Last time we brought up a burning question about maintaining and growing in the presence of God in our lives. The answer to the big “Question”… really to all questions regarding spiritual growth is given to us by Jesus in these two words:
“Follow Me.” (Mk 1:17, 2:14)
Today we have a throng of unbelievers who think the whole Christian experience can be summed us in words like: “follow My religion” or “follow My rules” – Worse, even some believers go through their lives thinking that that is the essence of spiritual living.
But as we’ve seen, Jesus said, “Follow Me.” It’s all about Jesus – not Christianity, not Christians, but Christ.
I was at a seminar on evangelism, after I’d written the last few weeks of meditations, and the speaker brought up a parallel thought: The excuses many non-Christians bring up for not accepting the Gospel revolves around the Christians and churches they’ve known.
“Christians are just a bunch of hypocrites”
“All the churches want is money”
“I’ve known some drug dealers who behaved better than some ministers”
Was Jesus a hypocrite? Was Jesus all about money? Did Jesus live His life in anything less than righteousness?
The speaker went on to point out that the only reason to reject Jesus – is if you’ve got a problem with JESUS! So as we share life’s most important relationship with a spiritually dying person, stick to Jesus! Don’t get sidetracked into religion or lifestyles – keep bringing it back to Jesus. It’s all about Jesus.
That is not only good advice for evangelism, it’s good counsel for Christians. Stick to Jesus. The world is full of Christians who have their eyes on Christian leaders and churchmates who have disappointed them, fallen into all kinds of sin, or worse. When that happens, these poor saints’ worlds fall apart, because they were looking unto something or someone other than Jesus…they were looking to someone else to be the author and finisher of their faith.
As the song goes…
Who will we praise when we’ve praised all our lives, men who build kingdoms and men who builds things?
What will we fear when all that remains is God on the throne with a child in his arms and love in his eyes. And the sound of His heart beat. (Jason Upton)
People who venerate people are on very dangerous ground….