Mission Drift

Anybody, like me, looking over your shoulder today and whispering, "Wow!... back then… when I got baptized, when I was packing meals for the homeless, when I invited Jesus into my life, when I attended that church retreat… Man, I was so lit up for Jesus!"

"But lately… I feel like I've drifted. I mean, I haven't crashed and burned, but my jets for Jesus have definitely cooled." Anybody know what I'm talking about? It's called: Mission Drift!

Without a doubt, the greatest and most subtle enemy of my walk with Jesus is mission drift -- the slow insidious erosion of my passion for Jesus. Consider Harvard University. In 1636, the University was founded by a minister to train ministers. Its founding Seal and Mission was "Truth for Christ and the Church." In Harvard's Rules and Precepts, it stated:

"First, let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well, the maine end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life (John 17:3) and therefore to lay Christ in the bottome, as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning and seeing the Lord only giveth wisdom, let every one seriously set himself by prayer in secret to seeke it of him."

And yet… Today, Harvard University is heralded around the world as a stronghold of humanism and secular thought. God has been dropped from the curriculum. What happened? Mission Drift! Over time, the University began to teach that truth could be found apart from God, and they elevated man above God as the ultimate authority… until… they eventually dropped "Christ and the Church" from their Seal and Mission altogether so that today it simply reads, "Truth."

Mission Drift can happen to you and to me just as easily as it did to Harvard.

Here's the rub: When we drift away from Jesus, we drift into trouble -- anxiety, selfishness, jealousy, lust, materialism, insecurity.

In Psalm 51, King David's sense of mission for God had been so severely eroded by comfort, neglect, distance, and desire that it wasn't until he was facedown in a pile of regret and grief that he cried out:

    Have mercy on me, O God,

         because of your unfailing love.

    For I recognize my rebellion,

         it haunts me day and night.

    Against you and you only have I sinned.

         I have done evil in your sight.

    Create in me a clean heart, o God.

         Renew a loyal spirit within me.

    Restore unto me the joy of my salvation

         and make me willing to obey You."

  - Psalm 51:1, 3, 4,1 0, 12

Listen… If you've looked around and realized, "Wow! I've drifted away from Jesus… I mean, I see the evidence of slippage everywhere…. " Stop the drift! Pray David's prayer! Step back into the joy of your salvation!

Recently, a fella asked, "Do I need Jesus to go to Heaven?" His friend smiled and said, "Brother, you need Jesus to go to Walmart!"

AMEN.

Pastor Harry

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