMVSdIjBcg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jesus\u2019 Person-to-Person Ministry<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Richard writes about how Jesus\u2019 ministry reveals that true conversion stems from relationship, not words; from experience, not belief:&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The ego loves to use words, but <strong>the primary way we communicate \u201cthe reign of God is at hand\u201d is by our presence. Jesus clearly modeled this. <\/strong>It seems that Jesus and his disciples took up residence in people\u2019s homes and lived as closely as possible to the people. <strong>In their ministry, healing and preaching are so intertwined that we could say that there has been no real proclaiming of the kingdom, no authentic conversion, unless there is healing in some real sense.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Understandably, many of us have come to rely on an impersonal medium like the printed word.<\/strong> But the only way words can have any effect on our lives is if a person is coming across through this medium. <strong>When I am preaching, teaching, or writing, I have to try to give myself away; I have to let others encounter me in some real way. That\u2019s the only experience that will make any of my words halfway believable.<\/strong> Jesus gave us words, but more significantly, he gave his \u201cflesh\u201d for the life of the world\u2014in the way he lived and the way he died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In Luke\u2019s Gospel, all of Jesus\u2019 rules of ministry\u2014his \u201ctips for the road\u201d\u2014are very interpersonal. They are based on putting people in touch with people. <strong>Person-to-person is the way the gospel was originally communicated. Person-in-love-with-person, person-respecting-person, person-forgiving-person, person-touching-person, person-crying-with-person, person-hugging-person: that\u2019s where the Spirit is so beautifully present. [1]<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Brian McLaren describes how Jesus\u2019 invitation to participate in \u201cGod\u2019s kingdom\u201d impacts relationships, person by person:&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The same thing happens with teachers, politicians, lawyers, engineers, and salespeople who take seriously their identity as participants in the kingdom of God. The way they teach, the way they develop public policies, the way they seek justice, the way they design and work with resources from God\u2019s creation, the way they buy and sell\u2014all of these are given dignity in the context of God\u2019s kingdom, and soon, transformation begins to happen. After all, <strong>when you see your students, constituency, clients, or customers as people who are loved by God and as your fellow citizens in God\u2019s kingdom, it becomes harder to rip them off or give them second best.<\/strong> <strong>And when enough people begin to live with that viewpoint, in little ways as well as big ones, over long periods of time, things truly change. . . .<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Life for them now is about an interactive relationship\u2014reconciled to God, reconciled to one another\u2014and so they see their entire lives as an opportunity to make the beautiful music of God\u2019s kingdom so that more and more people will be drawn into it, and so that the world will be changed by their growing influence. Everyone can have a role in this expanding kingdom. [<\/strong>2]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/image-4-500x292.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-21943\" width=\"651\" height=\"380\" srcset=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/image-4-500x292.png 500w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/image-4-300x175.png 300w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/image-4-768x449.png 768w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/image-4-1536x898.png 1536w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/image-4.png 1816w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 651px) 100vw, 651px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jesus\u2019 Person-to-Person Ministry Richard writes about how Jesus\u2019 ministry reveals that true conversion stems from relationship, not words; from experience, not belief:&nbsp; The ego loves to use words, but the primary way we communicate \u201cthe reign of God is at hand\u201d is by our presence. Jesus clearly modeled this. It seems that Jesus and his [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21941"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21941"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21950,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21941\/revisions\/21950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}