I’ve noticed something that is sorely missing from a lot of sermons in this hour…Jesus.
I can’t tell you how many sermons I’ve sat through, where the subject and star of the sermon is the pastor who is speaking. What if we preach about Jesus…instead of ourselves?
Let’s look at this scripture…it’s really convicting.
You see, we don’t go around preaching about ourselves. We preach that Jesus Christ is Lord, and we ourselves are your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, Who said, “Let there be light in the darkness,” has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ. We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves. 2 Corinthians 4:5-7
I wonder what would happen to our churches, our ministries, our families, our cities, our states, and our country if we stopped making everything about us…and began making it about Jesus again.
Somewhere along the line Christianity became more about us than Jesus. How is this possible?
We must return to our first love. We must return to Jesus. Placing His desires above our own. Placing our service to Him above serving ourselves. He should be our motivation, not the praise of man. What would happen if we started preaching Jesus again?
I listen to a variety of sermons from different churches, and the ones I glean the most from are those that are focused on scripture and our Savior. The pastors I respect the most are the ones who can lay themselves aside and look into the eyes of our Father.
It’s so easy to become entangled into a “fan club” church. A church that is pastor centric and based on a flashy personality. Believe me, I’ve been there. Fortunately, God didn’t allow the illusion of that to last long for me. All throughout my time there, I saw what was really going on…I just didn’t want to judge, and I wanted to give the benefit of the doubt. But when it all boiled down, there was no real content. And there was definitely no genuine servant attitude…it was all based on appearances, and it was a business.
When I read the above scripture, I am reminded that not only did Jesus serve while He ministered…but so did those who were closest to Him. They said, “We ourselves are your servants for Jesus’ sake,” that’s a powerful statement. In our modern churches we are much more likely to hear, “You serve” while the pastors may or may not do the same. Are they really serving their church body or are they serving their own pockets and agenda.
I’m sorry if you’re wondering why the devotional’s I’ve written lately are more, black and white…but this is the time we are in. As I’ve stated before, the lines are being drawn and we are forced to choose light or darkness…and don’t be fooled, the darkness is masquerading as light. I am grateful, however, that that masquerading light is fairly easy to discern with just a little thought and observation. But some parts are still so subtle, and I believe those parts are largely in the existing church bodies who are not really following Jesus, rather pastor “so and so”.
If we want to make it to the end of the race successfully, we can’t afford to follow a pastor above Jesus. We must KNOW Jesus. We must KNOW the true character of God. We must have relationship with Holy Spirit. A good pastor will continually turn you toward that. It’s time to see more subtle discrepancies, so we can guard our hearts in truth. The time is now.
365 Days in the Presence 