Its Party Time
Author: Pat Aman
Does Your Life as a Christian make you feel like dancing?
It should.
Being a Christian should be joyous.
Revelation 2:4 (KJV)
4 Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love.
Revelation 2:4 (The Message) “But you walked away from your first love – why? What’s going on with you, anyway?”
(**Mike Yaconelli once observed, “It doesn’t take much to make most of us realize that we have become too serious, too tense, too stressful. The result is that we have forgotten how to live life…What happened to the gleam in our eye? What happened to that joyful, crazy, spontaneous, fun-loving spirit we once had? The childlikeness in all of us gets snuffed out over the years…the sign that Jesus is in our hearts, the evidence of the truth of the Gospel is that we still have a light on in our souls.”**)
How can someone walk away from their first love, lose that gleam in their eye?
Could I walk away from my husband Joe of 41 years? No, of course not.
By all accounts, my love for him is not same as that June day in 1977 when I walked down the aisle at our wedding. Since then we have had two daughters, careers, personal successes and tragedies and a growing walk with the Lord. If nothing else, today my love for him is stronger and more intimate than in those precious and heady days as newlyweds.
Yet as I claim a stronger relationship with the Lord during this time, I honestly know that I have sometimes been living in Ephesus when it comes to my walk with God.
Just as human relationships have plateaus, I must confess that I have not always sought out the depth of God, pursuing the love and fellowship I knew in my early days as a believer. At times, I lost my way.
So, what is going on: I have walked away from my first love and forgotten how to live life, at times?
I will also say, If I was not saved and walked into some of the churches today, I would never get saved. Why? Because even our churches have walked away from their first love. They are all doing their own things. Not the God things. Priorities have been misplaced in our personal lives as well as 75% of our churches today.
Now please understand, I am not talking about all churches….You have been to those churches I know… And remember, the church is not a building…The church are the people in the building…
Regaining the life I seek with Him, returning to a childlikeness, requires intimacy. I know full well the intimacy I seek with Him will benefit from improved spiritual disciplines (such as more time in His Word and in prayer). But I cannot rely on these activities alone, otherwise I have fallen under the Law and am practicing faith by works.
Relationships grow out of intention and communication as well as in following through with responsibilities. Any life with Him begins and ends with making God the priority, not just one of many pressing concerns in my everyday living.
Living this life means adopting a willingness to live His life, not my own. Returning to my first love means saying “no” to all the competing interests and consistently putting the needs of my Beloved before my own.
My marriage is no different and it suffers when attention and intention give way to selfish living. When my priorities are restored, the joy returns to the relationship.
It is the same with our relationship with God. When it is not where it needs to be, and when attention and intention gives way to selfish living, our intimacy with God gives way to hurt, grief, sickness. Why? Because we have left God out and let the devil sneak in.
I find hope and direction in Yaconelli’s concluding thought:
(**“Christians are not just people who live godly lives; we are people who know how to live, period. Christians are not just examples of moral purity, we are also people filled with the everyday challenges and joys of life. Christians not only know how to practice piety, we also know how to party. I believe it’s time for the party to begin.”**)
With the reminder of from Ephesus and hopefully a gleam in my eye, I know it is party time! We need to let the world know that we as Christians are happy and not just a long face, sad, bunch of people just attending a building one to three times a weeks just because of it being a habit.
Jesus love to laugh as well as share the truth of His Father God to the world.
God inviting you to s great party, a banquet….
Are you ready?
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