I constantly have five things on me whenever I am out of
the house, and each thing has a designated pocket/place. If you don’t believe
me, ask some people who know me, they’ll tell you. Keys, wallet, phone, knife,
hat. Each one has its own place, belt loop, back left, front left, right, head.
Whenever I leave to go anywhere, I always do a quick pat on myself to make sure
I have everything, it looks like I’m hallucinating bugs all over me.
There have been a few times when I got through my
pre-leave checkout pat down routine and realize I forgot something.
Enter Panic Mode.
I have, and will, tear a house apart to find whatever it
is I forgot. Normally I’ll forget it in my room, it’ll get lost under some
clothes or something, then instead of my room looking like a bomb went off, it
looks like a couple nukes were hidden in my room.
In Luke 15 we see Jesus tells a few parables about lost
things, my favorite being the Parable of the Lost Coin.
Basically Jesus says, “There was a woman who had 10
coins, lost one, went crazy trying to find it, then once she did she called all
her friends up, tweeted, texted, and facebooked that she found her coin.”
Jesus then tells another parable right after that called
the Prodigal Son, and relates all the parables to God’s reaction when one of
his children come back to him.
But why don’t we see what this should mean for us as
well?
Yes, we should take great comfort that God is throwing
parties over the fact that we came back to him, but should we not throw parties
over the fact that we came back to him?
A lot of times I’ve seen people basically play off the
fact that someone has repented and come to Christ as their Lord and Savior.
Someone comes forward at the invitation, they baptize them, then send them
home. They’ll say some words in front of the congregation, people will clap,
songs will be half heartedly sung because the people in the pews are more
worried about what they’re going to have for lunch than that they just gained a
new family member.
A girl that I met at church camp one year wrote me a
letter and told me that the day she got baptized was the happiest day of her
life, and she has never felt the joy that she felt that day.
I’ve talked to others who have been baptized and all they
had to say was, “Yeah, I might have felt something.” Breaks my heart.
Now I’m not saying that it is absolutely necessary that
you must feel something when you get baptized. I’ve been baptized twice and didn’t
really feel the unexplainable joy either time. But I did feel it when I felt
the grace of God fall on me, and fill me up, and when I understood the meaning
of it all. That my sins were erased, completely, 100%, because of the immense
love and jealousy that God has for me.
Why do so many of us never feel this joy? Is that why so
many are half hearted Christians? Thinking their only duty is to fill a pew on
a Sunday? Maybe teach a bible study? Why are we not excited about our faith?
We see in the parable that when the man finds his sheep,
the woman her coin, and the father his son, they all call their friends and
throw a party! They are excited about finding what they lost!
Why is there a lack of excitement when people find God? Both
in the person, and the people around them?
We even see in different times in the Gospels, people
have an encounter with Jesus, then just have to go tell others about him.
Why don’t we?
Get excited about life. Get excited about God. Get
excited about Jesus. Get excited about your salvation.
Show it to the world, and never lose it.
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