Passionate for Jesus?

Someone once told me that the greatest evangelists are people who have just been saved. Don't you think that's sad?

It's wonderful that someone who has only just been converted is passionate about the gospel, but what does it say - to us as Christians, and to non-Christians - about those who have been Christians for longer? I fear that it says that, the longer we are Christians, the lower our passion for Christ. God forgive us!

I was converted in my mid-thirties. I remember wishing at the time that I had known Christ all my life, but I did notice that those who had been Christians many years often displayed a lack of satisfaction with their lives, and a weariness, and even a resentment towards new Christians. To illustrate, a Christian man whom I knew told me one day about new people coming into his Church full of joy. I remember the bitterness on his face as he expressed the view that their joy would not last and they would soon lose their ardency for Christ and the faith. I could see how he envied their fervour, but rather than seeking it, he reassured himself that they would soon be a miserable as he was.

Can it really be true that our joy in Christ, in the gospel, is inversely proportionate to the length of time that we are Christians? Perhaps the key lies in whether we are growing as Christians. Over the lockdown, a plant in my husband's office died. He did not go into his office often enough to keep it alive. How sad a sight it was, to see the brown leaves and broken branches. We can be like that plant, dried up and dying. Is this the way that we honour Jesus?

When we become Christians we are diving into a bottomless ocean, not jumping into a puddle. We are sitting down to a magnificent feast, not crumbs. In Ephesians 3:8 Paul says, "To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,"

The Bible exhorts us to seek the Lord with all our heart, to taste and see that the Lord is good, to hunger and thirst for Him. If we do these things our love for Jesus will grow, get deeper, even (perhaps especially) in our trials. If we don't, then like a plant that is not watered, we will wither as Christians. And when non-Christians see that in us, what will they believe about the value of Christ?

But how, exactly, do we grow as Christians? Well, how do you get to know anyone? You seek him out, you learn about him, you spent time with him, you ask questions of him and listen to him. You enjoy his presence.

The more you know Jesus, the more you will want to know him, and the more you will love him. It is impossible to know him personally and not love him for his grace, his mercy, his compassion, his wisdom, his holiness, his utter perfection. And the greater your love for him, the greater your joy in him will be, whatever is going on in your life. Of course, if you don't increase in your knowledge of him, the remembrance of the joy you had when you first became a Christian will not sustain you, and like the unwatered plant, your faith will shrivel and your passion for Christ will grow dim.

If you are feeling dry, dive into the ocean and learn more of the unsearchable riches of Christ, feel your ardour for him grow, and your light will shine ever brighter.