I would like to tell a story. One day there was a very smart doctor giving a talk to a classroom of students about why any belief in God is futile and useless. This was not the first time this speaker had come to this classroom. This time however, it was different. During the entire first half of the presentation an older man sat in quietly in the back of the room with a brown paper bag. As he sat and listened to the Doctor speak they made eye contact once or twice until finally the speaker ask the elder man why he was hear. The speaker said, “ I have spoken here many times already and recognize all these students, but I do not recognize you?” The older man simple sat there. Waiting for a response the speaker eagerly watched to see what the older man would do. The gentleman simply opened the paper bag, reached inside and pulled out a red apple, then, took a bite.
The Speaker said, “You seem a bit skeptical. During my entire presentation you have had a look on your face like you know something I do not.” The elderly man just started and continued to take bite after bite of his apple. Becoming more and more frustrated the speaker began to make accusations about the elderly man since clearly he was not giving any information himself. The Speaker talked about how undesirable a life believing in God would be, the God was unjust, asking question about how the people could trust in something they have never heard or seen. The accusations went on and on until finally the older man took his last bite. He then put the apple core in the bag and stood up. By this point the entire classroom was on edge waiting to hear what the gentleman would say.
Not a sound was heard in the room until the elder man said, “Doctor, did you just eat me apple?” confused in the question the doctor said, “No, are you crazy, everyone watched you eat it just now.” The elder man said, “Did you crew my apple?” the doctor said, “No”, “did you feel or smell my apple?”, the doctor replied, “No”, the elder man said, “Doctor, did you Taste my apple?”, seeing where the older gentleman was going the doctor patiently responded, “No, I did not.”, finally the older man said, “And neither have you tasted my Jesus. So why would you make such wild accusations about something you have never tasted?”
1 Corinthians 13 is a chapter in the Bible that I advocate for quite regularly. In my beliefs, pride is the root some sin. Pride is what called Lucifer to want to be like God and ultimately got him cast from Heaven. From my understanding, pride was the first sin. With pride we find things like selfishness, lake of humility, and the list goes on. The point I am getting at is this; he only thing that could be sin is ultimate love from God through His Sons perfect sacrifice. With that picture we see that the opposite of pride is Love, and love is a pretty hard thing to figure out.
The Bible gives us a few different books and chapters that are a bit of help in understanding love, and one of the in particular is the 1 Corinthians 13. this is where the story and this chapter come to meet. In this chapter the church of Corinth is given a pretty detailed list of what love is. In that list, and non-the-less, number one, is patience.
This is the point I am trying to get across to you as leaders. Not all of the students that we will be ministering with are going to be rock solid Christians. the sad truth is that a good bit of them will say they are Christians and then go on living lives that do not back what they say. then we will be running into the students that flat out do not believe in Christ. No matter who we are going to be serving or leading we must understand that it is our job to be the “sweet taste” of Jesus to the students.
MisterWestafer 