PERSONAL JESUS JOURNEY

PERSONAL TESTIMONY…The Jesus Journey

Nearly five years ago, after holding the position of Founding and Senior Pastor of a mega-church, publishing fourteen books and finally achieving the privilege of speaking on the largest corporate platforms in America, Jesus apprehended my life. This experience quickly spread to my wife, Diana, and is now moving through our children and grandchildren. The journey is like riding a rollercoaster—always being in the front seat. The adventure is the most authentic, transformational and fulfilling we’ve ever known. Everything else pales in comparison.

 

There’s a catch to all of this. While our learning curve is nearly perpendicular, we have come to realize that much of what we have learned must be unlearned. We’ve been educated beyond our intelligence to the point that we’ve spent most of our lives DOING THINGS OUR WAY FOR JESUS.

 

This time around we are stubbornly focused on three habits:

1. Walking with Jesus.

2. Walking with others.

3. Waiting on Jesus to lead out with orders and opportunities.

 

When asked, “What’s happening?” or “What are you up to these days?”, we have learned to respond, “I’m doing the toughest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I’m attempting to follow the teachings and principles of Jesus.” These are not empty words or clichés. What we are learning as we gather together around Jesus is to interpret the popular WWJD? personally and as a group. WHAT WOULD JESUS DO? To ask the question is to discover the answer. But there’s more to WWJD? than originally thought. It’s WDJD?... WHAT DID JESUS DO? We’re learning more and more that the most important thing of all is to do what Jesus did in every way possible.

 

A major theme for our spiritual journey has become JESUS PLUS NOTHING. Our tendency is to complicate Jesus and our relationship with Him. And, that tendency leads to smothering the dynamic of following Jesus with a multitude of ADD-ONS. These add-ons may be good, but they

are not the best and become insidious distractions away from the simplicity of devotion to Jesus.

 

Since Jesus apprehended our lives in the past few years, we and a few of our friends are stubbornly devoted to:

• Embrace the teachings and principles of Jesus as a lifestyle.

• Mentor others to do the same.

• Believe God for raising up leaders.

• Empower the youth of the world.

• Restore the broken, abused, addicted and poor.

• Serve everyone Jesus brings to us.