All About Jesus

We all need light to see. What is it that you want, or are wiling to see. I want to see Jesus.

Test blog

We live in a generation that accounts information to be wisdom, technique to be principle, psychology to be insight, the immediate to be priority, diversion as desirable, and toil as drudgery.

Reflection is not engaged in sufficiently so as to transcend beyond superficial silly application and thus we have not known universal transforming spiritual principles of substance.

Mega and Meta issues are rarely given a passing thought. Why are you here? What’s it all about? Does it make any difference? Am I really a random bio-chemical machine?

We do not engage in the deepest strata of life simply due to our not having grasped the deepest strata of eternal reality.

Untrustworthy politics, science, and superficial religion prevail, and so we subsist in quiet despair, hopes wane, and no worthwhile legacy continues to the next generation.

How shall we be delivered from this suffocating death? Only by commitment to Jesus Christ and the eternal truth of the Bible.

Luke 10:42

Devotion to Christ has been cast into the dust bin of our religion. Success, prosperity, and fulfillment are the carnal objects we now seek.

We are no different than the church of Laodicea who thought themselves to be rich, increased in goods, with need of nothing. It makes Christ sick.

In our fake religion we are unlike our God. We neither know Him nor are particularly concerned to do so. Like Martha, many other things occupy us replacing communion with Him.

The self-occupied Marthas of the world presume to command the Lord and expect Him to comply. Luke 10:40: “She came up to Him and said, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone?  Then tell her to help me.’"

Martha imagines that her Lord is just like she is, but He is not. He is unknown by her. His heart remained hidden to her hurried footstep. Luke 10:41: “Distracted with much service” and “worried and bothered about so many things” was the Lord’s description of her.

The coming day of Judgment will reveal many things done poorly. For some, it will show a few things done well. Fewer still will have a testimony of having done the one necessary thing in all of life. “One thing is necessary” (Luke 10:42).

Here is a definitive statement of what is essential. This must be done; all else is optional and, at best, secondary.

We do not live this way. Devotion to Christ is not the compelling passion of our souls, yet it is the only necessary thing. Nothing else truly matters. 

Yet we have not chosen this. We have run after foolish things which shall be taken away from us.

Lk.10:42: But “Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.” It will abide with her throughout everlasting day.

Devotion to Christ is the only portion that a mortal soul will not have taken from him when he leaves this earth. It is eternal life. Knowing the only true God is necessary; nothing else in all of life falls into this category.

The categories are but two; necessary and unnecessary. Devotion to the Lord Jesus is all one will find in the first category. Everything else in life will be found in the second.

This is a shattering reality to any honest heart. To this busy and superficial generation, it will only significantly trouble them when standing naked before the God they have not known.

Devotion to the Lord Jesus cannot begin then. Eternal life, knowing God, can only have its origin here on earth. It is the exclusively necessary thing now in this life.

All else is vanity. If nothing essential and hence truly worthwhile is discovered in the vast array of your life’s activities, all is loss. The tragedy of an irrelevant and wasted existence will overwhelm you in a single horrifying instant. In a blinding flash of clarity on the last day, you will realize that one thing has been necessary all along.

But regret then will not save us. Devotion to the Lord Jesus is a matter for the moment, and every moment thereafter, here upon earth.

Dear listeners, you are worried and bothered about many things. They will be taken from you. They have no lasting value. They can neither rescue you at the Judgment nor satisfy you in the present.  Only one thing is necessary.

Disturbed as we may be by this, few of us will do anything about it.

There are two main reasons for our lack of devotion to the Lord Jesus. First, we do not believe that He is worthy.  Second, we do not believe that we are as evil as we are.  These are the roots of the matter.

Devotion is not by force, it is voluntary. No one can compel another to be devoted, it is a matter of the heart. Participation in habitual religious gatherings does not qualify as devotion to Christ.

The real question is this: How much is Christ worth? This is the fundamental question when assessing devotion. Of what value is the Lord Jesus to us?

This is the secret and the mystery of devotion. The Lord Jesus is worth all. Nothing is to be withheld from Him; nothing is to remain clutched to the bosom of self.

Who is the Lord Jesus Christ to you? Of what value is He? Is He worthy of a total and complete devotion in an abandonment of self?

Our devotion is sickly because our thoughts of the Lord are lowly while our esteem for self is highly inflated. We love little because we have been forgiven little.

Involvement in your religion may actually blind you to your true need as it did to this religious leader. Luke 7:42-47: Jesus asked him, “Which of them will love him more? Simon answered and said, ‘I suppose the one whom he forgave more.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You have judged correctly. He who is forgiven little, loves little.’”

The estimation of our own guilt determines our response to the Lord Jesus. Simon the religious ruler was actually no better off than the harlot, except in his own deluded pride. What is needed is a clear perception of the nature and reality of our own sinfulness.

The woman wept in acute bitterness over her wretchedness. The Pharisee reclined with Jesus thinking to himself that all was well with him. She was painfully conscious of her condition; he remained in delusion and darkness. The woman judged herself, the Pharisee judged her and the Lord Jesus both, but not himself.

He imagined that he needed nothing. The truth is that he was a hypocritical son of hell (Matthew 23:15). Actually, he was a blind fool full of self-indulgence (Matthew 23:17,25). If he would see himself clearly, he would know that he was a whitewashed tomb full of all uncleanness and soon to be damned (Matthew 23:27,33).

But he did not think of himself in this manner. He therefore did not weep. He did not kiss the feet of the Lord Jesus. Neither was he forgiven; neither did he love.

He thought much of himself and little of the Lord. He was devoted to his religion and his place therein, but he was not devoted to Christ.

Tearless saints lack devotion to the Lord Jesus. When have you last wept over your sinfulness in the corrupt depths of your inner self?  Do you kiss His feet as the sinner you are, or recline at His head in deceived acceptability? Or worse yet, do you command the Lord as if He were your small errand boy?

Judas the betrayer kissed the Lord, but not His feet. He later felt remorse but shed no tear. He had a form of godliness but denied the power thereof. Judas appeared outwardly as a disciple, but he was not. Psalms 2:12: “Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish from the way.”

Tears and kisses are not optional. One abides a Simon, or worse yet, a Judas, in their absence. There is no forgiveness apart from them. You will love but little, if at all.

Dear listener, how much is the Lord Jesus worth to you? What occupies the inner workings of your heart? Are you devoted to the one necessary thing in life?

It is left for you to decide; no one can do that for you. “One thing is needful” (Luke 10:42).

©Steve Phillips 2019