Think back to the origin of your faith. Think about what you were going through before you encountered God's grace. Maybe you were far from God and were looking for answers. Maybe you were lonely and depressed and looking for hope. Maybe you were deep in addictions and you needed a spiritual break-through. Maybe you had past hurts that kept rewinding over and over in your mind.
The common thread is all of us needs to be rescued. Rescued from our hurts, addictions and from our eternal destination. Who was it that took a risk? Who was it that walked across the room and invested time in you? Who was it that shared God's love and grace with you?
In Bill Hybel's book "Just Walk Across the Room", shows a graph. It shows how new Christians have a broader network of lost people vs. a veteran Christian of 15 years.
It’s illustrates our years walking with Christ verses how many people we interact with who are far from God.
- On average, a new Christ-follower knows about 20 people who are far from God.
- By year two, it drops down to half.
- By year four, the average Christian may interact with 5 people far from God.
- By year seven, you only know 2 people far from God...
- By your 8th birthday as a Christ-follower, you have completely insulated yourself from the outside world.
Why is that? We draw closer to the One who is the greatest people-person who ever walked the face of the earth, but we insulate ourselves from the world. We were once fired-up to share this radical love we found with people all around us, but now we insulate ourselves with other Christians.
We fill our lives up with church services, church meetings, church programs... while steadily, and maybe unintentionally, drifting farther and farther away from those who need Him most.
Somewhere along the way you've lost your focus- you forgot the origin of your faith. You lost the lustre that once drove you to wild encounters with people all around you. Jesus wants us to walk closely with Him... and He wants us to continue His mission here on Earth. The Bible says, "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost."
Not to build greater programs at church. Not to hold multiple leadership meetings. Not to envelop ourselves with those with like faith. Jesus wants us to go and taking risks, search for friendships in the making, and share His story with those far from Him. There is a world of hurt out there and they are waiting to encounter God's love, grace, and Christ's healing on their lives.
Gain Him back! Go back to the day you first encountered Him. Ask God to revitalize those feelings- making them fresh and exciting. Find that passion for people, the same passion for people that caused Jesus to die on the cross.
"And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!" Philippians 2:8 (NIV)
I HIGHLY recommend the book by Bill Hybels, "Just Walk Across the Room"
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