IF JESUS HAD ONE HOUR AT YOUR CHURCH

One of my dear friends and colleague and a great pastor wrote this to me recently:

If Jesus (in his physical body) had one hour to visit any of our churches. One hour to do any type of ministry. I don’t think he’d preach a sermon, I don’t think he’d do the tasks of ministry, I don’t think he’d heal everyone, I don’t think he’d try to meet everyone’s needs. If he had just one hour, I think he’d simply pray. Walk around the church and pray. And yet, how easy it is for that to be the thing pastors so quickly neglect. (Jonathan Burgin, Pastor, The Summit Church Conway)

Who knows what Christ would do, but I have a feeling Jonathan is right on point. Why? When He visited His Father’s house in Jerusalem, (recorded in all three synoptic gospels) he observed what was going on one day and returned the next day and cleaned it out with a vengeance. His rationale was this:

“Is it not written, My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations? But you have made it a den of thieves!” (Mark 11:17)

Everything about the Temple was showing how sinful men can be cleansed and purified so they can enter into the presence of God and commune with Him. And that is simply prayer, the essence of communing with God in His presence. It was a house devoted foundationally and beautifully to prayer. And the current caretakers of the Temple were perverting its purpose and hindering the average seeker from learning how to enter God's presence through prayer.

EACH DAY

Further, observe Jesus in everyday life and ministry. He spent His three years in ministry in unceasing prayer. He mentions or models it 25 times in the brief accounts we have of His life. Jesus knew that communing with the Father (prayer) was the key to abiding in Him. Direction was received, clarity was given, power was unleashed to help and heal and teach. 

At several points in the gospel of John (five to be exact) Jesus said that He did nothing on His own initiative. He simply said what He heard His Father saying and did what He observed God doing. How did He hear and see those things? Prayer. In this way, God’s kingdom came and His will was done on earth as it was being done in heaven.

Prayer was not all He did, but it was the foundation of all He did.

If Jesus spent an hour at our churches, He might spend the final few minutes addressing each to give His evaluation and instructions, just as He did to the seven representative churches in Revelation 2-4. But those exhortations take a few minutes to read. They are precise and to the point. Beautiful in encouragement, corrective in instruction, coming straight from the throne of heaven. Straight from prayer.

But more than anything, if He came to our churches, I believe Jonathan is right. I believe He would bring His Father into the equation … and that only happens through prayer.

When will we learn?