World Impact Ministries / Peter Youngren

But so much the more the news spread abroad concerning Him, and great crowds kept coming together to hear [Him] and to be healed by Him of their infirmities. But He Himself withdrew [in retirement] to the wilderness (desert) and prayed. LUKE 5:15, 16
Jesus attracted people. There is no other way to read/interpret scripture. Wherever Jesus went, whatever Jesus did, whomever Jesus spoke with; He attracted multitudes. It’s true that the miracles attracted people. Undoubtedly some came to stand off in the distance and see Him “perform” supernatural acts which their natural eyes could not believe. Yet the Bible is clear to make another notation regarding why people came. They came to “hear Him”. Why? No one had ever, throughout the entire history of the world, spoken like Jesus spoke. The Bible says that “grace” and “truth” came through (in) Jesus. His every Word, look, act, subtlety, parable, deed, rebuke and exhortation exemplified grace and truth. Even the miracles were a demonstration of God’s grace manifested towards mankind. These three things attracted people to Jesus: grace, truth and the supernatural.

Lately I’ve been ‘hanging out’ in 1st and 2nd Corinthians; what a marvelous book! Almost every major doctrine is covered in there and Paul does it in an extremely clear and relevant way. Of course we all know 1 Corinthians 13 which is probably the finest piece of literature ever written on love! But the rest of the book has real gravitas (you can go look that word up later and use it in a conversation tomorrow with your boss’..haha) as well.

I have a confession. Early on, I realized that as a minister I was standing up and telling people to live one way (for example – pray every day) while I myself was struggling. I found that on any given week I certainly couldn’t say that I prayed more than one hour per day. And even if I did pray it was usually at a prayer meeting (ie. in front of people). We were all very forceful prayer warriors then. I can’t speak for what the others were like when they were alone, but I know that my private prayer life was not nearly as…how should we phrase it – vocal! In retrospect, years later I find myself wondering how much of our prayers back then were for God’s ears and how much was for each other’s.