LOST AND YOU DON’T KNOW IT

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” the well-dressed woman confessed to us. “I do everything right: I pray, go to church every Sabbath, pay my tithe, study my Bible daily, but it’s all empty. I’ve never felt close to God.”

My mind wrestled with her words, and I began to ask myself some heart-searching questions: Is it good to pray?

Yes.

Is it good to worship and rest on the Sabbath day?

Yes.

Is it good to study your Bible?

Yes.

Can it be that you pray, you rest on the Sabbath, study your Bible, pay tithe, do all the good behaviours, and you are lost, but you don’t know that you are lost?

Yes.

Can you be in the church and be lost?

Yes. Like the lost coin in Jesus’ parable. It was lost in the house, but it didn’t know it was lost.

How do you know if you don’t know that you don’t know? Being deceived: you don’t know that you don’t know.

I came to understand that unless you do all these good behaviours WITH God, they have no value.

“There are those who profess to serve God, while they rely upon their own efforts to obey His law, to form a right character, and secure salvation. Their hearts are not moved by any deep sense of the love of Christ, but they seek to perform the duties of the Christian life as that which God requires of them in order to gain heaven. Such religion is worth nothing…. A profession of Christ without this deep love is mere talk, dry formality, and heavy drudgery” (Steps to Christ, pp. 44-45).

So, you cannot keep the doctrines of God unless you have the God of the doctrines in your life. The Jewish leaders in the time of Jesus prayed, diligently studied the holy scriptures, kept the Sabbath, ate no unclean food, worshipped in the sanctuary, but they killed the Son of God.

Jesus warned: “On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ But I will reply, ‘I never knew you’” (Matthew 7:22-23).

Jesus wants to know you, and He wants you to know Him.

The word “know” refers to relationship not ritual.

It’s possible to do all the good things to ease your conscience, to feel good about your performance, kind of a ritualistic check list: read your Bible – check; pray – check; go to church – check; pay your tithes and offerings – check.

But your heart isn’t in it.

There’s no connection.

You don’t know God, and you haven’t given Him a chance to get to know you. The lady in the Bible with the lost silver coin lit a lamp and searched diligently until she found that coin.

“Your Word is a lamp for my feet and a light on my path” (Psalm 119:105).

We prayed with the well-dressed woman who confessed that her religious rituals made her feel empty and distant from Christ, and then we searched the Word of God with her, and by its light she diligently examined everything in her life.

She honestly asked the LORD: “Am I lost, and I don’t know that I’m lost?”

In faith, she prayed this prayer: “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23-24).

She discovered that Jesus was not hiding from her. He had promised: “’And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you,’” (Jeremiah 29:13-14).

Within a week, that dear lady’s face was beaming. For years, fear, self-righteousness, judgmentalism, and pride had blocked the reception of God’s Holy Spirit from flowing freely into her heart. When she finally surrendered these detrimental character traits, the tears flowed, and her heart overflowed with love for Jesus.

She found exactly what she was looking for.

What about you?

Are you holding onto anything that is preventing you from being filled with God’s Holy Spirit?

Does love for Christ motivate you to get out of bed in the morning? Not asking how little you have to give, do you aim at achieving the highest standards to achieve perfect conformity to the will of your Redeemer? Do you love Jesus so much that you earnestly desire to share your faith with everyone you meet?

I encourage you to yield all and demonstrate an interest equal to the value of the treasure you seek.

Jesus assures you: “Whoever comes to me I will never cast out” (John 6:37).

~ Mike Lemon