Daily Devotional

Out of Gas

By Julian Newman
This week's topic: A Life Of Success

Have you ever run out of gas? I have. It is such a frustrating feeling! It’s so frustrating because in almost every case it could have easily been avoided...because you don’t run out of gas on accident. You always run out of gas on purpose.

By putting off that quick pit stop at the local gas station (for a variety of reasons), you’re now stuck on the side of the road with no power to go anywhere. As bad and as frustrating as this is, what is even worse is when we ‘run out of gas’ in our relationship with Jesus.

Still living on the momentum of what Jesus did in our life 10 years ago, 5 years ago, 1 year ago (or even a week ago!), we have little passion for Him today. Long satisfied with a revelation of Jesus that has far out lasted it’s freshness, we have become indifferent, powerless and bored.

“Bored?”
Yes, bored.

I believe if we really got gut level honest, boredom would be a prevailing sentiment throughout a majority of Christians. Bored because there is no power. Bored because there is no momentum. Bored because there is no movement.

But the reason there isn’t power, momentum and movement isn’t God’s fault (though we often blame Him!). We aren’t moving because we’ve run out of spiritual fuel. We’ve become stagnant. We’ve allowed our God connection to devolve to a ‘Get out of Hell and Go to Heaven Free Card’.

That has become the sum total of our Christian faith...reducing Jesus to a cheap ticket.

As challenging as it is to face this truth, there is good news.

We CAN get our tank re-filled.
We CAN get back to authentic prayer
We CAN get back to a humble pursuit and seeking of the Presence and Power of God.
We CAN get back to esteeming the Word of God like…the Word of God.

It will require removing distractions, making hard choices, managing our life better. But if we can’t live an inspired Jesus-centered life that is bigger, more important, and of more value than all life’s crazy clutter…should we even be professing Jesus Christ in the first place?

The time has come for us to get off the side of the road and get back on the move. Let’s Go.

Scripture Of The Day: “..Revive us and we will call upon Your Name.” - Psalms 80:18 (NKJV)

Julian Newman is a husband, father, writer, artist and storyteller who serves as Lead Pastor of Renaissance Church in the greater Sacramento region. He has passion for creativity, innovation, leadership, outreach and evangelism, mentoring, the arts, reading and teaching the bible. Find him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/JulianNewman…

Subscribe to receive the SF Daily Devotional in your inbox each morning!