The Simplicity That is Devotion

The following Walk With Jesus commentary is copyrighted and written by Jim Reynolds, pastor of First Baptist Church, LaGrange, Missouri. I receive e-mails nearly weekly from him. My husband Jim and I worship at First Baptist/LaGrange when in the area.

Sometimes, I just have to tell you what is going on. As you know, I now serve as one of the volunteer staff of writers for the online publication Heartbeat the Magazine. Each month, we are given a theme; we are free to stray from the focus of the month, but it is a nice help. September is the magazine’s second anniversary (didn’t realize I’d gotten in so close to the ground floor!) and we were encouraged to write about “Starting Fresh,” “New Beginnings,” “A New Life” etc… “Straying” a bit, I strongly felt that I should use the opportunity to revisit my first letter. When new subscribers come on board, I send a personal greeting and Letter #1 because it explains everything behind why I do what I do. To be honest though, I hadn’t really read that first letter in quite some time… perhaps not even once since I first sent it to a handful of subscribers almost 4 years ago.

If you have never had the experience, it is quite amusing and a little annoying for God to use your own writing to bring conviction. If you will recall, WWJ refers to a picture God gave me many years ago. To oversimplify (if you want to read the whole thing again, either write prov2525@socket.net and ask for Letter #1 to be re-sent… or wait for the Sept. 7th edition of Heartbeat) I saw myself on a dusty road… trudging along with little purpose or enthusiasm. Looking up, I spied a magnificent city in the distance. From earlier experiences with our Father, I knew this city represented my future, my ministry, my destiny. Like most of us would, I tried to run, but was stopped quite forcefully by an outstretched arm. Frustrated, I started to bat it away, but then noticed the unmistakable scar… and realized that Jesus Himself had stopped me. Then, He began pointing to the ground and showing me diamonds… blessings and experiences I would have missed had I continued to run away. Opening His hand once more, He invited me to “walk WITH Him.” Staying with Him and enjoying His Presence and His guidance is far easier than running ahead, far more fun than lagging behind, and I dare not go against Him. Besides, if I stick with Him, we will get to the city… and I will arrive with my pockets full of diamonds.

There is, as I said, more to the story, but God convicted me that I had abandoned – to some degree – the “simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ” (2 Cor. 11:3.) I have become far too “results” oriented… too focused on the city and no longer drawing joy from the Way to the city. John 14 still makes me smirk. When Jesus tells His disciples that they “know the way where He is going,” I think Thomas scratched his head and blurted out, “Wait a minute! We don’t understand what’s going on. You keep talking about leaving us and death and yet You say You’re also unveiling a Kingdom… We have no idea what You are doing or where You are going! How can we possibly know the way?!” Then Jesus speaks those famous words, “I AM the Way…” How quickly we forget that simple truth. Walking WITH Him is how we get where we are supposed to go. Of course, it is not always that simple. We lose sight of our Guide… we question His direction… the path grows fuzzy… the forks in it too numerous… But there are plenty of times when we… okay, I… miss the first joy of being a disciple. Mark 3:14 – “He appointed twelve… that they might BE WITH HIM.”

Since it seems I have some work to do along these lines, I turned to another man’s writing. He has since joined the God he served for so many years, but his son, Rob, continues to publish his Dad’s writings. (If you would like to read more, go to http://www.todayseries.org/ To read the entire article I quote from below, go to http://todayseries.org/archives/2008/07/the-simplicity-that-is-in-chri-1.html Jeff Floyd was always an inspiration… and these words really ministered to my “conviction.”

The Christian life can become so complicated and mundane that we lose sight of the simplicity that is in Christ. In the early years of my ministry He was all I knew. It was never my desire to be philosophical, psychological or even theological.
(Might I, Jim, add, it was also never my primary desire to be known, “successful,” or influential.) I just wanted to know Him. I could relax in Him and draw from His wonderful love and benevolent care as I heard His voice saying: "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy ladened and I will give you rest."

Men are rarely satisfied with the simplicity that is in Christ. It is a quirk of human nature that men design a Jesus which fulfills their own specifications, expectations, and imaginations. Jesus once asked the disciples who men said that He was. Their answers were
interesting. The most common answer had Jesus being the reincarnation of one of the prophets. It seems inevitable that men will have Jesus to be different from He is or less than He is. This will always be true when men view Him with eyes other than what the Holy Spirit gives them.

It is human nature to make the simple complicated. We preachers can turn a single word into a three point message--complete with introduction, exposition, poem and conclusion. When we get through we may have educated the mind but until Christ is revealed that is all that happens. I am convinced that much of what we write and speak would be unnecessary if men were made more aware of the presence of Christ. Long forgotten practices of piety need to be restored to the Christian life.
Generally speaking, probably the least practiced part of piety is that of prayer. Many questions of understanding, faith and obedience are answered when we spend quality time with Jesus. It is much easier to talk about prayer--to read and write books about it--than it is to practice it. Without
the continual practice of prayer our faith becomes a definition rather than a practice and our walk a struggle of human will rather than one of divine enablement. God loves us enough, however, to use whatever method it takes to bring us back to the simplicity that is in Jesus. Now is the time and today is the day. Let us seek Him with all of our hearts, forgetting all complicated notions of religion---simply clinging to Christ in His simplicity.

In the middle of all this “heart work,” God showed me yet another WWJ type verse. I close with this… and pray that these words again become the “desire” of my heart: Isaiah 26:8 -- Yes, LORD, walking in the way of Your laws, we wait for You; Your name and renown are the desire of our hearts. I like part of it even better in a different translation: We’re in no hurry, God. We’re content to linger... Who You are and what You’ve done is all we’ll ever want.


Walk WITH Jesus,
Jim