Jesus Calling

A neighbor walked up to a teenage boy and asked him what he knew about Jesus. The teen replied, "Not a whole lot. Maybe I need to look into that."

Walking home from his part time job, this teenager heard someone on the street sharing about Jesus desiring to save everyone. He heard the words, "If you do not know how to be saved, call out to God by saying, 'God be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.'" As he walked home, he could not get those words out of his mind. Arriving home, he went straight to the attic to think about these things. These thoughts about God, about life, about himself, about sin, brokenness and death excited him, haunted him and filled him. Late one evening, this teenager, A. W. Tozer, walked out of that attic a new creation in Christ in 1915. He experienced God adopting him into Jesus' family. He described it as such a profound change that it opened his mind to intellectual curiosity and a ravenous hunger to know God.

With a packed home of eight family members and many boarders, Aiden Wilson Tozer, claimed the dirty, unused space behind the furnace as his place to talk with God and study the Bible. His sister would hear strange noises in the basement. She went down to find out what was going on. It was Aiden crying out to God to know Jesus, for his family to know Jesus and for the people in his life to know Jesus.

I love to be reminded of how Jesus steps into individual peoples' lives. It is so good to be reminded that Jesus is still touching one person at a time; sometimes through a neighbor putting a hand on a shoulder and at other times a stranger on the street.

As we are reminded about Jesus still moving, what might we do to be energized by God? What is Jesus calling us to right now? What is He whispering to you?

"I miss you." 
"Drink deeply into My Fountain of Life, The Word."
"Let's just sit awhile." 
"Let's talk about it (that elephant in the room)."
"Experience My love." 
"Stand strong." 
"Don't give up." 
"Keep asking." 
"Watch out." 
"Here it comes, be ready."
"Go and have that hard conversation that you have been avoiding."
"That person needs some help. Go."

Let's go to our space behind the furnace, deeply connect with God and emerge with a ravenous hunger to do whatever Jesus is leading us to do.

Ps 63 "You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. I cling to you; your right hand upholds me. Those who want to kill me will be destroyed; they will go down to the depths of the earth. They will be given over to the sword and become food for jackals. But the king will rejoice in God; all who swear by God will glory in him, while the mouths of liars will be silenced."

Praying for deep encounters with God for all of us,
Pastor Chris

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