Working for Jesus

Its important for all of us to realize how terrible sin is in the eyes of God. Its important to realize that no matter how hard we try, we cannot make up for our sins. There is *nothing* we can do to payback to God what we have taken. That's why it is so important that we believe in Jesus, in His atonement for our sins, and His resurrection.

That having been said, I urge everyone reading this blog to no only accept Jesus and invite Him into your life but I also urge you not to stop there. I urge you to serve Him each day as if your salvation depended on it.

I am not one who believes in "once saved, always saved". I believe you can drift away from the Lord, and in doing so you risk you own salvation by turning away from Jesus.

I liken my pursuit of Jesus to that of pursuing someone of the opposite sex in courtship. When you first start dating someone, the flowers and gifts (e.g. sacrifices) and complements (e.g. praise) flow pretty freely. Then all too quickly the fire dies down and the relationship slows down. If the fire dies down too much, you risk splitting up. So it is with the Lord. When I was first saved, I was totally on fire. I mean, I was excited for what the Lord was going to do in my life – I could hardly wait! Then I noticed that there were times when it felt like things where slowing down - that I didn’t feel the same passion for God. So I began to ask Jesus about it. An answer quickly came: “Prayer is the bellows that stokes the fire.” I believe what He was saying is that I wasn’t praying enough. Looking back on it now, I can see He was right. I still prayed in the morning and the evening as I did when I was first saved, but it wasn’t as passionate as before and I allowed distractions to cut my time with the Lord short. Its important to “pray through” your prayers. That is keep praying on something until you feel like your prayers have been answered. I’ve noticed God will give you a release once you have prayed enough for Him to answer your prayers (see Intercessory Prayer by Dutch Sheets for a through explanation of this topic).

My bet is that we all go through times in our life where we feel our relationship with God has gone stale. I think we just have to remember that we have an obligation to Him to keep the relationship strong.