July 28, 2004

  • How deep is your Love?

    It only took five minutes. While standing by the urinal, I came
    across one co-worker I knew a little bit and another I've never met
    before. The one I knew asked, "so how's your prius?" Imagine 3 guys standing in the men's bathroom talking about cars ...

    I was thinking to myself, wow ... 5 mins at the urinal was enough to
    sell two Prius'. Why don't I have that same infectious passion about
    Christ? When I began looking for a car, I spent countless late-nights
    just reading websites and comparing different cars. When I decided on a
    hybrid (a prius in particular), I spent many more hours learning
    everything about it. I read websites, web-journals, and joined
    discussion groups for the prius. I went to the dealer to do extended
    test drives on all the different hybrid cars and spoke with all my
    friends about it to gather up additional information. I began to think
    ... maybe I can speak so easily and passionately about the prius,
    because I really believe that it is better than any other car out in
    the current market. It is the 1st car of this new century. It is not
    only efficient but extremely effective and practical. I'm marvelled by
    the design. The price is very reasonable. ... and I drive one!!

    I began to think, maybe I don't have this same infectious enthusiasm
    about Christ because I don't know Him well enough. Maybe it's because I
    don't love Him enough? this was a sobering reflection. But what do I do
    now?

    (thanks mree for sharing this prayer with me. adapted from Eph 1:17-19)
    I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give me the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that I may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of my heart may be enlightened in order that I may know the hope to which he has called me, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe ...

Comments (8)

  • That prayer from Ephesians is one I recall often, and it's an important one. However, it can be dangerous if we think that all the responsibility for knowing God comes from Him and almost none from us. The Bible also says:

    ...fix your thoughts on Jesus... -- Heb 3:1
    So we fix our eyes ... on what is unseen. -- 2 Cor 4:18
    Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. -- Col 3:2
    ...many live as enemies of the cross of Christ... their god is their stomach... Their mind is on earthly things. -- Php 3:18-19

    I am convinced that one of the greatest obstacles to knowing God is not that we don't pray for it enough, but that we are not intent on being disciplined to think about and ponder our God with increasing intensity. We are too afraid of boredom and fatigue and lack of understanding when we try to converse with God and read His Scriptures. Let me tell you that God would rather us fall asleep during private prayer than to indulge in other things while neglecting prayer. We are too unwilling to give God time. We need to have faith that to reflect on God is better than thinking of anything or anyone else, and if our hearts are unconvinced, we need to go against our hearts and live by faith. Yes, our minds are too obsessed with worldly pleasures, and we need purge ourselves of these obsessions by a determined effort. Each person may need to shut themselves in a room for a few hours with just God and the Bible, and do that regularly, until our hearts are ready to receive a downpour of direct spiritual blessing apart from material things and artificial emotions.

  • Wow.. yeah.  I am right there with you.  I so often have the desire to share about Jesus to people I work with, but I don't. 

    I hope and pray that the Love of Jesus would fill you today and keep on filling you until you are passionately in love with him.  God bless.

  • hiya, i spotted your xanga from other CBCers and i've totally been encouraged and interested by what you write about.

    thanks for writing and sharing what God's been putting on your heart!

  • hey i was just thinking about that today at work.  why isn't Jesus oozing out of me if I say that I love him so much??  and if i say that i love people, then why don't i love them enough to share about the joy of knowing Jesus?  thanks for sharing with us dude.

  • To answer your question, my horrendous hours look somewhat like this... a sample two-week rotation...

    ::start::
    Mon. 2pm-9pm
    Tue. 8:30am-9pm
    Wed. 8:30am-3pm
    Thu. -off-
    Fri. 2pm-9pm
    Sat. 8:30am-9pm
    Sun. 11am-8pm
    Mon. 8:30am-3pm
    Tue. -off-
    Wed. 2pm-9pm
    Thu. 8:30am-9pm
    Fri. 8:30am-2pm
    Sat./Sun. -off-
    ::go back to beginning::

    Exceptions are tent-sale and holiday weekends, when everyone works regardless of whether your scheduled on or off that week. Cool, huh?

  • Excellent prompting.. It is a curious thing for me, I always wonder.. I am a follower of Christ, I should have the same passion as Christ has. But I know in times, I lack that passion which consumed Him. - To make the Father known.

  • oh my, interesting beginning. a little tmi??  :) hahah.

  • m. well, you already know my view toward evangelism. I believe that the best "ministry" happens in the "streams" of life and not the sterile confines that we've often restricted it to. :giddy:

    Thanks OJ for the reminder that this is the very passion of Christ. J8, I agree that there is an element of human responsibility. the preoccupations of our mind become the things that have taken a high place in our hearts (or maybe it's the other way around =). draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Our faith is such a strange thing; God is both the author and perfector of our faith - this is massively humbling.

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