The Rev. Dr. Michael Youssef: “What Does Jesus Think…about your relationship with Him?”
I have heard about Dr. Michael Youssef for years, since his Church of the Apostles in Atlanta is only about 150 miles from where I live. But I have to admit I don’t know much about Church of the Apostles; I know it is “evangelical Anglican” but I don’t even know what denomination of Anglicans it belongs to, if any.
That being the case, I still found this message by Dr. Youssef (who studied at Moore Theological College in Australia) to be worthy of thought. It is based on Revelation 3:15-16 and as Dr. Youssef says, we today have our spiritual blind spots just as did those in the Church of Laodicea:
Today Jesus asks you, “Are you realistic about your spiritual condition? Are you smug or self-satisfied with where you are spiritually? Are you resting on your worldly reputation? Do you place your confidence in material possessions?”
Beloved, the truth is every one of us—including this pastor—has blind spots. The question is how we deal with our blind spots when Jesus alerts us to them.
A godly person is grateful and then examines his life before the Lord. An ungodly person becomes angry. And a third group of people do nothing at all. They don’t react one way or the other. They are half-hearted towards God.
Truly, this is something we should all seek to avoid: being “lukewarm” in our walk with Christ. May we heed the warning of Jesus in the Book of Revelation, lest He find us lukewarm and literally distasteful to Him.
I just this evening read a short story with a title from the “lukewarm” passage and it suddenly occurs to me (although it was otherwise a very good story) that it had nothing whatsoever to do with its title.
Apart from that, it is encouraging that the questions he identifies Jesus as asking today, are the same he has always asked.
As God says in Malachi 3:6, “I am the LORD; I change not.” His expectations of us do not change, do they? Thanks for that thought.