3/27/2010

John Curiale

I was talking to Scott, a teenager on Spring Break and I brought up the Gospel by asking him "What is your Spiritual beliefs?"  He said he believed in a "higher power"--A God that created the world.  I asked him, "What does God want from you?"  He said, "Well I think He wants me to send a message to people through music."  He is really talented in music and he told me he will be going to the Northeast to go to school for music.  I just listened to him talk about his home life and how he once hit rock bottom and was searching for answers. 

He had a lot of questions about God, the Bible, science, evolution, dreams, "judgementalism", etc....   I shared with him the difference between religion & relationship.  He was wondering if he could change and he said I have been recently.  Religion is form without power.  It is external change (no internal change and motivation to).  I told him that religion is when there are rules given to you and there is no power in you to change.  But Christianity is about relationship with our Creator.  I went through the GOSPEL acronym from D2S (using my personal illustrations and stories to "fill in the gaps").  I said that when you put your faith and trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins--God then gives you a whole new nature--an internal compass (Holy Spirit)---new motivation to live for God and power to do what He says.  Once you had no desire to live for God and now all of a sudden you do.  It made sense to him and doesn't know why people complicate something so simple. 

We also talked about how Jesus made such a huge claim--leveling in one statement all the other religions---when He said, I am the way the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through Him (Jesus)--John 14:6.  I said that either Jesus is a liar or what He said is really true.  And if He is right---how will we have to respond?  It demands a response......

He would love to learn more about this.  It  is amazing how open teenagers are today to spiritual things!