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Be Aggressive About This One Thing

Aggression is not viewed as a positive things these days. Aggressive people are typically not well-liked. I tend to feel the same way about most aggressiveness. However, I think there is one area of life that we ought to be very aggressive, very assertive and very stubborn about. That is to be constantly seeking to know Jesus Christ and his kingdom.

I find an extremely wonderful way to live is to stubbornly and constantly seek to:

  • Know Jesus Christ personally.
  • Know everything about him.
  • Understand how to hear from him right now, so we do not wander off doing our own thing.
  • Tell others all we learn and know about him who have the same heart for him.
  • Listen for him in the ministry and sharing of others.

Never delegate your life’s-focus to anyone else. Take personal responsibility to make sure you are always increasing in the knowledge of him.

Don’t put up with distractions from this internal or external. Distractions that are obviously evil and/ or ones that appear religious and seem good. My definition of a distraction is absolutely anything that shifts ones focus and life-aim off of the person of Jesus Christ.

Any person, any thing, even religious idea, even “ministry visions” (that sound so good) that distracts from that. Consider them to be Satan standing in your way. He smiles and points you over to some attractive distraction.

Be spiritually aggressive toward Jesus and Satan, don’t get passive or lukewarm about knowing him.

Snap out of it, if you love Jesus at all know that he needs people like that. Jesus can build great things with a group of spiritually aggressive people like this.

Lukewarm, spiritually-retired and permanently distracted Christians are some of the most confused people on earth.

“But seek first His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Jesus Christ

There is a reason he said seek first.

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The Real Eating & Drinking

I am reading a book by Adam Gazzaley titled The Distracted Mind. Brain researchers have shown that human brains, when searching for and finding information, light up in the same way that animal brains light up as they graze for and find food. 

So in a sense, our brains are eating as we gather information. 

Upon reading this I immediately was reminded of the creation story. Remember in the creation story God told Adam & Eve to eat from the tree of life, which contained his own life and to not eat from the tree of knowledge (see Gen 2:16-17). 

In a very real sense God in the beginning linked eating to himself (the tree of life) and to knowledge (knowledge of good and evil). Just like what is referenced in the Gazzaley book.
New and interesting information feed us in a mental and even a spiritual way.  Brain scientists are just beginning to see what God alluded to in Genesis.

I also think this is why social media can be so addicting. Social media is a constant flow of new and customized information. In a sense we are eating as we scan our social news feeds.
Jesus understood this when he told people to seek him first and to eat his flesh and drink his blood and for his disciples to feed his people and one another. 

“For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me.”‭‭ – John‬ ‭6:55-57‬

Paul understood this when he taught his churches to look to Jesus, and as he constantly re-focused their attention on the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

It’s almost as if God responded to our choice of knowledge of good and evil by sending Jesus Christ, and now we both eat of knowledge, (specifically knowledge of Jesus Christ) who happens also to be the tree of life itself.

In Jesus Christ, eternal life and knowledge are summed up unified in one person.

“Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.” – 2 Peter‬ ‭1:2-3‬ ‭NASB‬‬

We are to constantly center our lives on feasting on the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and feeding others. In this way we are well nourished and do feast on the tree of life, the real eating and drinking, just as God intended.

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Christian believers meetings. Where two or more gathered in my name
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Gathered Around Jesus with Mary of Bethany

In the first part of this post we discussed how divided the church is in the US and how if the Lord were leading our churches this would not be the case.  We made the point that church tradition has crippled us internally.

But thanks be to Jesus and the gospel of Luke the solution to this problem is not complex, Jesus already walked others through this same problem and I believe it is found in a story from the town of Bethany.

Luke 10:40 But Martha was distracted (that describes us) by all the preparations that had to be made (our divided ministries to God, believing we must serve him out of our own gifts and diligence).  She came to him and asked “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

I believe that Martha represents 95+% of Christians today striving to serve, we are distracted by our own ministries, our duties devised in our minds of our chosen Christian leader as what Jesus would want us to do (WWJD), full of human energy, leadership, greatness and/or brilliance.

Notice how Martha was off alone not with Jesus or those gathered around him.  Ministries not centered on Jesus separate and divide people.

Martha not only was distracted but she didn’t understand her Lord like Mary did, and she demanded that Mary be distracted with her!

The Lords response can and should guide us today, not only did he defend Mary but he taught Martha and all of us the one thing that is needful.

10:41 And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things; 42 but one thing is needful: and Mary has chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.

That one thing, that good part was exactly what Mary was doing, sitting at the feet of Jesus Christ, beholding him, getting to know him, learning of him, quietly listening to him.  Despite tradition and frustrating distractions around her.

We can still do that today, we can sit at the feet of Jesus Christ today, he promised his presence as we gather around him (“in my name”).  but to do this Jesus alone must be our motive for gathering.

  • We don’t gather around our particular churches vision (flavor of ice cream).
  • We don’t gather around our churches great sermons and superior leaders.
  • We don’t gather around building great families or a great nation.
  • We don’t gather around even the preaching of the gospel of salvation by Christ! (there will be time for that, what Mary and the disciples were doing was even greater and more pressing.)

In gathering around these things there is confusion, distraction, wandering, chaos, we don’t love one another (outside of natural friendships), when we gather for these things we end up dividing and butchering the body of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Instead we gather around Jesus Christ alone, and we see him and hear him through every one of us sharing Christ, seeking him throughout the week then bringing our spiritual gifts and sharing them with one another.  We display him to one another through the Holy Spirit, we teach him, we seek him together and we supernaturally grow to love one another as we do this.

I periodically meet with a friend and we discuss the Lord, this my favorite ~2 hours of the week, there is nothing that can compare with gathering with others only for Jesus.

I have written much about this that I have not published, if you would like to hear more please enter your email address below!

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Or if you are interested in joining a group already gathering around Jesus in the upstate NY area,  please email me at collierak@me.com

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