Remembering Our First Love
“When he had gone indoors, the blind men came to him, and he asked them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” — Matthew 9:28
The work of faith is often done indoors. He hears our cries and he invites in. In the place of prayer, we do not just ask him things, but he asks us the questions of faith. “Do you believe…” and then he moves. Next week as we lead up to another Jesus Encounter weekend we are going to join our hearts and our cries in seven days of unbroken prayer. If you haven’t found an hour to take, you can sign up here.
Here too is an excerpt from Different urging us to remember the primacy of God and our intimacy with him, in all things…
Far too many believers are bored with their relationship with God. Like spiritual pornographers, they attend religious gatherings to watch other people encounter God, while they themselves are lifeless and dull, wearied by the “duties” associated with “serving” God. Perhaps their faith is only inferential, the result of a long list of deductions. It is possible to have good theology, do good mission, live a good life, and tell your friends all the good facts about God, but still know very little of God.
It is alarming to note just how unimportant the pursuit of God has become to the average Christian. How quickly it drops down the list of priorities. In the light of all the biblical promises and invitations attached to seeking God, how can we explain how unmotivated most believers are to seek the face of God? How easily it gets postponed? How apt we are to call it legalism?
Digging always feels like a chore, until you find the buried treasure.
Living for God without intimacy with God is dead work. Drudgery. This is the problem with natural religion, or natural Christianity, or natural mission. Mission to the world without a connection with the God who loves the world is a filthy rag, and far too much of our ministry is deprived of the soul-morphing effect of an intimate encounter with God. It’s what makes Peter’s confession “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God,” so explosive: “Flesh and blood did not reveal this to you…” Have you experienced such revelation? There are far too many flesh and blood Christians doing far too much flesh and blood mission that predictably leads to flesh and blood communities. But there is so much more — if we’ll dig.
Listen to David: “The intimate friendship of the Lord is reserved for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant.” How did he respond? “My eyes are ever towards the Lord.”
Our deepest desire must not be family or ministry or growth or mission or community. We want God. Whatever we do, may it be the result of this experiment: What happens when communities of Jesus-followers set apart their lives to seeking the face of the living God? The outgrowth of that, then, is to seek the lost and the least — a true expression of Church. This is our ultimate dream: to engage in lives and mission defined by their pursuit of God himself, so that it is so very clear that He is glorious. This is primary. He is our first love.
