In a world where there is so much emphasis put on religious activity and church growth, I am of the belief that we have left behind the most important stone in the foundation of our walk with Christ; personal devotion.  We have come to a dangerous place where we know how to do “church” and we have seminars on how to best “evangelize” the lost. The problem is many times we do these things without knowing the one we are talking about. Church does us no good if we don’t know Him ourselves.

God has been dealing with me for the last few months about personal devotion.  The importance of this has been lost throughout the years. We put more emphasis on how great our pastor is, or how awesome our church is then we do on how devoted we are to Christ and His work. We chase ministry and we chase opportunity, but we fail to chase Him.  If we desired personal relationship as much as we desired position, we would find ourselves turning the world upside down for Christ.  We expect the preacher to study The Word of God and have an awesome prayer life, so that we can show up and receive what he received from God.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.

Paul said …

^“ that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death”  Philippians 3:10 (NKJV)

Notice, Paul didn’t say He wanted to know about Him, but know Him. You can’t get to know Him through listening to preachers or reading books. Knowing Him only comes through personal devotion to Him.

I pray today that we all find ourselves longing for Christ more than we long for anything else.