doin' the stuff

John Wimber on doing the stuff!

When I first came to Christ, I came to Christ visa vie  a Bible-study in which Jesus Christ was presented to me not only as a historical personage and as the living Christ today but as the person through whom and by whom I was to receive life and operate from that day forward. I came to Christ mountain style - no holds barred - everything given to him at one time. I knew that if I came to Christ it was the end of me and the beginning of Him. That's the way it was presented.

I was to come to Jesus and to walk with Him. Over the weeks and months that I studied the New Testament I studied it with the understanding that coming to Jesus meant giving away all that I ever was, all that I ever hoped to be, and coming to Jesus in totality and following Him the rest of my life.

As I read the New Testament, I fell in love with Jesus. Didn't you? I liked Him. I liked what He was like. I liked the things He did. I liked the things He said. Didn't you like those things? I thought that stuff was hot. I liked it when He multiplied the bread. Did you like that one? And the fishes? You know the sardines ... I always picture sardines ... I liked that stuff!

I liked all that stuff. I liked it when He walked by the fig tree and said, "meh" ... and it died. Can you picture Him doing that? I liked all that stuff. I like "come forth!" ... that's a biggie. I mean that's hot! There are not many guys doing that "come forth!" thing telling anybody to come up from the dead. I like all that stuff.

And when I became a Christian I thought that's what I was going to do. I spent several weeks reading the New Testament and talking with these people and I thought is great. You know - I'm going to join-up. I want to do this stuff.

And so I remember the frustration of attending Church the first few times. Do you know what I thought they did at Church? Now this is how stupid I was. I thought that people gathered at the Church, had a good time together, sort of divvied up the land, and then everybody went out and healed a few and cast out a few demons and won a few people to Christ before lunch.

And so the first few times I went to Church I went prepared with the idea that I'm going to go take Anaheim, the deepest, darkest pagan Anaheim. Over there by DisneyLand - that's where I want to go. Because that's where I was raised.

And when they didn't do it I was disappointed. And I remember one day asking a guy about it. I said, "When do we go out and do it?" He said, "What?" I said, "When do we go out and do it?" He said, "Oh you don't have to do it, you just have to believe it was done once." Now that's pathetic. Isn't it?

I found out over the next year or two that we cried about it, we sang about it, we preached about it, we prayed over it, we gave to it, but we never did it.

We never got to go do the things that Jesus did. And I grew disillusioned in the process. Now you know, when I worked for the devil he let me do his stuff. Did he let you do his stuff? He let me do his stuff. But when I came to work for Jesus, they didn't want to let me do His stuff. And to tell you the truth, I joined up to do the stuff [pointing to the Bible]. Did you?

You see it's doing the stuff that's going to change the world. It's not knowing it was done once. It's not knowing that it's important. It's doing it that's going to change the world. Somewhere some place somebody has got to start believing this book and acting on it.