Friday, July 24, 2015
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Sherry's family, who she loves very much, they live in Minnesota, and that's where Sherry lived. She had a home church and a place to work until she decided to move to Arizona. Why, you ask? Why would a young woman to-tally relocate her life to a place where she doesn't have a job and doesn't know many people? One reason: my youngest son. She was about to be his serious girlfriend. And Arizona would just happen to be where our son lived. He worked with Native American young people there. And it should come as no surprise that she wanted to be where the man she loves was. She rearrang-ed her whole life to be with him, and now she's our daughter-in-law!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Most Important Thing Jesus Asks You To Do."
We're going to begin with Mark 3:13. "Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to Him those He wanted, and they came to Him. He appointed twelve that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach..." This is kind of a drum roll moment. I imagine a lot of people wanted to be Jesus' disciples. And Jesus comes down after being with His Father and has His Father's names that really should be the ones who are His disciples. And I'm sure they're all wondering, "Who's He going to call?" And these guys – these twelve people that He calls – their lives will never be the same. Eventually because of what Jesus will do through these very ordinary men, the world will never be the same.
Now for the job description. That's what I want to know, man. Jesus has just said, "I'm on the team." What's my number one assignment? "He appointed twelve that they might be with Him," and then, "that He might send them out to preach." First and foremost, Jesus calls a disciple just to be with Him. And these 12 men rearrange their whole lives to be with Jesus.
That's still the calling of a disciple of Jesus Christ. It's the calling of someone like you who has decided to follow Jesus. The single most important thing Jesus is asking you to do is not to work hard for Him, not to believe all the right things about Him, not to do all the right things for Him. He's first and foremost asking you to be with Him - a lot!
Now for Sherry, it would take some major rearranging of her life to be able to be with our son. For the disciples to be able to be with Jesus regularly, you're talking a major rearranging of their lives. And you know what? It will probably mean some rearranging for you. But spending time with Jesus is the central core of the Christian life. Without that, it's just a religion. With it, it's a growing love relationship.
You are really a disciple of Jesus Christ when you make your daily time with Jesus the non-negotiable of your personal schedule. The truth is that your "with Him" time tends to get crowded out of your daily activities, doesn't it? Satan knows that's the heartbeat; it's the power source of your relationship with Christ. So guess what? Your enemy throws out all kinds of distractions and obstacles and reasons not to have that Jesus time. He'll use everything from laziness to busyness to stress to people you love to keep you from doing what matters most to Jesus - being with Him.
Making your Jesus time a non-negotiable will probably mean rearranging some things. In a very busy life, something's got to go if there's going to be room for Jesus. But the day you make the choice to do that is the day you are stepping up to really truly being a disciple of Jesus.
People in love will rearrange what they have to rearrange to be able to be together. I guess if you love Jesus, you'll do whatever you have to do to be with Him.