One Cheering Gleam
Mark 12:28-30 One of the teachers of the law came to Jesus … he asked him, "Which of the commands is the most important?" Jesus answered, "The most important command is this: 'People of Israel, listen! The Lord our God is the only Lord. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.'”
Let me be blunt. Large swathes of the church are just going through the motions, playing out rituals, singing songs, listening to sermons … all good things, and yet there’s no passion, no enthusiasm, no fire in their hearts. Am I wrong?
Here’s Jesus on this very thing:
One of the teachers of the law came to Jesus … he asked him, “Which of the commands is the most important?” Jesus answered, “The most important command is this: ‘People of Israel, listen! The Lord our God is the only Lord. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’” (Mark 12:28-30)
In a nutshell, I think He’s saying: Love God passionately with all that you are. And it’s that absence of passion that leads people into a dead religion, rather than being alive, being free, being filled with joy, in a dynamic relationship with Jesus.
The very first book I read, after the Bible, when I gave my life to Christ, was “The Pursuit of God” by A.W. Tozer. This is what He writes:
In this hour of all but universal darkness one cheering gleam appears. There are to be found increasing numbers of people whose lives are marked by a growing hunger after God Himself.
They won’t be put off with words or shallow logic. They won’t be content to busy themselves with nervous activity and yet to feel this inner emptiness. They are athirst for God. And they won’t be satisfied until they have drunk deeply from this fountain of living water.
They desire God above all other things. They want to taste, to touch with their hearts, to see with their inner eyes the wonder that is God. I want to deliberately encourage this mighty longing after God.
Jesus waits to be wanted. It’s too bad that with so many of us he waits so long, so very long in vain.
Those words touched me deep inside. Through them, God changed the course of my life. Because ever since then, I have had that hunger, that thirst that can only be satisfied by God Himself. Not by His blessings, but by Him. By a deep, intimate, dynamic relationship with Jesus.
And my prayer for you is that those words will fill you with that very same passion for Christ.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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Carol Bayley
I’m working on it, Berni!!
I’m working on it, Berni!!