You can have a thriving ministry without a thriving
relationship with God, but only temporarily. Anyone can fake it in the short
run, but to go the distance, you need a passionate devotional life and
continual closeness to Jesus. Often, pastors tend to allow the busyness of
ministry and the necessity of studying for sermon preparation to replace a
real, personal walk with Jesus. But God wants better for you.
Three T’s for a thriving walk with Jesus…
1. TIME.
It takes time to get to know somebody. I know
Jesus Christ a whole lot better than I did five years ago or ten years ago or
twenty years ago. It just takes time. When you spend time with
Jesus, it doesn’t make you more religious. It makes you more
natural. In fact, God doesn’t want you to be religious. He wants
you to be you.
You can’t develop an intimate relationship with
anybody in a crowd. My wife tells me this all the time. My favorite
joy is to greet people on our church’s patio and talk to 100 different
people. Meanwhile Kay would like to get with one person and spend an hour
with them. She’s always saying, “You can’t get to know people in a
crowd.” You can know about them, but you get to know people by spending
time with them. The same is true with God.
2. TALK.
Relationships require communication. That’s
something else my lovely wife has taught me! Marriages die when one
partner stops talking. You just can’t have a relationship without communication.
In the same way, you get to know God by talking to Him, by communicating.
If you heard me talk to the Lord on a daily basis,
it doesn’t sound like a pastor talking. But I talk to God all the
time. Constantly I’m saying things in my mind to God all the time.
It’s not even real spiritual. I can be going through a Taco Bell ordering
tacos, “God, I’m really glad to get this one. I’m hungry!” If you
want to lose your joy, just talk to God in solemn, somber tones all the time.
John 16 talks about our communication with Jesus
when it says “Until now you’ve not asked for anything in my name.
ask that your joy may be complete.” Much prayer, much joy.
Little prayer, little joy. No prayer, no joy. The more continual your
communication with God, the deeper your intimacy with Him will be.
It takes TIME, it takes TALK, and it takes…
3. TRUST.
Relationships are built on trust. Kay and I
have a good relationship because I trust her. We don’t agree on
everything but I trust her implicitly. Relationships are built on
trust. When we first got married, we had all these little rules – how you
fold the towels, how you push the toothpaste from the bottom up. Do you
know how many rules we have in our home now? Zip! The greater the
relationship, the fewer the rules you need.
God wants you to learn to trust Him. So He
allows all kinds of problems in your life. Then He can demonstrate His
reliability. Paul says, “My number one ambition in life is …” to start
churches? No. to get rewards in heaven? No. to win
people to Christ? No. He says “My number one purpose in life is to
know Christ.” He says this at the end of his life. Doesn’t he know
God? Of course. But he wants to know Him better. He never
stopped hungering for God.
Your hunger for God is going to come out in different
ways depending on your personality. Mystical people hunger for God in a
mystical way. Practical people hunger for God in a practical way. Loud
people hunger for God in a loud way. Emotional people hunger for God in
an emotional way. I’m not talking about how you
do it. Just hunger for God. Always have as your number one
ambition, “I want to know God more.”
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