David's Chief Joy

Recently I was called out by another person in Christ saying I wasn't doing it right. I was showing people love and sharing all about love with people but not always sharing about Christ and Him crucified. "If you love someone, you HAVE to tell them Christ died a horrible death for them." I replied, "Yes, when God tells me to." "I try to only do what my Father tells me to do and only when He tells me to do it." This didn't sit well with them. They said, "You have to share the Gospel with them." "We are told to go out and preach the Gospel to every nation." they exhorted.

What is the Gospel? It means good news doesn't it? What is that good news? So many have turned the good news into a horror story. Over time, many have died at the hands of Christian crusaders. Accept Jesus or die. Even today there are many who just preach to accept Jesus or burn in hell forever. Turn or burn! But I see a much different God. I know a loving Father who sits on the throne and eagerly awaits those He calls and chose. He already knows who will accept Him and who won't. He is not anxious, but yet when someone turns from evil to accept His great love, I see Him eagerly running to meet us. We can't save anybody, only the Holy Spirit can save people. We can plant seeds. Sometimes we water seeds already planted and some really fun times we get to be the harvester. But we ourselves can do nothing to save a person from hell.

What we can do is share the Gospel? The Gospel according to Jesus is: The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. He was the light of the world until he ascended to the right hand of the Father and then sent His Holy Ghost to inhabit our bodies. We are the light now. All we had to do was believe and the Holy Spirit came to live within us. So all we have to do is live and breathe like we know the Holy Spirit and breathe on others the Spirit of Life. Rivers of living water shall flow forth from our bellies and spill all over everyone we come in contact with.

I see many believers walking about that are not exhibiting the all the gifts of the Spirit. Some I can honestly and sadly say I see none of the gifts. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness and self control. When you are in a store and somebody is holding you up in line, or they don't have what they advertised, or someone cuts in front of you or you pick the life situation... what do you do? I have found we are under a microscope. When we proclaim Jesus as our Savior and then lose it the next minute... are we really representing Jesus or the Gospel.

I finish by saying that I think too many stop short at the crucifixion for what Jesus did for us. But as Paul Harvey would always say, ... and now the rest of the story. His resurrection is the real story. That God would resurrect from the dead the guiltiest man who ever lived? The sinless man who was made to be ALL sin; yours, mine everyone who has ever lived and who will ever live, was saved and set free from death and eternal damnation. Why? Love. For God so loved the world...

For some reason this came across my desk today and made me think of that.

Throughout Scripture David is known as "the man after God's heart." His passion for God seems unparalleled in Scripture; yet he also illustrates a love for life that is without equal. In Psalms 137:6 (NASB), he says, "May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not exalt Jerusalem above my chief joy." In today's religious community this statement would probably not be accepted. How can Jerusalem, the community of the redeemed, be called his chief joy? Isn't God supposed to be his chief joy? The apparent paradox fits perfectly into the Jewish culture that looks for practical expression of spiritual truths. David's love for God needed expression, and Jerusalem was a perfect target.
When we live with genuine passion for God, it creates a passion for other things. While it is possible to value other things above God, it is not possible to value God without valuing other things. This is the key point confronting the religious mindset, which dismisses everything not considered sacred. The effort to accomplish the goal of loving God with no other passions has had to create a monastic lifestyle to survive. And while I admire many of the monastic believers in the past, it is not the model that Jesus gave us. The way we steward the rest of life becomes the litmus test that demonstrates an authentic love for God.
(Excerpt from the book, Dreaming with God - by Bill Johnson, Page 113, Destiny Image Publishing.)