“For as the body without the spirit is dead ….” James 2:26
When I was a punk kid on the streets of Jersey, I joined the Boy Scouts with several of the other kids off the streets. We had a great time playing basketball and fooling around. Every once in a while, they would send us to camp just to get us off the streets. We had no interest in the Boy Scouts motto or doing good deeds; we just wanted to have fun.
One day they brought an official to visit us who asked us why we had joined the Scouts. Thinking I was supposed to give some kind of proper response, I spouted off a phony high-sounding answer that I thought was pretty intelligent.
“Very nice”, the official answered. “Anyone else?”
One of the guys quipped in response, “Yeah, we just want to go camping and have fun.”
Forty-five years later, I am still struck with the honesty of that kid’s answer. We weren’t there to become model citizens – we were just there to have fun.
When someone asks me today why I have chosen to serve the Lord in spite of all the challenges it brings, I think back to that kid’s answer.
I could give you all sorts of correct answers. I could quote a long list of Bible proofs; I can enumerate intricacies of prophetic fulfillments; I can list all the consequences of sin and the wonderful rewards for righteousness; and I can fill an evening with high-sounding theology; but none of those are right.
The truth is, I just want to have fun.
I would have never become a Christian if it were simply a matter of right and wrong. I didn’t want to be good – there didn’t seem to be much point in it – and I didn’t care that somebody had died for me. Besides, I didn’t believe in God anyway, so why would I even entertain the idea of becoming some sour-pussed “goody-two-shoes”. Sin didn’t seem so bad to me, and the world offered so many enticing opportunities that serious Christianity shunned. I honestly could not figure out why anyone would want to be a Christian.
But then I got saved.
I didn’t know what “saved” was, and had never heard of being “born-again”, but something drew me down to the altar that night to give my life to Christ. I had no idea there was a Spirit of God, never mind being able to feel it, but when I went through that old-fashioned prayer of repentance and the heavens opened up, I actually felt the Spirit of God come down and save my soul. I tasted of the glory of God in that moment on my knees, and nothing was ever the same again!
So why do I serve the Lord? Because it feels so good! Why do I read and pray so much? So I can walk in His Spirit and feel the Holy Ghost. Nothing fancy; nothing high-falutin’; nothing sophisticated and proper – I just love that feeling! There is Life in the presence of the Spirit of God that cannot be duplicated by anything in this world, and I, for one, am hopelessly addicted to it.
When I walk into a church that is not alive with the Spirit of God, there is a deadness in the air. It’s almost as if they are going through the motions, but don’t know why. If there is no Spirit of God, then there is no Life, and if there is no Life, then why bother? They have a body, but no spirit; it looks like the real thing, but it is dead; they go to church and call themselves Christians, but they just go through the motions and are missing out on the whole reason they got saved in the first place.
… and I think back to that kid’s answer so many years ago.
I want to be in a church that is alive with the Spirit of God; not some tomb that has all the right answers, all the proper theologies, and all the correct traditions, but no life. I want to taste the Glory of God.
Nothing else will do.
[This article is an excerpt from
“Revival in the Wings”, vol. 4 of the Voice in the Wilderness series –
Available on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Voice-Wilderness-Revival-Wings/dp/1734221348]
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Excellent Dale. I had that same experience about a month after you.