At youth group this week, my youth pastor sat us down and decided to be real with us. Decided to ask us where our head and hearts were and if we were really living a life for Jesus. Though none of us said it, I don't think any of us could really profess that the testimony of our lives were enough to point people to The LORD. How heartbreaking. Often Christians can get too caught up in church attendance and speaking "Christianese" that we forget to do what we're called to do. Bible study's, prayer meetings and everything that goes between are great, but that doesn't make you a follower of Jesus. I think we get so caught up in small Christian communities that we forget the words Jesus uttered in Mark 2:17
"On hearing this, Jesus said to them 'it is not the healthy that need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but the sinners.'"
Call them what you want- born agains, Christians, saved- it all means the same. They've got the Holy Spirit in them. They are healthy. They are righteous. And so, we spend all our time with them. But what about the other people? The sick. The sinners. On our calendars filled with coffee meetings and prayer sessions, where do we pencil in time for the people that Jesus came for? I see it so frequently that it makes my heart hurt a little- Christian families and groups and churches who are content to never leave their circle and go seek and save the lost.
I believe that daily, God is placing people who don't know Him in our lives, giving us the opportunity to speak to those who He loves so much. And I believe that daily, we are walking right by them. We can recite John 3:16 and go to church every single Sunday, but for some reason we just can't reach the sick and sinners and tell them about Jesus. Our bible study attendance is fantastic, but people all around us don't know that the King of kings is calling their name.
During youth group my youth pastor said this: "Having all the knowledge of scripture and not letting it hit your heart makes you just as bad as the Pharisees. They didn't get Jesus... They missed Him to the point where they actually killed Him. We don't want to miss Jesus."
Oh.
Oh, Jesus. Don't let us miss You. LORD, I pray that the schedule of our lives would not consume us to the point where we can no longer see You. I pray that You would open our eyes. God, let us seek out the sick. God, lead us to the lost. In the name of Jesus I pray you wouldn't let us miss You.
A few weeks ago, a couple of my friends and I stopped to grab coffee somewhere. Inside the coffee place, there was a man who was clearly drunk. Some of us laughed at him, but one of my friends patted him on the shoulder, looked him straight in the eye and said "do you know The LORD loves you?" My fried is always doing stuff like that, and he doesn't care what people think of him. He didn't miss Jesus. And friends, in our day to day walk with God, I pray we won't miss Him either.