I once thought Jesus
Was an absentee
Far away from me.
Then I opened my heart
And now Christ in me
Fills me with glory
And inner victory.

Jesus invites people,
“Come unto Me.”
He doesn’t want to be
An absentee
In your life.

Jesus is an absentee
From the tomb
So He can live presently
With and within you.

True Christianity isn’t about an absentee Jesus left behind in the 1st century. It’s an ongoing demonstration of the risen Jesus in the 21st century. Jesus wasn’t an absentee from creation, “Through Him all things were made,” and He doesn’t want to be an absentee from you, “I am with you always.”

Maybe people’s desire to have human control and programming in church is because they think the risen Jesus is a Sunday absentee. When we make Jesus an absentee landlord looking over church services from afar, we overlook His glorious presence and reality. If Christ is in you don’t treat Him like an absentee.

Every day that you make the living Jesus an absentee in your life is a day that you reject His love and His help. An absentee Jesus isn’t the Bible Jesus. The Jesus of the Bible is everywhere. When Jesus is an absentee, a mere historical (or even personal) memory, our spiritual engine is running on nothing but religious fumes.

Jesus seems absent to absent minded Christians who neglect to focus on His presence. A Christian who feels the absence of Jesus needs to focus on Christ’s inner presence and begin to be daily led by the Spirit.

Somewhere in history churches lost the powerful sense of Christ’s immediate presence and began to treat Him like an absentee. Churches have trained Christians to follow an order of worship. Now it’s time to train them to follow the ever-present Jesus! You don’t learn to follow Jesus from sermons or Sunday school. You learn to follow Jesus by becoming aware of and obeying His inner promptings.

Since those “led by the Spirit are the children of God” (Romans 8:14) it’s essential that we learn to be Spirit-led. Jesus is alive! Be a tentmaker bent on serving and obeying the present Jesus no matter what you need to do to support yourself. Don’t be a stranger to the presence of the living Jesus! It’s time for Christians to stop relying on clergy and to begin to trust the living Jesus to empower us to encourage and minister to one another.

If you’re feeling
Spiritually dead,
The cure is to learn
To be daily Spirit-led.