Full to Overflowing

Over and over, I keep thinking… there really is no other choice but to be fully devoted to Christ; completely surrendered to His will. It’s the only thing that will make sense on judgement day. It's the only thing that truly works here. (Notice I didn't say it makes sense here... ;)

There’s… so much more to this whole life thing than merely being a “good Christian” who goes to church, doesn’t do anything too awful, has a nice house and two cars, gives money to the church sometimes… the world is sick (and dying as a result of) of such shallow Christianity-- as I saw it written recently, “materialism with a few Bible verses tacked on”.

I recently had the privilege to be able to talk to a few people about Church… and God. One girl said she wasn’t into the religion stuff--she had Catholicism forced down her throat when she was little. I tried to point her to The Real Thing: to God Himself. “Religion”, at least the way she meant it, is man made. (Trust humans to make God and His Story boring!!) I shared my excitement over realizing that the God who made all of these marvelous things loved me and died for me… This is exciting, folks!! People should see it in our faces, hear it in our voices.

Oh, that God would fill us to such an extent that we could not contain our joy in Him! Would that His hope and love spilled out of us! That people could see His joy, His peace, His love in us! That they would look on us... and see a little Him.

I talked to another lady who had neighbors who attended church every Sunday: and were mean every other day of the week. She said they thought they could do whatever they wanted and then be forgiven at church.

She followed that up with “that’s not my kind of God.” Of course I cringed inwardly–it isn’t up to us what kind of God there is. But on the other hand: those people were representing God. Granted, they were doing a terrible job. But, regardless, they were representing. They had branded themselves as--at the very least--“Religious”… and so people looked at them and took their actions to represent their god.

People do the same with us. They know, especially when you make distinctly unworldly lifestyle choices, that you are (or at least claim to be) Christians. Followers of Christ. What they see in me… is what they will think of Christ. Yikes. * is very glad His power is working in me *

Oh, people! This is SO important. Souls are eternal--they are more valuable than anything else in this world. And we might be missing God-given opportunities to share the good news with them.

We do not know God. Not really. If we knew Him… how could we go on calmly playing and working for vain things– not making any effort at all to influence lives for Christ? How could we go on skimming glibly through His Word, as though it had no significant meaning? How could we go on praying fake, passionless, small prayers? How could we go on caring about which color flip-flops we have or don’t have? How could we go on allowing sin in our lives?

We don’t have time for this! Eternity is too long for this! We must seek Him. We must get to know Him. And how? By reading His word, by praying, by observing His creation… And then we must share this glorious relationship, this most wonderful of news… WE can know GOD!!