If I were to guess, I would say most Christians do not have an exciting relationship with Christ. We allow our relationship to be stagnant. Does this describe your relationship with Christ? If it does..you are not alone! But it also means you need to make some changes. In the sermon I listened to today, Matt (the pastor) says he thinks people have a stagnant relationship with God because they don't take risks. We don't need to take risks if we look at our relationship with God as Sunday mornings and small groups, or Sunday morning and youth group...or church events...or whatever. If we are not daily walking with God, of course our relationship will be stagnant. If we're not sharing God with others...we're not taking risks.
A few weeks ago I taught the sr. high youth group about the need to spend time with God daily. I admitted to the youth that this is a struggle for me...to spend time with God daily. But every where I go, somehow somebody is talking about he importance of spending time with Go daily...and when I hear the same thing over and over..I conclude that God is trying to teach me something. So I taught this lesson to the youth too. I decided I can't teach on something and not follow through with it myself. So almost every day I have been reading the Bible, spending time in prayer and listening to sermons. (I find sermons help teach me the Bible..especially when I am confused). Already I can see what God is teaching me..and he is using me too!
There is a prayer in Ephesians 1 that I think is so beautiful. This is what it says:
15 For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, 16 I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. 17 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit[f] of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. 18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength 20 he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21 far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. 22 And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.
I am still working on my prayer life. I do pray daily but I struggle with praying regularly for the people around me. I am always amazed when somebody tells me they pray for me often or even daily. I definitely feel blessed but also guilty because I have not returned the favour. Anyway, I can't pray the prayer above exactly because the first line....15 For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, 16 I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. Let's be honest...I have stopped giving thanks and I do forget people in my prayers. So I'm not going to sit here and say I pray this prayer..because I don't. However, I love the message in this prayer and I want it to become my prayer. For my family, friends, the youth, Nathan, myself, the church...everybody who knows Jesus. Think if this prayer was answered....how alive we would be in our relationship with Jesus.
This is what amazes me...the same power that raised Jesus FROM THE DEAD..is the same power we have in and through the Holy Spirit. Just think...if we lived walking daily with God...and if we listened to what he was saying and if we took risks...and if we loved God and if we were honest with where we are at in life and if we stopped judging and gossiping and loved people...this world would be turned upside down. It happened when the disciples lived, it happened when Paul lived and it can happen now. Some people think being a Christian is boring....but I would disagree. If you can hear some of the stories of how God has worked and how God has used his followers TODAY and not just in Bible times...it's SO exciting.
Anyway...I've blabbed on or awhile. I hope I'm being made alive and you are too. May we REALLY know Him....and not just of Him.
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