Jesus Missing??

Is it the next slick pitch or evangelism method that will lead people to Christ? Is it our beautiful example of what a Christian is like that will cause them to fall down and confess Christ? Will it be our polished service and sermon with ninety-two different programs for every genre of people? Perhaps if we pass out enough flyers the odds will work in our favor. These things are OK, just OK, but that is where it stops for me. I am not satisfied with passing out flyers.

When I go home and lay my head on the pillow, I don’t have a satisfied, well done good and faithful going on in my head and heart. The song that is playing in my heart is, “is that it?” “is that all there is?” There has to be more to it than this. The bible says the gospel is the power of salvation to all who believe and that is pretty simple. Or is it? I think it goes way deeper than that to the seat of power. We know the Holy Spirit is the Power, and He dwells down deep in a place in us that few of us explore. I think that down there is where the answer lies. Alas, too many of us, and I am often one, don’t live deeply enough. We don’t search out the deep things of God. We don’t look for God on the inside of us because we are too busy looking on the outside. We look at the next church service, the next song, the next Christian mega-event with the famous guy and the funky haircut. So let’s give it a name and call it our motive. What if the power of God works through us as we align ourselves internally with Him? If we are in harmony with God, and the motives of our motive are the same as His. What would be stopping His power working through us in a new and dynamic way?


I was going door to door the other day, and as I knocked and as I spoke, I prayed. I wasn’t only praying for the people on the other side of the door, but I was praying for my stinking motives. As I dug down deep and let God search my heart I realized that my motives didn’t smell to good. Sure, I was doing the work and not many people do, but I was doing it to do it. I didn’t have a burning passion to see these people saved, and If I really looked even farther down in my soul I could see that I was going through the motions of the great commission without it being a part of my being. Jesus said to do it, so I am doing it, plain and simple. I want more than that, and if Jesus lives in me, I believe that I can get to a point and ever beyond where the whole soul and fiber of my being is broken for Him and the lost, the same place where God is, and He is not willing that any should perish ^{2 Peter 3:9}I think this is what Holy is and does.

I am on a quest for that kind of holiness. I will not settle for busy, I want the hidden worshipping life that drives us to unreservedly work for Him, and fills our everyday going about our business work with His presence, power and purpose. To get anywhere near this will take some deep and courageous spiritual surgery. The journey will be tough, narrow and more difficult Matthew 7:13 than any other choice we could make it. It will cost us everything we are and have. But, if God Is, and He Is, we must see the urgency of this most critical need to make every adjustment to our lives that is necessary to experience the true meaning of holiness, and see His power truly manifest in our lives. It is worth it, it is only our reasonable service Romans 12:1. Whatever adjustments are necessary Lord, this is my desire. If we look for God on the inside of us we just may see Him do some mighty things on the outside of us.