When Jesus Enters: Beyond Religion to Transformation
Mark 2:1b …and it was noised that he was in the house.
When Jesus shows up on the scene, there is no doubt about it! Word travels fast when the sick get healed, the dead are raised, devils are cast out, and to the poor the Gospel is preached. I am convinced that what people long for in our generation is a genuine move of God; not a man-made show. There are people today who have seen fake long enough, and who are determined not to do fake a moment longer. We either want the real deal, or we do not want it at all!
The problem we have on our hands is that it is seldom heard anymore that Jesus is in His house. Oh, we make much of our guest speakers, singers, and yes, even entertainers, but who is interested in Jesus showing up? We must get back to lifting Jesus up in our worship services, else we will become another statistic of another dead church which has closed her doors due to lack of interest.
Do we want to be intellectually stimulated, or do we want to be spiritually changed by the power of God? I’ll be honest; if church does not challenge you, then something is wrong! Furthermore, if church does not motivate you to serve Christ yet the more, and if church does not place Jesus as the center of its attention, then church is a waste of time.
Forgive me for being so blunt, but I wonder just how many radical Christians are reading this today that are hungry for more that just another average church service. I don’t just want to be in church; I want church to get in me! I don’t want to have the best talent a church could ask for; I want the touch of the Master’s hand on my ministry!
What we need more than any thing else is for the presence of Jesus to be made manifest in our places of worship, where He is worshipped in Spirit and in truth, and where the Spirit of God has the liberty to move hearts towards the Christ of the Cross. Oh, I long for the day that it is noised abroad that Jesus is in my house of worship; what about you? Is Jesus welcome at your church? Or, is He too radical to fit in with the religious norm of the day?
Jesus always had a way of pushing people past the limitations of their limited and narrow-minded religious ideologies. We must get so hungry for the power of God that we get past ourselves! Then it can finally be noised abroad that Jesus is in the house!
~ Pastor Gary Caudill
When Jesus shows up on the scene, there is no doubt about it! Word travels fast when the sick get healed, the dead are raised, devils are cast out, and to the poor the Gospel is preached. I am convinced that what people long for in our generation is a genuine move of God; not a man-made show. There are people today who have seen fake long enough, and who are determined not to do fake a moment longer. We either want the real deal, or we do not want it at all!
The problem we have on our hands is that it is seldom heard anymore that Jesus is in His house. Oh, we make much of our guest speakers, singers, and yes, even entertainers, but who is interested in Jesus showing up? We must get back to lifting Jesus up in our worship services, else we will become another statistic of another dead church which has closed her doors due to lack of interest.
Do we want to be intellectually stimulated, or do we want to be spiritually changed by the power of God? I’ll be honest; if church does not challenge you, then something is wrong! Furthermore, if church does not motivate you to serve Christ yet the more, and if church does not place Jesus as the center of its attention, then church is a waste of time.
Forgive me for being so blunt, but I wonder just how many radical Christians are reading this today that are hungry for more that just another average church service. I don’t just want to be in church; I want church to get in me! I don’t want to have the best talent a church could ask for; I want the touch of the Master’s hand on my ministry!
What we need more than any thing else is for the presence of Jesus to be made manifest in our places of worship, where He is worshipped in Spirit and in truth, and where the Spirit of God has the liberty to move hearts towards the Christ of the Cross. Oh, I long for the day that it is noised abroad that Jesus is in my house of worship; what about you? Is Jesus welcome at your church? Or, is He too radical to fit in with the religious norm of the day?
Jesus always had a way of pushing people past the limitations of their limited and narrow-minded religious ideologies. We must get so hungry for the power of God that we get past ourselves! Then it can finally be noised abroad that Jesus is in the house!
~ Pastor Gary Caudill