Having a Life That's Never Lived

This is an excerpt from my July 21, 2019 message:

Who is God and what is my relationship to Him?

Who am I and what is my relationship to God and the world around me?

What is my identity?

If we cannot Biblically answer and live out these questions we will be in one of two conditions; we will either be dead in our sins…even though we may call ourselves Christians; or we will actually have eternal life…but we will not functionally live it – we will basically live as functional atheists, we will live as if we do not know Jesus Christ.

There are those who have a life they never live, those are women and men who someway, somehow, have actually come into God’s Kingdom in Christ – but who live as if they don’t have the life of Christ in them. They may even mouth Christian words, use Christian terms, go to church, go to Sunday school, maybe preach, maybe teach, maybe sing in the choir, maybe hold a church office – but they don’t actually live in a vibrant relationship with Jesus Christ. They may even live good moral lives, but there are plenty of people who don’t know Jesus who live good moral lives.

Then there are those who think they are living a life that they don’t really have, those are people who are going through the motions of some kind of cultural Christianity or of church tradition is the same as actually knowing Jesus Christ and living in a relationship with Him. They may even mouth Christian words, use Christian terms, go to church, go to Sunday school, maybe preach, maybe teach, maybe sing in the choir, maybe hold a church office – but they don’t actually live in a vibrant relationship with Jesus Christ. They may even live good moral lives, but there are plenty of people who don’t know Jesus who live good moral lives.

Did you notice that having a life you never live, and trying to live a life that you’ve never had – can look exactly the same on the outside?

This is why Jesus, the prophets, and the apostles are always striking at the heart, always looking at the heart. As God told Samuel, man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart – and the heart that God is looking for is the heart that is formed into the image of His Son, Jesus Christ. It is a heart which is beating for love – for God and for others. It is a heart that is laying down its life for others – proclaiming the Gospel to others, praying for others – for as Jesus said to us, that’s you and me, “Even as the Father sent me, even so I send you.”

My heart breaks when I see God’s people not knowing their identity in Christ. It breaks when I see people who don’t know Jesus Christ. It breaks when I see uncertainty in the Body of Christ, confusion, disorientation, and a lack of knowledge of God’s Word.

In the Prophets God says, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” That was true then, that is true today.

So please forgive me if my passion for Christ and the Bible is a bit much, for to me it is a matter of life and death. To me witnessing to others, proclaiming the Gospel, is both a matter of obedience to Jesus Christ and a matter of life and death. And to me, seeing people growing in Jesus Christ is a matter of life and death – for Jesus calls us to make disciples, not add people to our church membership rolls.