In 1974, I discovered the teachings of Jesus. I had spent my life in a maze of churchy clichés, trying to grasp their true significance, when suddenly I stumbled on the missing piece... the piece that made everything else fit together.
I was shocked when my church friends unanimously opposed this new discovery. But then I turned to the secular world.
Over the years, literally hundreds of newspapers have carried accounts of the good news that we have discovered. Daily we meet thousands of people on the streets as we distribute literature which expounds the teachings of Jesus. Hundreds of people have written to us and scores have visited.
Yet, from the many millions we have reached, only a small handful of people have decided to "forsake all" and join us in living by faith as Jesus has taught us to do.
Twenty years ago, Jesus himself could not have convinced us that we would be so totally unsuccessful in our evangelism. With the effort we have put out, we could have won hundreds of converts to any religion in the world.
Yet we believe that our failure is convincing proof of the powerful truth that we are preaching!
There is a universal spiritual conspiracy against God. Everyone from politicians and theologians to housewives and anarchists has been trapped by this evil spell.
God, in his mercy, has let us find in Jesus, the formula for breaking that spell. But it takes a miracle of the highest magnitude to pull it off.
Everywhere we go, people argue against the formula (the teachings of Jesus). But this is only because everywhere we go, we find people still under the spell of money worship.
Why else would they turn to everything under the sun (including all the religious games they play in his name) except the one thing that can free them? Why, unless they are the victims of a curse on humanity?
We live an ideal life--plenty of comforts as well as great fellowship, purpose, adventure, clear consciences, and hope for the future. Even if people had no faith in God at all, you would think that they would join us just for the fringe benefits. Yet no one does. Strange, isn't it?
We read of people forsaking all for all sorts of other reasons. They divorce wives for other women; leave home to get a job; quit jobs to travel. But when it comes to trading it all for a personal walk with God--the Creator of the Universe--they won't budge.
"When the Son of man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" asks Jesus. We can say with confidence that he'll find lots of religion, lots of professed ideals, lots of talking about doing something "someday". But real faith?
Not likely!
(See also Keep on Planting, and Having a Great Time: Wish you were Here!)
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