I've done a terrible thing. I admit it. I've read my Bible for years now, and somehow have failed to acknowledge the emotions of the speakers. Today as I read, with testimonies of what God is doing around the world floating around in my head, with an urgency to share the Gospel and fulfill God's will for me rising in my chest, with an awareness of how short the time really is before Jesus comes back - I was undone, confronted with the emotion-packed aggression and power of the Gospel in a way I'm not sure I've ever been before. Jesus says in John 6:39 in the New Century Version, "Here is what the One who sent me wants me to do: I MUST NOT lose even one whom God gave me, but I must raise them all on the last day." The Lily and Kleist translation says, "I must not lose anything of what the Father has entrusted to me ..." Can you sense His desperation? Can you hear the determination, the fire, the zeal? Let me paint the picture for you.
His bride is destined for Hell, kidnapped, shanghaied, humiliated by the Enemy. The people He longs for relationship with - they're going to die. And that's the sole reason He came. He came to rescue, to fight, to save, as only our Champion God can. At this precise moment in the Gospels, He stands face to face with the enemy's henchmen - Doubt, Unbelief, and Misunderstanding - cowards masquerading as the Pharisees. And they are standing between Him and His wife - the church. Can't you see the fire burning in His eyes, the righteous and holy anger that filled His voice? He grabs that Snake of sarcasm by the collar, and with clenched fists and gritted teeth, says, "I must not lose her." How passionate. How tense. How majestic is the Father's love for us!
And yet - how often does that passion convey itself through our conversations with the unsaved? How often do people hear that same fire in our voice as we share the Gospel with them? We have been called, as Ambassadors of Christ, to minister, to witness, to build up, to disciple people in their relationships with God. We have been entrusted with gifts and with spheres of influence on this earth. God has entrusted us with responsibilities for the Kingdom - and we treat Him so flippantly. We read over these words with so little enthusiasm, check it off our daily reading list and move on ... How calloused have we become?
No more. Children of God, this is the passion of Christ: to ransom His Bride from the enemy, to claim Her back from the damned - and He will brook no failures. And we, the people of God, who can quote Galatians 2:20 till we're blue in the face (that it is no longer us who live, but Christ who lives in us) - must take this seriously. We should greet everyday with the same aggressive faith and tenacity of Christ, with the armor of God wrapped so tightly around us and the Word burning within us with such passion, that we scout the horizon for opportunities to spar with the devil and claim back what He has stolen. For we cannot and must not lose anything of what the Father has entrusted to us.
His bride is destined for Hell, kidnapped, shanghaied, humiliated by the Enemy. The people He longs for relationship with - they're going to die. And that's the sole reason He came. He came to rescue, to fight, to save, as only our Champion God can. At this precise moment in the Gospels, He stands face to face with the enemy's henchmen - Doubt, Unbelief, and Misunderstanding - cowards masquerading as the Pharisees. And they are standing between Him and His wife - the church. Can't you see the fire burning in His eyes, the righteous and holy anger that filled His voice? He grabs that Snake of sarcasm by the collar, and with clenched fists and gritted teeth, says, "I must not lose her." How passionate. How tense. How majestic is the Father's love for us!
And yet - how often does that passion convey itself through our conversations with the unsaved? How often do people hear that same fire in our voice as we share the Gospel with them? We have been called, as Ambassadors of Christ, to minister, to witness, to build up, to disciple people in their relationships with God. We have been entrusted with gifts and with spheres of influence on this earth. God has entrusted us with responsibilities for the Kingdom - and we treat Him so flippantly. We read over these words with so little enthusiasm, check it off our daily reading list and move on ... How calloused have we become?
No more. Children of God, this is the passion of Christ: to ransom His Bride from the enemy, to claim Her back from the damned - and He will brook no failures. And we, the people of God, who can quote Galatians 2:20 till we're blue in the face (that it is no longer us who live, but Christ who lives in us) - must take this seriously. We should greet everyday with the same aggressive faith and tenacity of Christ, with the armor of God wrapped so tightly around us and the Word burning within us with such passion, that we scout the horizon for opportunities to spar with the devil and claim back what He has stolen. For we cannot and must not lose anything of what the Father has entrusted to us.
Comments
Post a Comment