Lost Innocence...

This morning as I settled into my study time in the quiet of the cool, foggy morning, I was immediately drawn back into my thoughts on the simplicity of the Gospel.  I recalled back in the late ‘70’s and 80’s when I was excitedly hungry for and to be honest, rather ignorant of the things of God.  As I have told parts of this story before, we left the Baptist church that my wife had grown up in and where I had served as Youth Minister because we desired to know more about God.  It was not that the church was not a loving, soul-winning congregation, but because it seemed that salvation was as far as they got.  Like I said, we were hungry and wanted to go deeper into the full Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I clearly remember when we walked into that motel room on January 1, 1983 where the little Christian fellowship pastored by a Rhema Bible Training College graduate was meeting, and sitting there totally captivated by the depth of the Word that flowed from the Pastor’s lips.  Those were exciting times.  It was like my wife and I and our growing family could not get enough of the Word.  We attended every service we could, which was pretty much everyone!  For six months we traveled over an hour one way each Sunday morning to lead Praise and Worship as our church conducted another service in another town, we met for long fellowships with the Pastor and his family (with their five very rambunctious boys), and simply soaked in the Word!

There were many firsts for us during those years.  We saw people’s legs grow out right in front of our eyes, witnessed the healing of backs, saw people receive financial miracles (including ourselves a time or two!), we were involved in countless moves of the Spirit of God during all kinds of services and were also a part of countless individuals joining the family of God.

But as I thought on all that this morning, I realized that in some respects, much of that excitement had become lost in me.  It would seem that we took much of the simplicity and innocence of living the Gospel and turned it into a religious show.  Like I’ve said repeatedly, I think we as a church, became more interested in the demonstrations of the power of God than in the individual of Jesus Christ Himself.  What I am coming to clearly understand once again, is that the demonstrations of God’s power are simply a natural side effect of our intimate, personal relationship to the One who is the power of God, Jesus Christ! 

We as a church need to be more focused on the person of Jesus Christ than on the power.  This morning a new spark of excitement was rekindled inside of me!  I look forward to getting back to where I was in the late ‘70’ and ‘80’s.  And what is really exciting is that this time I am re-gaining the innocent excitement and expectation with the additional wisdom and knowledge of the things of God that I have accumulated over 35+ years of Christian experience, through Bible School, and hands on church leadership.  Wow!  I can hardly wait to see what exciting adventures in faith await me!

So I would encourage you today to put aside religious traditions, the mistakes of the past, and any showmanship of the faith and ask our loving heavenly Father to return you to, or in some cases give you for the first time, an innocent, exciting and expectant relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.  That’s what true Christianity is all about.  That’s the simplicity of the Gospel.  Simply seek Him and His righteousness with all your heart “and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Matthew 6:33 KJV)  Wow… what a life… kinda like the book of Acts!

Have a great day today.  Stay in tune to His Word, and keep asking yourself… “What am I expecting today?”