| There's More - Joel Killion |
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"We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." (C. S. Lewis)
There was once a European family that boarded a ship on their way to the United States. They took all the provisions they could eat, as a family, as they occupied one of the ship’s lower cabins. Days and weeks went by. The family huddled in their cabin eating cheese and crackers while hearing the merriment of those who were eating in the banquet room above. On the last night of their long sea journey, after the captain announced that they would soon make landfall, the father decided to celebrate by taking his family to the banquet room where everyone else had been eating the whole time. He approached the captain to ask how much the meal cost. The captain looked at him in surprise and said, “You mean you haven’t been eating there? Those meals were included in the price of the fare.”
Many Christians eat “cheese and crackers”, spiritually, and are completely unaware of all their “fare” purchased.
Like the Samaritan woman who was content to eat the crumbs that fell from the master’s table or the woman, with the issue of blood, who settled for touching the hem of Jesus’ garment, we have settled for less, even though Christ offers us much more (Matthew 15:21-28; 9:20-22; John 14:23; Revelation 3:20).
Christianity is about a Person, not a religious philosophy, concept or doctrine. Jesus is as an endless landscape, full of mountains and valleys, rivers and oceans, waiting to be explored (Ps. 145:3). Those who dare to journey beyond what they’ve experienced, who will risk everything to explore realms of mystery, will find treasures that are exceedingly abundantly above all they could ever ask or think.
Recent studies, according to barna.org, have shown that 75% of young people will turn from the faith within 1-year of leaving home. This number is even higher among Southern Baptists, one of the strongest evangelical denominations, at 94%. Something is very wrong.
Modern Christianity has been dumbed down from what it was in the early church. Would these disturbing statistics have been true with the first century church? No! The early church had so much more of God than we see and live today. Anyone who has the courage to study the four gospels and the Book of Acts and then compare it to the church today, has to conclude that there’s nothing more boring than religion and nothing more exciting than the true Christian life. As Christians, we are assimilating far less than all that Jesus purchased for us on the Cross. Fear, ignorance, popular theology, religious form and the traditions of men, as well as other similar vices, have put the Church to sleep.
I dare you to study the Book of Acts, for yourself. Saturate yourself in prayer and fasting. Put everything you’ve heard, up to this point, to the side, and let Jesus show you Who He really is–what He’s really like–apart from what you think and what is commonly believed in popular Christianity. Let the Holy Spirit show you “more”, in the light of the entire weight of His Word, and don’t limit Him. If you have given your life to Him, then He’s with you, to direct your paths, if you will let Him.
Joel Killion, Inner Life Ministries & FrontLines School of the Spirit |
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