“But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say?” Luke 6:39 Wow! Makes me shudder every time I hear this challenge from Jesus! How often do I call Him Lord, Lord in casual conversation, at Church, in song, or when I am in trouble, and yet how infrequently do I actually “listen” to the things that He says or even less, “do” the things that He says. If we are honest, this is a very difficult question to answer. Not because it requires great intellectual analysis and insight but because it confronts the many excuses and lies that we hide behind to justify our selfish behaviours and lifestyles. Tragically, it is all too easy in today’s Christian culture to listen to sermons and songs that are “about” Jesus without hearing “from” Jesus! I don’t want to get us all on a guilt trip here but I do strongly sense that we need a blunt reminder that we are living in an age of unparalleled deception and distraction both from inside and outside the body of Christ. If faith is the only thing that pleases our heavenly Father (Hebrews 11:6) and if “faith comes from by hearing, and hearing by the word of God/Jesus” (Romans 10:17) then it is high time we stopped settling for imitations of Jesus and accepting other people’s opinions about Jesus and simply spend as much time and devotion that it takes to sit at our Master’s feet and to hear what “He” alone has to say. This would obviously include spending time in His precious Word. It is my suspicion that if we do this simple thing – open our hearts and ears afresh to Jesus Himself, that faith will arise in our hearts and that we will even dare to obey Him and to resist the constant manipulations of the flesh and the powers of darkness.
Posted on: Sun, 27 Jul 2014 07:42:32 +0000
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