Dave’s Monday Blast – January 7, 2019

I recently read an article by Pastor Jim Denison entitled “What is your ruling passion?” To this question Scottish author and theologian William Barclay wrote, “A man will never become outstandingly good at anything unless that thing is his ruling passion. There must be something of which he can say, ‘For me to live is this.'”

Paul was passionately committed to God’s “ruling passion” for his life: “that I might know him” (Philippians 3:10). I am convinced that this is the greatest resolution any of us can make in this new year. To know Jesus intimately is the most transforming, empowering, joyful way of life humans can experience. It is the purpose for which we were made. Nothing else can take its place.

So it begs the question my friends…how can we know Jesus more intimately this year? C.S. Lewis said it best: “Christ says, ‘Give me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want YOU. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. Hand over the whole natural self. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself; my own will shall become yours.'”

It is so very hard to hand over our entire lives to Jesus…all the time, our money, our abilities, our ambitions. Not just a part of them so we can live as we like…but all of them. My whole life must belong to God. Lewis says, “…the real problem of Christianity comes where we do not usually look for it: at the moment we wake up in the morning. All our wishes and hopes for the day rush at us like wild animals.”  I find it difficult not to listen to these voices, but if we “come out of the wind” and listen to Jesus, a new way of living is possible. A way of KNOWING Him.

We can only do it for moments at first. But from these moments a new life begins to spread through our system. In these moments we are letting Jesus work at our souls. Denison says, “It is the difference between paint, which is merely laid on the surface, and a dye or stain which soaks right through. It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird; it would be even harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. You must be hatched or go bad.” Lewis concludes: “This is the whole of Christianity. There is nothing else.”

What will your egg become this year my friends? After all…no one likes a rotten egg!