Face to Face with Reality: Part 3

being a nominal believer is easy. It's frustrating, but it's fairly easy. What i mean is that doing things for the sake of doing things is simple - there's not much conviction for you to stand on, once you finish your tasks you can simply move on, you can always pawn off your failures onto other people's lives. It's easy. The Gospel of Jesus is never easy. Hmmm...let me clarify because Jesus does say that his yoke was easy and his burden was light. Yes his path for salvation is simple and easy.We acknowledge who we are in light of who he is and we come and fall a this feet. His discipleship, however, isn't. And if we really take Him seriously...and we really understands what he has called us to then our faith becomes significantly more difficult. I'm not saying that it's the worse thing in the world and you want to shoot yourself in the eyeball bad...i'm saying that the journey is tough - some survive and some don't (if you know what i mean). 

I say all these things to you because what is at stake is your joy. Joy? That sounds weird because that is not what we've been used to hearing at church huh? Nobody talked to me about joy...it was about quiet times,and prayer sessions. But joy comes from a lifestyle of worship - when Jesus begins to penetrate every aspect of life (from your relationship,the way you view people, the way you spend money, to whatever). I realize that i don't live this way too often...i don't. And as much as i like to say to others that i do, it's probably like 30% of the time. But i'lll tell you what...when i follow Jesus and what he says he proves tobe faithful and my joy increases. You know who Jesus always goes to thosewho need him the most? like he goes to the prostitutes, the homeless, the sick...well so i tried to do what he did one day and this and that happened and i'm actually waiting for one of my homeless friends to get cleaned up and showered. For the life of me, i couldn't have figured that i would do anything like this...but he was in need and we had resources. You know i have no clue how this is going to turnout - i mean i was told by friends that i was a fool for doing this and i have been warned by many people of "these people". I get theirpoint of view but in the end the command to follow Jesus out-weighs their opinions and in this case, it is quite clear. So yeah...i suppose we'll see what happens in this situation.

All to say...things look a lot different when Jesus is involved in religion. I ask you - how seriously do you take this faith of yours? Are there things you've been neglecting? Are there things that you need to be chasing that you aren't? Do you taste joy in your journey? Not happiness...but joy?