I listened to an awesome teaching this morning by Andy Stanley of Buckhead Church ATL and Louie Gigilo of Passion City Church ATL.
They said, "We have been all over the world with our ministries...hear and can say, 'God bless you' and people on the street, outside of/within our Passion Conferences...nod and/or say 'Oh yeah God.. Cool...God bless you too'...without a pause...but say, 'Jesus Christ loves you or Jesus Christ bless you'...and you GET the pause...or non-response, or worse the walkaways...unless they DO KNOW and LOVE Jesus Christ.
And we wondered WHY?
WHY such diverse reactions to the SAME greeting/blessing?
And we prayed over it and then it HIT US........
The reason for the VERY different responses is because "God bless you" is SAFE/GENERIC, because there ARE all kinds of "gods" out there in this big, wide world.
When you say 'God bless you'...they can attribute it to any number of "gods", but when you SAY..."Jesus Christ bless you...Jesus Christ loves you brother/sister"you are ZEROING in on the ONE TRUE TRIUNE GOD OF THE UNIVERSE. THE NAME ABOVE ALL NAMES. THE ONLY GOD of Abraham, Isaac, & Jacob. THE CHRIST. THE ONLY BEGOTTEN SON of ALMIGHTY GOD.
So, Andy & Louie have begun repeating this revelation in the Passion Conferences all over the world with the Young People/Young Adults that crowd their events.
They have asked them to start saying, "Jesus Christ loves you...Jesus Christ bless you"...so the EVERYDAY person on the street KNOWS whose child you are; KNOWS whom you trust; KNOWS whom you believe in; KNOWS without a DOUBT whom YOUR GOD IS.
The one, the only, the mighty, the matchless Lord & Savior JESUS CHRIST.
Jesus Christ loves you and blesses you!
Your sister in Christ Jesus, I remain,
Faith