KEN ANSELL | Waxahachie Daily Light
I think I have shared about a former high school principal that we love a lot who gave me a book written by some Fellowship of Christian Athlete guys that encourages people to choose one word to filter their life through. My word is “connect.” I live to connect people to Jesus (we call this discipleship and see it lived out in Acts 2:42 – 47). There is nothing more important than connecting people to God.
I like the word or phrase “get to” as well. We “get to” do things like connecting people to Jesus. There is joy in obedience to the Lord as we seek to fulfill the mandate Christ has placed on the church. We get to do this – wow, how exciting!
I also like the word “develop” … most of my New Year’s resolutions are about developing some ideas or things God has asked me to do including creative ways to connect people to God in a pandemic 2022 culture.
Listen, if you have ever set a goal or set out to be the best at something – regardless if that was winning the club championship or setting a new record on your treadmill you know it takes intentionality, it takes strategy and it takes diligence. You have to be hard core. In other words it just does not happen. We do not become spiritually mature by sitting on the couch thinking about spiritual maturity. We have to intentionally spend time in prayer, in the Word, in real Christian fellowship (not potluck suppers where we sit across from the same people we sat across from at the last potluck supper) … oh and BTW, real fellowship is not based on Sister Peggy’s peach cobbler, it’s based on Jesus. As we share table fellowship we can encourage, challenge and bless one another (Proverbs 27:17, As iron sharpens, so one person sharpens another & Hebrews 10:24, Spur one another on toward love and good deeds) and not just talk about how our favorite football team blew it on Sunday (sorry).
So – how am I going to accomplish the joy of “getting to” “develop” ways to “connect” people to Jesus in 2022? I have to look at God’s Holy Word. 2nd Chronicles 26:5 says I have to, “set myself to seek God” then there is a promise, “as long as I seek God, the Lord will prosper me.” While this is going on I have to simultaneously protect myself against spiritual warfare because verse 15 says, if I grow strong, I can also grow proud. Pride brings destruction, it creates a lack of dependency and trust in the Lord – pride makes us depend on ourselves. We could call this “drifting” – we drift away from mission and purpose and drift towards selfishness, apathy and complacency. In other words we get too big for our spiritual britches and we stop measuring our effectiveness in the ministry that we serve in.
How many of us are not faithful to God? We know what He wants us to do, but we just don’t do it. There is no blessing in that. Be intentional and be serious about your relationship with Jesus; be faithful, be humble, be active, be praying about how you can fulfill the mission and purpose of the church because after all – you are the church. Too many just GO to church but we must actually BE the church. Let’s go, we can do it! He told me to tell you that!