Get Him Up

“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.”

The preacher held the crowd spellbound as he eloquently and accurately presented his case for following Christ, but suddenly from the front row came a high pitched cry, “Get Him Up.” Time and again the preacher was interrupted until finally, totally flustered, he asked the belligerent what she wanted. She replied, “Get Jesus up. Lift Him.”

The gospels are replete with accounts of Jesus being crowded by people. There is something about Him which draws people to Him. There is also something about people which makes them realize their need of Him.

Today’s Post-Modern/Emergent church culture appears to seek to give people what they want in order to gain their loyalty to an organization, community, or purpose. But what the world needs in this age, as in all ages, is to meet Jesus. People still are drawn to Jesus. Where ever He is, people will come.

There is something about the human consciousness which recognizes our own inadequacies and longs to be fulfilled. Men have called that a Jesus sized emptiness which can only be sufficiently filled with Jesus Christ.

We talk about Him a great deal, but we somehow do not talk Him. It is not He who talks through us, but rather we seem to be drawing form our own well. Our problem is not that we need more of Jesus; We who are His have all of Him we need. Rather, we need to die to self so that Jesus will be made known through our lives. It was Jesus the people crowded; it was Jesus the people wanted; it was Jesus the people could not keep away from. And if we fill our lives with Jesus, the people will want to know about Him.

The world longs for the Jesus of the New Testament to be made known. Therefore, you and I, who name Christ as Lord, must dedicate ourselves to becoming transparent so that He might shine through us. The political, psychological, sociological, and financial activities we utilize as substitutes to alleviate our unease inevitably disappoint as we realize men are not being drawn to a life changing encounter with Jesus Christ through us. Christ must be in us, and the world must recognize it.

Perhaps you and I need someone who will remind us regularly to be sure to “Get Him Up!” My prayer today is that we will purpose to decrease even as He increases, so the world will the Jesus of The New Testament in us.