“You examine the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is those very Scriptures that testify about Me; and yet you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.”
John 5:39-40 NASB
“For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.”
Romans1:21NASB
I gave my life to Jesus Christ over 27 years ago. I thought I knew everything I needed to learn about Jesus years ago. Unfortunately, about two years ago I felt burnt out as a pastor and felt my faith waning. I still believed in Jesus but my passion and fire for Him had waned. I then set on a journey to get to know Jesus more intimately and not for the purpose of new material for sermons or writing, but for the sake of my own soul.
There is a spirit of familiarity with Jesus that plagues the body of Christ. We have taken the idea of dominion authority and used it to further our own agendas and have neglected our reverence and love for Jesus. We have been captured by the things of this world and have not grown in our knowledge or teachings of the gospel and Jesus Christ. We are satisfied with a simple gospel track to hand out to others but not to live in reverence and in awe of our Savior.
As a result we have witnessed men and women who claimed to know Jesus, walk away from the church and the faith. They feel that the requirements of Christianity are too constricting and have sought to find their own spiritual awakenings. The truth is they do not fear Jesus. We don’t fear Jesus. We know He exists but we neither honor Him nor give thanks to Him. Instead we complain and go after our “enemies”. Lying to them and ourselves that Jesus functions as our Lord when in reality we have elevated ourselves above Him.
Many would say that they believe in Jesus and they acknowledge Him as the One and Only God. However, it is our actions, our speech and our fruit that bears witness to how we view Jesus in our lives. Jesus stated that if we love Him we would obey His commandments. We don’t.
We search the scriptures to justify our own beliefs and to prove that we are right and others are wrong. We glorify ourselves and demonize those that disagree with us. We no longer testify about Jesus but about ourselves and the world we want created.
We no longer judge ourselves by Jesus’ demonstration or life. We justify our actions and sins by quoting a prayer we said years ago. We do not exemplify the life of Jesus. We act as if Jesus simply lived, died and rose again so we could live how we saw fit to live in this life.
I realize in my journey in cultivating my relationship with Jesus, that we really have stopped teaching about Jesus. He is no longer the center of our teaching and many just don’t know who He really is. I have discovered so much about Jesus that we no longer discuss or demonstrate. We have spent so much time making ourselves powerful. We have designed our own truth.
As a church we need to refocus on Jesus. We need to return to the fullness of Jesus and begin to grow and mature in the knowledge of Him. We need to let go of self and make Jesus the center of our faith once again. We must stop chasing men and women to be our saviors. Ministries need to be built around Jesus Christ and not charismatic people. Jesus is our rock, the Head of the church. Let us go on a journey together to discover Jesus and testify about Him to a lost and dying world. Let us learn to Abide in Christ.
Reflections 