I’ve been reading through the gospel of Matthew recently and one thing I noticed is that there were often people that surrounded Jesus that didn’t stick around for long. One instance of this is when Jesus feeds over 4,000 people (Matt 15:29-39). He went up on a mountain and people followed Him. He healed people and they listened to Him teach for 3 days without eating. Before Jesus sends them away, He feeds all of them from just a few loaves of bread and a few fish. After all of this, what happens to all these people?
Then in Matthew 16 the religious leader ask Jesus for a sign so they can believe in Him. They want some sort of miracle before they will believe (as if He hasn’t performed enough already).
All over the gospels are people who experience the power of Jesus but then are nowhere to be seen later. So I asked God what was up with this. He answered and said that these people were in it for an experience. They were in it to get what they needed out of it.
In his song, Can’t Live Without You, Sean Curran sings, “The deeper I go, the deeper You’re calling me.” Something that God has been showing me lately is that I’ve barely scratched the surface of who He is. Yes I know God is a big, big God with a big, big house (with lots and lots of rooms). But in all of my time serving Him, I’m not sure that I’ve lived like I actually believed that.
Christian culture has become all about the experience (so much so that some churches call their services “experiences”). God has been convicting me to not be a person that is just wanting to experience Jesus. So many people in the gospels that experience Jesus end up walking away later. There is a much greater depth God wants to take me to.
The problem with just wanting to experience Jesus is that when it is about what I experience, it is about me. Any Christian would tell you that that isn’t what we should strive for, but the problem is that not many have actions that back it up. In his book, The Jesus Creed, Scot McKnight says, “Nothing is more important for the development of love than being loved.” When I move from experiencing God to pursuing Him, I learn more and more about His love. As I go deeper in Christ, I find more and more revelation about His love for me. The more I learn about His love, the more I am able to love others.
It is humbling to realize that I am still in the shallow end when I thought I was swimming in the deep end, but it’s also exciting to know there is so much more than I ever thought.