Renewed passion

After a renewed passion of my relationship with Jesus, I felt an urge to start writing about this. Not just because I want to write about the things my heart is full of, but mostly because I feel that many people, especially young people, become discouraged within current Christian thinking and (not) doing. In many cases, the church is arrogant, self-righteous, intellectual, irrelevant and without impact.

I myself have experienced a discrepancy (contradiction) between my own life and the life I read about in the Bible and what Jesus calls to. In the period after my conversion, I was enthusiastic, passionate, took the Word literally and tried to live a radical life. Over the years, however, I became discouraged. In church, I learned not to take everything so literally, to carry out the things Jesus called for "in my heart," and to live a life of minimal sin and maximum security. Eventually I became disappointed in myself, the church and frankly ... in God.

As an independent counselor, I work for various clients. A few months ago, however, all work stopped and quite suddenly I found myself at home for several months. All the certainties you know were suddenly not so certain: Can we continue to live in our house? What if I lose everything? What exactly do I believe about God taking care of me? Leading me? Everything I had come to embrace as "truths" over the past few years, but never really had to fall back on myself, now came screaming for attention one after the other. For example: Is it possible that I believe that God takes care of me, while in Africa people are dying by the bushes? But also: Do I really believe in hell? And: Is it still possible to live a life that has impact, to be meaningful and to be like Jesus?

I know there are people who say, "My life was a big mess. I was drinking, partying and sleeping with everybody ... and then Jesus came and my life turned out all right. Blessed people those are. But me, I just had it all together. I was cool. And then I met Jesus and He disrupted my life. He turned everything I believed in, everything I cared about and hoped for, upside down. I'm still recovering from my conversion. (Shane Claiborne)

A western theology

During this period, I was strongly reminded that I embraced a specific (Western) theology. That, if I am very honest, I only accepted half of the Bible. The easy half. The half of God's salvation, a kind of one-time conversion after which you are in, belong. Possibly you may do something, change, but don't shortchange God's grace! And although God's grace and salvation is free and so you receive for nothing, I now realize that that is only the beginning. The part that faith without works is dead, that you are called to be a follower of Jesus, that Jesus says you have to lose that your life to find it, (...). Not for your salvation, but precisely because you are saved. From a love, a naturalness, following the Leader.¹ I have already been accused of belonging to the "from Mary to Martha movement. But this is what has made me experience an urgency: God's Kingdom is here and now! Everything we do (or do not do) now has eternal value (after all, God's Kingdom is eternal and will soon be fully known and known). And after I started reading the Bible with new eyes, the filters I had turned off, I suddenly see a gospel that is relevant, contemporary, progressive, social, loving, powerful but above all completely "upside down" from a worldly perspective. It costs you everything, but there is more to life than ever expected (and what riches to receive!)².

Believing in the supernatural is not just believing that after a successful, socially reasonably successful and reasonably virtuous life you will exist in the best possible substitute for this world, or that after a starved and failed life you will be compensated for all the good you have had to lack. It is believing that the supernatural is the highest reality, here and now. (T.S. Eliot)

How to proceed

From this new vision, I developed the passion with a number of friends and kindred spirits to work this out practically and get to work. We have gained a new heart and love for the church. Not as a building or collection of activities but the church as a collection of followers of Jesus. When we³, His church³, begin to follow Him³, the church can be inspiring³, passionate³, looking with compassion to the less fortunate³, giving meaning to a fallen world. In short: Getting to our purpose. What not all can happen then! Beyond this personal application³, we experience a shortage of good leaders and inspiring examples. Through this website, we want to express our experiences, thoughts and feelings, to use them to inspire a life that is meaningful, impactful, meaningful and giving, a life similar to that of Jesus. Yes, a life that gives life and leads to life.

(...) I had no idea where to begin. There were plenty of people who talked about the gospel and wrote books about it, but as far as I could tell, living out the gospel had not been attempted by anyone recently. (Shane Claiborne)

For I Have Seen is a collection of ordinary people who through trial and error try to follow Jesus and in doing so dare to raise their heads above the ground. Not for their own glory, but to tell the good news that Jesus lives and reigns. In the here and now.

The name "For I Have Seen" has something prophetic about it. That is our desire: A prophetic sound in these times. That is, we want God's Word to be heard in these times, about our destiny and about our future.

For I Have Seen

Jacob says in Gen. 32:30 "For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. We may meet God and still remain alive.

John 1:14 says, "Yes, the Word became flesh! He has come to pitch His tent among us, and we have seen His glory, the glory that He derived from the Father as the only begotten Son, filled as He was with grace and truth. God who has come to dwell among us, making His Glory visible.

Jesus says to us "I assure you, whatever you have done for one of these least brothers of Mine, you have done for Me" (Matt. 25:40). In this way, we can also encounter God in those around us. Let us then meet Him by working out this way of life so that we can say "For I Have Seen"!⁴

God lets it be known in Ex. 3:7, for example, that He sees us even in our suffering: 'For I Have Seen.... (...)' and that He wants to be there for us.... In Job 31:4 it says, 'He knows my ways and is confident with all my steps.' So For I Have Seen is about the two sides: We get to see God and God sees us. 

Lyrics

Part of a lyric I wrote about this (which will hopefully become a song someday): Oh how You changed everything / Starting with my heart / My mind remembering You / Your spirit grows inside of me Now I feel so alive / So alive, for I know / I Know, for I have seen / Now I see what there's always been / And for what I do not see, yeah I believe

In the fervent desire to be a testimony to this with my life.

Footnotes

1. Follow the leader is a game children play. One child is the 'leader', the other children follow the leader by imitating him exactly. The crazier the leader does, the more fun it is. This is where Francis Chan makes a great comparison regarding (not) following Jesus.
2. As co-heirs of everything that belongs to our Father (Rom. 8:17), frankly, it doesn't really matter anymore what you have or don't have (Rom. 8:32).
3. And there are a lot of them! Especially when you consider that we are among the richest countries in the world! 80% of the entire world's population looks at us as the "rich. Even if we ourselves perceive otherwise. Also... what did Jesus say about the rich?
4. As I read somewhere: Two men talk to each other about poverty in the world, whereupon one says, 'I find it so hard to digest that there is so much poverty in the world, I am angry with God.' The other: 'Then tell Him, maybe He can do something about it. The first man again: "Yes, I have thought about that, but I am afraid that God will say the same to me.