I am a freak when it comes to books. I only read non-fiction books though. If I am going to spend time reading, I want to be learning something. At any given time I am most likely reading between 3-5 books. I keep one in my car, one on the nightstand, one in the living room, and anywhere else I can squeeze in a couple of minutes to devour a couple of pages.
At the end of 2010 though, I made a decision. I will only read 2 books this year. The Bible and one other. Nothing else until the year is over.
This is why…..
John 1:35-42 "The next day John was back at his post with two disciples, who were watching. He looked up, saw Jesus walking nearby, and said, "Here he is, God's Passover Lamb." The two disciples heard him and went after Jesus. Jesus looked over his shoulder and said to them, "What are you after?" They said, "Rabbi" (which means "Teacher"), "where are you staying?" He replied, "Come along and see for yourself." They came, saw where he was living, and ended up staying with him for the day. It was late afternoon when this happened. Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was one of the two who heard John's witness and followed Jesus. The first thing he did after finding where Jesus lived was find his own brother, Simon, telling him, "We've found the Messiah" (that is, "Christ"). He immediately led him to Jesus…."
There was a time when Andrew was face to face with Jesus and he learned from Him, and then there came a time when Andrew left Jesus to go tell another about Him.
The goal of our life cannot be to soak up as much information as we can without applying what we have learned. Equally true is that our goal cannot be to spend all of our time trying to introduce people to Jesus without sitting under teaching to help us grow in our own knowledge of Jesus.
There is a time for teaching and a time for reaching and time must be allotted for both.
In the end, both sitting under teaching and reaching out to people are key in pointing people to Jesus and that is what we as Christians have been called to.
In Luke, Jesus called John the Baptist the greatest man who ever lived.
Do you know why?
Because the only thing John cared about was pointing people to Jesus.
I want to be like John the Baptist.
I want to point people toward Jesus…..but I can't do that if all I am doing is spending my time soaking in knowledge and I don’t get to the place where I step away from the teaching and go and apply what I have learned.
So maybe you need to spend more time under the teaching of someone, maybe you need to spend more time reaching out to people in your community. Wherever you are in the balancing act, I hope you find the center.....and I hope it helps you point people to Jesus.
