JESUS DIDN'T COME TO EARTH TO MAKE CHURCH-GOING WIMPS

Some live for the weekend.

Some live for the vacation.

Some live for Disneyworld.

What if we could have the sensation of all three....every day?

I think this is where Jesus makes the difference.

All can be given to good works for community needs.  And these surely bring about momentary satisfaction. But only in Jesus can one find elation and joy in both the rewarding times as well as bummer moments.

The visual of the cross is superior to good people doing occasional good things for good causes.  No, the cross shows us what a successful rough day looks like.  While each good deed we muster is valuable (and I engage in many), the emptiness of discouragement and depression still strike if we are tackling these efforts without the funding of God.

It is the Holy Spirit that gives us overwhelmingly good days when the days are good and also when days are bad (Romans 5:1-5).  The Spirit of Jesus transforms our lives; not just our Sunday's that we once (before committing to God) thought we had off.

I lived a Yo-Yo life too long...as a preacher.  Up and down.  Happy and sad.  On top of the world; then down in the valley.  My days did not reflect walking with God.  Rather they mirrored walking in self-effort to keep others and myself in good moods.  Failure!!

Today?  He changed it all.  One of my favorite sayings is, Don't you love right now?  My good friend, Darrin Patrick, is a terrific minister in the St. Louis area.  He says that we are to be the chief enjoyers of the world!  

Anybody and everybody can muster good deeds here and there.  And, we should. But doing good things and being good people won't give us consistently good life. We need a negotiating factor to help us through the high winds and beating storms.

What we need we can't provide; the ability to see the rose garden at the cemetery.  In other words, we need someone who has been beaten to pulp to show us how to not only survive our beatings; but to be unflinching in the process.

But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.  More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own....that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain the resurrection from the dead (Philippians 3:7-11).

The good person simply wants everything to go well.  Who doesn't?  And, how is this working for you?

Here's what works.  Lean into Jesus for he not only knows how to make life flow; he knows how to break the intimidating bonds of death---not just at the grave, but;---those stifling moments which wish to take us under.  He knows how to take our misery and transform it into our fuel.

Jesus didn't come to earth to make us church-going wimps.  He came that we could learn to transform every negative issue into valuable material for right now...as well as all days ahead.