To be entirely honest, I know of nothing quite so boring as Christianity without Christ.
Countless people have stopped going to a place of worship simply because they are sick of going through the motions of a dead religion. They are tired of trying to start a car on an empty tank. What a pity that there are not more people around to show them that Jesus Christ is alive.
I know of nothing so utterly exciting as being a Christian, sharing the very Life of Jesus Christ on earth right here and now, being caught up with Him into the relentless, invincible purposes of the almighty God, and having available to us all the limitless resources of Deity for accomplishing those purposes.
Can you imagine anything more exciting than that?
Profound Simplicity
Every week I receive letters from people who know that excitement, and who, in one way or another, have been exposed in the past to the ministry I have been a part of now for more than seventy years. These are people who have participated in one of our conferences or read one of our books or listened to a tape. They contact me to explain what happened to them when finally, in the gracious revelation that the Holy Spirit delights to give, they rediscover Jesus.
It does not happen all at once. At first they are often a bit bewildered by what they hear, and it seems to go right over their head. Then slowly, bit by bit, there is that revelation and then a moment of truth. It becomes so clear, so divinely obvious. So completely logical. Profoundly simple and simply profound.
This profound simplicity is something Paul spoke of in his second epistle to the Corinthians. His readers were those who knew Christ as their Redeemer. They were born again, their names were written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, and they were heavenbound, yet Paul had a grave concern for them: “I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ” (II Corinthians 11:3).
Paul was anxiously concerned that nothing in their lives would detract from the sheer simplicity which is in Christ, the centrality of a Person, the Lord Jesus Himself, in residence within their redeemed humanity.
Our Greatest Need
Experiencing this simplicity is the greatest need today throughout the Church worldwide. The utmost need in every ministry group, every missionary outreach, every denomination, is to rediscover the Lord Jesus Christ and the indispensability of His indwelling presence within the believer. This means encountering the risen living Lord who shares His Life with us on earth on our way to heaven… so that He may accomplish through us what He began to do in His own physical body two thousand years ago. What a fantastic privilege!
From the book The Indwelling Christ by Ian Thomas
Leave A Comment