LRC, Houston - the weekends-free church in Houston, Texas

Don’t you wish there were some formulas for being holy, knowing God, understanding life, and living as spirit beings having a human experience? Well REJOICE because there are at least a dozen formulas for every aspect of life. There’s just one problem: they don’t work!

And yet the church continues to play follow the leader (the world) and we crank out yet another Seven Steps to the secular Seven Habits, and tens of millions of copies are sold: more millionaire writers are created. But wait (as the TV commentator tells us), BUY NOW and you can also get the Journal in addition for an eight dollar savings! What a place to live- America! I’m not making fun of any author, but we the public who have bought in to formulas that don’t, and can’t work.

Getting to know God doesn’t have a formula because every kid relates to their natural father differently- and thus to the spiritual father as well. As Donald Miller wrote in his book, Searching for God Knows What, “If we are going to get to know God, it is going to be a little more like getting to know a person than practicing voodoo”. Well, duh!

It’s so much easier for the estrogen crowd than us pseudo-macho testosterone crowd. But, that excuse aside, we all have to realize that we must have a GUIDE, but he won’t be one to give us formulas. Most often that true guide is there to pick us up when we fall, encourage us when we are down, and answer most of our questions with questions. I know, it’s not what sells these days, but it does work! How else can we really grow IN HIM?

Let me encourage you as we close out this year. If you’ve not already done so, put “intimacy with Jesus” on your personal mission statement for ‘06 (if not at the top of it). Get to KNOW Him in a way you’ve never known before. Pour out all the passion you have, and didn’t know you had, and fulfill Matt. 22:37-40 in your life in ‘06! And it’s my prayer that God will use these daily commentaries to help guide you towards that mission.