God’s always working in each of our lives, however, we often have no idea what He is doing. He wants to haul away the trash from our life, but too often we are unwilling to take to it the curb.
You are invited to have a direct, personal relationship with Jesus. Don’t settle for an intermediary. Don’t let loyalty to a religion, a church, or a leader cause you to miss what God is saying directly to you. Hearing what the risen Jesus personally says to you is far more important than hearing what a preacher says about Him.
God’s voice is often like a faint inner whisper. It’s easy to miss (and/or ignore) if you don’t slow down and focus on Him. From the moment you were conceived until now, there’s never been a time that God wasn’t working in your life!
God’s not hiding from humanity. We’re hiding from Him. If you’re not as close to God as you want to be, guess who moved? Jesus rose from the dead, not to create a religious doctrine, but so that He can spend time with you! Will you let Him?
Church goers can sit through sermons for decades and never get up and grow. That’s because all listening and no interactive sharing makes a church service a spectatorial event. When church became a staged lecture by a single sage on a stage, it lost much of its power. A church service can be scripted and staged without Jesus, but a Spirit-led meeting is totally dependent on His active presence.
The first Christians focused on and centering around actively following the risen Jesus, not passively listening to one-man sermons. Too often church is like a piano player who only plays one key (over and over) while the rest of the keys are stuck with siting idly by. When church becomes a recurring routine recycled weekly it’s easy to miss out on the reality of the risen Jesus.
God is doing amazing miracles in and thru ordinary people. Perhaps church should listen to them instead of just to a preacher. Encounters with God happen far more often than we realize but the church service gag rule prevents people from telling about them. By refusing to encourage and allow people to share their personal experiences with Jesus, church silences resurrection testimonies. If church ever begins to practically train people to encounter, follow, and obey the risen Jesus, it will change the world.
