Jesus First

I don’t know any gentle way to say what follows.

How dedicated are you to Jesus?

Is it only when it’s convenient?

When the weather is nice?

Or when the weather is bad (because in nice weather, you need to be out doing something)?

When you feel like it?

When you wake up with that good feeling and God seems like some more fuzzy?

When you desperately need help and all human resources are gone?

When you’re not sleeping in?

How dedicated are you to Jesus?

Tonight, it was below freezing, spitting snow and rain. I was driving the bus for the kids. There, crossing Broadway at Loudon were Jazmen and Deneisha. Jazmen has cerebral palsy, is in a wheelchair. She rolls to church Wednesday and Sunday. No matter the weather.

She and Deneisha just want Jesus. They want to be around Jesus’ people more than Jesus’ people want that. I do not know anyone who wants it more. I need a truck that we can get her wheelchair in so she won’t have to freeze on the way.

They froze on the way.

Plenty of people will be warm and comfortable staying away.

Jazmen and Deneisha can’t give any money. And yet, we need them more than we need anyone with money but any less dedication than them.

It’s funny; George Strunk explained the “death spiral” to me. It’s when a church starts growing, adds staff to add programs and then has to raise more money to get more staff for more programs. It’s a death spiral because generally speaking, you don’t grow with sold-out Christians. Mostly, they are occasional worshippers, not involved in much. They give sporadically, but tend to receive ministry at high levels from staff and programming. So you have to get a lot of them to support the staff and programs that you attracted them with. The trick is to stay a few steps ahead of the death spiral. (And here my topological metaphor is no doubt crashing. But you get the point.)

There is a way off the spiral. It’s the downward way of Jesus, and all you need are the Jazmens and Deneishas.