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The Power Of Story
Jon BurgessJesus could have simply said, "Hey, everyone needs to know how important the Kingdom of God is. If you don't you aren't getting in" and then drop the mic and walk away. Instead, Jesus compassionately and intentionally took the time to tell stories to connect heavenly reality to our earthbound perspective. This Kingdom of God is like...
* A man who sowed good seed in his field
* leaven in bread
* treasure hidden in a field
* a merchant seeking beautiful pearls
* a net in the sea
* a householder who brings out of his treasure things new and old
7 times in one chapter Jesus relates things we couldn't understand to things we could. He revealed the extraordinary in the ordinary. The divine in the sublime. The story built a bridge between our daily activities with fields, fishing, making meals, doing business, dreaming of more wealth and God's daily activity in getting our attention. What's amazing is that all these stories feel like our stories but they are also His story! Jesus is painting a picture of God's heart for people and also revealing how He is going out of His way to find us!
People love stories, they use stories to make sense of the world. A great example of this is theSignificant Objects Project. The project took a bunch of junk from thrift stores, had writers create a fictional story about the object, and then posted the object, along with its new fictional story, to eBay. The result? They sold $128.74 worth of thrift-store junk for $3,612.51.Story is powerful. How many of us remember Jared from Subway a few years back? Most of us do because that was the major turning point in the Subway brand! We remember how he was overweight, which most of us can relate with, and only ate Subway sandwiches and lost weight. Connecting a sandwich shop to a story resulted in a business boom for Subway who is now the biggest fast-food chain in the world. Story matters. Your story matters even more. The Book of Revelation reveals how The Story of life itself ends. It ends with God's Story and your story ending the devil's story for all of history.
And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. Revelation 12:11
Lord, I thank You for being such a great storyteller. You capture my heart with Your creative ways You get Your eternal truths across to me. You are telling stories all the time. This didn't stop when You ascended to heaven. No, in fact, You are telling stories through everyone sitting around this table at Life Group this morning. You are telling stories through everyone who will one day read this journal. The question is whether or not we will let You tell Your story through our lives? Let us not be ashamed of sharing with others what You are doing. Yours is the Greatest Story Ever Told and you are still writing it and painting it and singing it and dancing it and coloring it and playing it through our lives if we will let You! Tell Yourstory through me today!
