ARTICLE: DO YOU HAVE A SURROGATE RELATIONSHIP 
WITH JESUS CHRIST?

Acts 19:11-20 (ESV)

The Sons of Sceva
11 And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, 12 so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them. 13 Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.” 14 Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. 15 But the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?” 16 And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all[a] of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. 17 And this became known to all the residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks. And fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled. 18 Also many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices. 19 And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the value of them and found it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver. 20 So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.

I pose a question to you and I: Do we have a surrogate relationship with Jesus Christ? In other words, do we have a relationship with Jesus through someone else's relationship with Jesus Christ? The aforementioned passage of scripture has always intrigued and challenged me in my need to establish a more authentic relationship with Jesus Christ. The account of the Seven Sons of Sceva (Acts 19:11-20) symbolizes the lack of a relationship with Christ and an attempt to attach oneself to the coattail of someone else's relationship with Christ. We can not have a surrogate relationship with Jesus Christ-- we need to establish our own relationship with Him. We can not expect that when we stand before the Throne of Father, to give an account for our lives while on earth, we will be able to accredit anything we have done based on our knowing of someone else's intimate, productive and effective relationship with His son. We will give an account of whether or not we made Jesus Christ our personal Lord and Savior and if we have established an intimate relationship with Him. The issue of making excuses and trying to justify for why we failed to establish a relationship, and not religion, will not be acceptable to Father, nor is it acceptable now in our lives today. We can not expect to have the "authority" in Christ, as a Christian if we, in fact, have not made Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. There is no such thing as a surrogate Christian. So I want t encourage you, my beloved brothers and sisters in Christ, to establish an intimate "relationship" with Jesus and not some obligatory "religion" or a series of religious gestures that makes a person seem to present him or herself as a good person who believes in Jesus. Let us remember the story of the Seven sons of Sceva and their attempts to look "religious" perhaps because their father was a Jewish priest (Sceva)-- we know what happened to these seven young men don't we? Be encouraged, inspired, challenged and blessed tonight everyone. Love you all -

10-25-15 J.