Real Life and Real Fruit is the Real Miracle: Where is the Fruit?

Pastor Benny Hinn: Charlatan or Man of God?  Noah taught Wed. night about the difference between a Believer and a Disciple. (I plan to have outlines and a little audio after next week's conclusion.) At one point he mentioned Benny Hinn and it reminded me of this article in the New Paper.

Fox News published this article which has me asking one basic question: Where is the fruit?

The exposé reported that though thousands of people attending Hinn's religious gatherings said they were healed, the ministry couldn't prove they suffered from any infirmities in the first place, or that they actually had been miraculously healed.

So, Hinn says, his ministry created a department to handle verifications and follow up on the "miracles."

“It was chaotic. It was a mess,” he says. "The staff would call and people would be mad and say, 'Why are you questioning that I was lying up there?’”

“Then we would call the doctors. They wouldn’t talk to us most of the time … so it didn’t work." 

Wow! 

Jesus said "By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them." (Matthew 7)

The problem is that there IS a question. No one really knows for sure; is he real or a fraud?

But not even the Pharisees could ignore the obvious proof of the miracles of Jesus. There was no question regarding the validity of his healings. In fact, God used the proof of such supernatural events to break into the hearts and minds of humanity, cracking open the question of sin and salvation, and making way for the New Covenant. The gospel itself rode in on the very back of God's miraculous interventions. There's no question.

Could you imagine if this were included in Matthew:

The disciples couldn't prove any of the people who were "healed" suffered from any infirmities in the first place, or that they actually had been miraculously healed.

So, Jesus says, the disciples created a department to handle verifications and follow up on the "miracles."

What would that do to your faith?

Where is the fruit?

Forgiveness not the End; then saved through His Life

God showed me something really neat in Romans 5 yesterday morning.

⁹Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! ¹⁰For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!

There are two things happening here, reconciliation and salvation. They are indeed different and unique experiences from one another. In the past I've always seen them as one. But now, mostly because of this life I live in the Body of Christ, I see them as distinct.

First there is the reconciliation, a returning to the God, brought on by the shed blood of Christ. Without the sacrifice of Christ I would not be justified before Him. I would still be alienated and apart from Him. But with one great and sweeping move of God's love, a door is opened for me to move to Him. But this is not salvation. It is merely reconciliation. I am not saved until I completely enter into His life. That's why it says I will be "saved through his life." Blood produces the reconciliation. But His Life brings about salvation.

It's clear here that being reconciled is not the end but only the means to the end. Christ came that we might have Life and have it abundantly! He did not come just so that I would have my sins forgiven. In fact, such a great sacrifice would be a shame if there was not more than simply a forgiveness of sins. You can wipe away my sins, and you can make me white as snow, but there still must be a replacement of that sad life I just escaped. That replacement is God's very aim. He wants us to have LIFE! He wants us to be saved through Him. "...how much more shall we be saved?"  

In my experience, sadly, many Christians have only known remission of sins, but not salvation to life. I was certainly one of them, that is until I heard the Gospel. The Gospel, I tell you, is the good news that there is Life right here on planet earth and that Life is not in going to church on Sundays, but going into the hearts of brothers and sisters who dwell in unity. I get to live everyday with close brothers and sisters who are all going after the same thing, that is, salvation through Christ's Life. It's an ongoing process in some respects. But it's a real one none-the-less. Christ has indeed inherited His people; He is risen and returned to the Earth, where His new Body is a Body of lovely and real relationships, where joy and honesty, peace and compassion, happiness and sorrow, and every other emotion known to man, is wrapped up in our daily affairs with one another. This wrapping is the Glory of God revealed in the Truth of Christ right here in our midst.

I, for the first time, am being saved through His Life, through this Life. Tomorrow I will be saved again. And so it will be the day after that. In fact, everyday I choose to live life for the love of those around me, giving all I can of it away, that's a day I will be saved through His Life once again. I thank God for the Blood of Christ, for that sacrifice of atonement and the forgiveness of my sins. But I shout from the mountaintops about something even greater... that now, having been reconciled, we can in fact be saved through His Life!