We don’t need a lecture about love. We need to care deeply about each other.

We don’t need an explanation of what joy is. We need to enjoy life.

We don’t need to be preached to about peace. We need to stop fighting one another.

We don’t need to be told to be patient. We need to wait on the Lord.

We don’t need a discourse on kindness. We need to be nice to people.

We don’t need a teaching about goodness. We need to celebrate the goodness of God.

We don’t need to hear the definition of faithfulness. We need to demonstrate faith in and daily reliance on the risen Jesus.

We don’t need a message about gentleness. We need to handle life with gratitude and great care.

We don’t need a sermon about self-control. We need to obey the risen Jesus instead of our feelings, desires, and opinions.

Christians don’t need to study or memorize the 9 aspects of the fruit of the Spirit. We need to demonstrate them in our daily life.

Information about God is insufficient. Christians desperately need the conscious awareness of God!

Too many Christians want sermons about the presents of Jesus without His presence. Too many churches want to keep teaching information about God week after week after week, while neglecting to make people aware of the presence, power, and reality of the living Jesus. Because of that many Christians are “always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.” (2 Timothy 3:7.) The risen Jesus is the truth! If you don’t know Him and daily live in His presence, all the Bible knowledge in the world won’t show you the truth!

Information-based Christianity leads to comfortable religious pride. However, faith that is based on the presence, power, and reality of the risen Jesus produces a never-ending inner spiritual fountain of the life of Jesus flowing out of a person like rivers of living water. When I see that, it brings a tear to my eye.

Demonstrating the love, presence, and forgiveness of the living Jesus is a much more effective way to change the world than by insulting people who you disagree with politically. Try it and see!