Crossroads At the Day of Bapticost

by Jesse Steele

this guy’s mind. He’s just got a lot of questions.

  Jesus: I AM the answer. So questions aren’t bad.

  Alexander: I have a question.

  Jesus: Yes.

  Alexander: Good.

  Carl: Huh?

  Alexander: “Can we eat?” [matter-of-factly to Carl]

  Carl: Oh… Do you want fake Greek or fake Mexican?

  Alexander: We could make a run for the border.

  Carl: No, I don’t want to be a fake citizen.

  Jesus: Your citizenships are genuine. I assure you.

  Scene 7: Relationship Works

  Alexander: I’ve been wondering something.

  Jesus: Ask.

  Alexander: What do You do with people who say they love You, but live in constant sin and aren’t even sorry about it?

  Jesus: Not as much as I would like to.

  Alexander: Doesn’t it make You angry?

  Jesus: I have big plans for them.

  Alexander: What’s their problem?

  Jesus: More importantly, what’s their solution?

  Alexander: Lay hands on them for prayer?

  Jesus: Gifts are gifts. If they won’t accept my commands they won’t accept anything else from me.

  Alexander: So, what is the solution?

  Jesus: My Word.

  Alexander: I read Your commands in the Bible, but obeying them is difficult for everyone.

  Jesus: That’s because you are still in your body.

  Alexander: What’s my physical body got to do with it?

  Jesus: Your body is where sin exists. That’s why, after Adam ate fruit from the tree I told him not to eat from, I set things up on the earth so people would die. When your body dies, as a Christian, you keep living eternally, though you are free from the sin in your physical body.

  Alexander: So, You are saying death is good?

  Jesus: Death is a gift… given the circumstances.

  Alexander: Some gift! [sarcasm]

  Jesus: Gifts are gifts. You either accept them or you don’t.

  Alexander: I thought sin was a “spiritual” problem. Now You’re telling me it’s in my body.

  Jesus: Sin is a “religious” problem. But in terms of “body-spirit-soul” it is a religious problem that lives in your body. Sin does not have its root in your spirit or your soul.

  Alexander: How so?

  Jesus: The fruit was “physical.” Adam ate it with his body, not his spirit. It wouldn’t make sense if his body didn’t have the “sin” problem and his spirit did.

  Alexander: Put that way it sounds a little less crazy.

  Jesus: Your mind is being renewed to think like mine. Keep doing that and you will understand me more with each day.

  Alexander: How do I renew my mind?

  Jesus: Every question you have asked me here is clearly explained in my Word.

  Alexander: What about my first question?

  Jesus: What do I do with people who say they love me, but live in constant sin and aren’t even sorry about it?

  Alexander: Yes.

  Jesus: And I told you.

  Alexander: You do not do as much with them as You would like to.

  Jesus: Isn’t that obvious from reading my Word?

  Alexander: But Your Word seems so complicated, especially when some people talk about it. I prefer to just grow in Your Spirit.

  Jesus: My Word only seems complicated to you because your growth has been primarily in my Spirit. The Bible doesn’t seem complicated to people who know it well.

  Alexander: So, the better I know Your Word, the better I will understand You?

  Jesus: I AM the Word.

  Alexander: You said every question I asked is answered in Your Word. So, where in Your Word does it say that?

  Jesus: Do you know about Joshua?

  Alexander: Isn’t he the guy who parted the Red Sea?

  Jesus: No. I AM the one who parted the Red Sea and I used Moses to do it, but Joshua was there.

  Alexander: Did Joshua have a brother named Jericho?

  Jesus: No, Jericho was the name of the city he marched around with Israel.

  Alexander: Oh, that’s right… and the music was so terrible that the walls fell down! Joshua was obviously not the best music director.

  Jesus: There was a little more to it than that. But, the Philistines weren’t too pleased with all that racket. Where do you think the idea of a sound ordinance first came from?

  Alexander: I used to have these neighbors whose music was so loud I thought my own walls were going to fall down.

  Jesus: Why do you think I had them move away?

  Alexander: Because I’m not a Philistine?

  Jesus: Well, something like that.

  Alexander: Who are the Philistines, anyways?

  Jesus: They are the people who lived in Jericho.

  Alexander: This is really interesting.

  Jesus: It’s great spending time with the Word, isn’t it?

  Alexander: Did Joshua study the Word?

  Jesus: I told him to.

  Alexander: How did that work out for him?

  Jesus: Oh, he was a big success! He did what everyone else said was impossible.

  Alexander: Nothing’s impossible with You.

  Jesus: If you know my Word.

  Alexander: So what was the secret to Joshua’s success?

  Jesus: My Word.

  Alexander: He just “spoke the word” and stuff happened. Like at Jericho?

  Jesus: Not exactly. It was more about the fact that he knew my Word.

  Alexander: You mean he knew You?

  Jesus: Do you know what I told him?

  Alexander: To have the Israelites sing so the walls would shatter?

  Jesus: I told him to read my Word day and night. “Never let it out of your mouth,” I said. He recited it constantly.

  Alexander: That seems difficult.

  Jesus: Joshua didn’t think so.

  Alexander: Yeah, but he was with Moses. That’s got to give him a boost, You know.

  Jesus: You have a, “boost” that Joshua didn’t. You have the rest of my Word. Joshua only had the first five books.

  Alexander: What happened to the rest?

  Jesus: They hadn’t been written yet.

  Alexander: Who wrote them?

  Jesus: Joshua started to.

  Alexander: What did he write? About his success?

  Jesus: Eventually, but the first things he wrote were the instructions I gave him.

  Alexander: To sing really terribly?

  Jesus: You don’t need to instruct people to do that.

  Alexander: So, the people singing so terribly at church are obeying You without knowing it?

  Jesus: The more they sing together, the more the walls will fall down.

  Alexander: You don’t care whether it sounds terrible?

  Jesus: I never said to make it beautiful, just joyful. You should read about it.

  Alexander: Where do I start?

  Jesus: Start with the instructions I gave Joshua.

  Alexander: Which were?

  Jesus: Meditate on my Word constantly, then, after that, obedience will be natural. Then, when you obey everything I’ve written in it, you will have enormous prosperity. But there’s no need to get sad about prosperity, because my prosperity leads to success.

  Alexander: Why would prosperity make a person sad?

  Jesus: Joshua was a leader and an accomplisher. Prosperity all by itself depressed him.

  Alexander: Why?

  Jesus: Because he didn’t want “mere prosperity!” …to have happiness and abundance just for itself!? No, that wasn’t Joshua.

  Alexander: What did he want?

  Jesus: Success.

  Alexander: What is success?

  Jesus: Ask me a question.

  Alexander: What kind of question?

  Jesus: See, you succeeded. That is “success.”

  Alexander: Huh?

  Jesus: Success merely means “having a goal and re
aching it.”

  Alexander: I thought “success” meant having a better car than my neighbors.

  Jesus: You mean having a bigger car payment than your neighbors.

  Alexander: I need my car.

  Jesus: And I provide your need.

  Alexander: So, I shouldn’t make car payments?

  Jesus: You can make car payments as long as I provide you with the money, but don’t make the payments bigger just because your neighbor’s car payments are bigger.

  Alexander: What if I want better stuff though?

  Jesus: Why would you want better things?

  Alexander: I don’t know, stuff is nice. Is that wrong?

  Jesus: “Wrong” isn’t the issue. Is it gratifying? Joshua didn’t want prosperity without success.

  Alexander: That gets me to thinking. A lot of people just pursue prosperity as an ends in itself.

  Jesus: And they live very unhappy lives.

  Alexander: But some of them don’t have any debt.

  Jesus: Having your debt paid is part of what I came to do, but I didn’t stop there. I want you to have Life, I want you to have it abundantly, I want you to have success.

  Alexander: How does that work?

  Jesus: Many people let me pay their debt. Then we never get to do much together after that.

  Alexander: That answers my first question!

  Jesus: Spending time with the Word answers a lot of questions.

  Alexander: When people accept Your forgiveness, but live in constant sin, without even feeling bad about it, that’s wrong!

  Jesus: Wrong for who?

  Alexander: Wrong against You!

  Jesus: True. But they hurt themselves most of all, even in this lifetime.

  Alexander: Why would they live in sin if it mostly hurts themselves?

  Jesus: They don’t want Life, only forgiveness.

  Alexander: But forgiveness is important.

  Jesus: And I want you to forgive each other.

  Alexander: It’s hard enough to forgive and be forgiven. You want us to go beyond that?

  Jesus: If you stop at my forgiveness it’s hard to forgive others. Just like stopping at prosperity. Once the debt is paid, if you don’t find success after that, you tend to rack up more and more debt all over again. Then getting out of debt seems difficult.

  Alexander: By “debt” do You mean “sin” or “owing money to the bank?”

  Jesus: All of the above.

  Alexander: So, people who live in constant sin and aren’t sorry about