Deuteronomy 6:5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. NKJV
Let’s Face The Music and Dance!
These past few years of my sojourn here, I have walked the road with not a few ‘long-time Christians,’ who have lately proclaimed that, “I don’t know if I have ever truly believed?” or, “I don’t know anymore about the reality and truth of Christianity,” and often, “You know Robert, I have lost God and so much so, I wonder if I ever had Him.” It’s quite a concern don’t you think? Whenever this is said out loud, it is usually by people who have an overwhelming tiredness about them. Whenever this is said out loud, it is usually by folks who have an overwhelming sense of a disappointment in God and especially a disappointment in His people, the church. More frighteningly though, is the fact that this is felt by so many people, who have neither previously had the desperation nor the courage, to vocalize out loud their most definite and inward experience! Let’s face it, these proclamations dear friends, are increasingly common.
Let me tell you right now, that whenever I hear that ‘long-time Christians’ have ‘stopped believing in God,’ I do not believe it! In fact their extreme tiredness and disappointment in God, is usually indicative of their continued belief, rather than a contradiction of it, for you do not get disappointed and distraught, you do not get desperate and disillusioned about someone you had no real investment or value in, or experience of! What’s happening here then? Why are so many long-standing Christians now seemingly disowning God altogether?
I believe the first reason for disowning God, is that there has often been a low value put on personal experience. There has been a low value put on the emotional content of their faith. I tell you now though, that how you feel about God and how you experience your walk with Him, is so very important! Your experiential relationship with God is absolutely vital to your continued spiritual health! If the Words of the Bible are not received as Spirit words into your experiential soul, then your following unfulfilled and ravening hunger for the experience of God will eat you up! Your unquenched and rapacious thirst for an experiential encounter with God, will leave you as parched and dry as an empty old seed husk, left broken and cavernously open beneath the greenest of trees. To stop this happening, you MUST cultivate an experiential walk with God! The Bible itself will not suffice, for it is only the Bible declared and Bible promised accompanying the manifest presence of God, that is sufficient for life, that is sufficient for love and that is sufficient for the pursuit of happiness.
The second reason for the disowning of God, has been a failure to maintain our own vineyard. Most of these folks that have uttered these words to me, have been former faithful servants of the most High God, however, they have been sucked dry in the service of God, bashed about, chewed up and spat out like green snot sputum on the grey and gravely ground. No, it’s not nice, no, it’s not nice at all. It is so easy to become dehydrated in the service of God. It is so easy to compare and to compete with one another in such a fashion, that we just cannot keep up the race, we cannot keep up the pace. These folks are simply and most profoundly burnt out.
The third reason for the disowning of God, is that the product we are selling will not do the job we are telling! Yes, we ministers of Christ are sales people. We invite people to come and buy, to taste and see, to turn and learn, to open and invite, to have God make things better for them, better for their health, better for their finances, better for their family, better for their future! However, when the product does not perform in this ‘better way’ in the way in which we have said it would, then the buyers reject it and we the sellers, eventually, get very disappointed in the veracity of the product itself.
The fourth reason for people disowning God, is quite simply sin. I have observed that unrequited love, desperate thirst and harbouring hunger, if not fulfilled righteously, will be fulfilled unrighteously. When people get desperately disappointed dear friends in close relationships that promised so much but gave so little, they feel betrayed, they feel robbed, they feel they have lost out in their righteous restraint, and often their response to these strong feelings, is to break all previous boundaries in trying to have that hunger filled, to have that thirst quenched, to have that sense of so severe a loss, somehow now satisfied. Of course, these my lovely brethren, have simply taken poison to themselves and often locked the door behind them as they left the building of God to die quietly alone. Now, they are more hungrier than they ever imagined, but now they have nowhere to go.
Tonight then, I leave you with five antidotes to a possible future disowning of God. Oh, and don’t be arrogant in thinking these things might not happen to you, for I have seen it happen to better men than either me or thee!
FIRST then, be sure to experience God! You must FEEL your relationship with your Father. The pump of desire must be primed and the circle of satisfaction must be complete. Make sure your emotional life is satisfied in God, is satisfied WITH God. If it isn’t, then there may be trouble ahead!SECONDLY, take care of yourself, for NO ONE ELSE WILL! You had better get that brother, NO ONE ELSE WILL! Take time to rest, take time to recharge, take time to rejuvenate, take time to court Jesus in the courts of The Most High God. Make the most of the moonlight and the music, of the love and the romance. Take time to dance! You need to do this friend, before the fiddlers flee thee.
THIRDLY, if the product you are selling is not working, then maybe you’ve not read the instructions correctly or, you’ve got the wrong product! Is your Gospel working? Check it out and if it is not working, then chuck it out for you’ve undoubtedly not got the real deal. GET THE REAL DEAL! You need to do this before the bill needs paying.
FOURTHLY, you need to rejoice in the wife of your youth and let her breasts satisfy you at all times. Can the Scripture be any more clearer than this? Make sure you have a passionate relationship with God and that your satisfaction is found fully in Him. This has to happen! If it doesn’t, then there maybe teardrops to shed.
FIFTHLY, recognize that you have the key to your heart and therefore the key to unlock the door of this your heart and to return to God your maker, return to Christ your lover. Dear friend, you have the possibility to re-open the door of your heart to desire! Tell me, if you are desirous of the reality and the fullness of the Father at no matter what the cost, indeed at any cost, do you think that He would be interested in such a proposition?
I tell you, God is always interested in the propositions of your heart! Always!
Listen:- "Remember these, O Jacob, And Israel, for you are My servant; I have formed you, you are My servant; O Israel, you will not be forgotten by Me! I have blotted out, like a thick cloud, your transgressions, And like a cloud, your sins. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you." Sing, O heavens, for the Lord has done it! Shout, you lower parts of the earth; Break forth into singing, you mountains, O forest, and every tree in it! For the Lord has redeemed Jacob, And glorified Himself in Israel. Isaiah 44:21-23 NKJV
Pray:- Jesus, when You have fallen in my heart and Your flavour and the scent of Your presence and power have become to me but a rumour on the wind, have mercy upon me and please come knocking upon my doors once more. Jesus, lover of my soul, come and throw stones at my window, get me up from my death bed and ask me to marry You once more. Amen and Amen and Amen.
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