WHAT IS MISSING THESE DAYS?

Jeremiah 2:13

“For my people have committed two evils;

they have forsaken me,

the fountain of living waters,

and hewed out cisterns for themselves,

broken cisterns that can hold no water.”

I drove past a church whose outdoor sign read, CH  CH…What’s Missing? UR

Of course the question they were asking was where am I on Sunday morning?  But I sense that it’s more than me that is missing from that building on Sunday, and the rest of the week as well.  The church claims to be the Body of Christ, but does it really look like Jesus, saying what he would say, doing what he would do?  Mary Morrison, in her book Jesus: Sketches for a Portrait, says, “Jesus Christ is, for today’s multitudes and even for many of today’s disciples, the missing center of our faith – the Forgotten One of the twentieth century.”

Many folks carry his name, calling themselves Christians, but are like the prodigal son, who took his inheritance and traveled far away from his home, his father, his center of being.  He squandered his inheritance and the gifts given to him by his father, was left hungry and in need.  The people of the place he traveled to gave him nothing.  When individuals and churches leave their center of being and lose their identity, they will follow in the footprints of this prodigal son and will wind up in the same condition.

God, the Father gave Jesus, his Son as our inheritance. (John 1:12)  But what has been done with that inheritance?  If I take my inheritance, leaving the place I am meant to be to go to a far off place of illusion and empty promises, I will end up empty and in need, in a place where no one gives me anything.  The church without its inheritance from God will be empty, in need, and will not be able to give anyone who comes to its doors anything of substance and sustainability.  It will become, as many today are, empty buildings, void of life, love, peace, and joy.

The good news is, God longs for the return of his children.  When individuals and churches realize what they have left, what is missing in their lives and in their ministries, and return to God expecting nothing, his response will be as the father in the story.

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him”

(Luke 15:20-23).

This world is in need of Christians and Churches that are reflective of the “Word that became flesh and dwelt among us, the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).  That is Jesus.  Those who claim to be Christians; those who claim to be a church, need to speak, act, and BE like Jesus, the founder and perfecter of their faith.

“Have you seen Jesus my Lord?

He’s here in plain view.

Take a look, open your eyes.

We’ll show him to you.”