In the past, you may have heard the good news of Jesus in word only and so you rejected all that was said.  You may have been bored with it all.  Tell me something that really matters!  Then you heard the same good news of Jesus and by sheer grace he encountered you in the message.  Jesus himself was meeting you personally in the presence and power of the Spirit.  In this living encounter faith was born.  Faith comes by hearing the message of Jesus as Jesus himself comes to us as the reality of God in the message.  It is event!  It is the happening of encounter!

In this living encounter we find that we now believe. Why do we believe?  The only answer I personally can give is that I believe because I have been grasped by a reality outside myself. For some reason or other, the living Christ has stepped into my world encountering me personally in all the astonishing power of his own love .  And in that living encounter I said “Yes!” to the reality of God in him.

In faith, we respond to the God who has already grasped us, and we discover that the reality of God is the meaning of our lives… So in faith, we find God – and at the same time, we find ourselves.
Ben Myers