Read the transcript from today's video devotional.
One time, I was at a concert event and there was no assigned seating. Bless his heart, this young guy was literally sitting in a chair for a 9:30 in the morning concert. He got there at 4:00 in the morning just to be the first one in, so he could watch his favorite artist performing.
I love that mentality of, just can't wait to see this person and sit as close as I possibly can. Now imagine with me that we put out an announcement, or someone puts out an announcement that Jesus Himself will be at an event for one day and one day only. Imagine if the word went out that He was actually going to be live and in person at an event.
Think about the young man who arrived at 4:00 in the morning. I think people would probably stand in line for days, if not as soon as they found out they would travel there and wait until He arrives. I can't even imagine what that would look like.
The Promise of His Presence
With this frame of mind, let's look at our Verse of the Day in Matthew chapter 18 verse 20:
For where two or three gather together as My followers, I am there among them. Again, For where two or three gather together as My followers, I am there among them.
What does that look like for us? We hear this verse and may think, okay, I've been to church, I've been around Christians, and you know what? I definitely did not see Jesus. I did not see Jesus in them at all. Okay, but let's take a quick step back.
Gathering in His Name
Sometimes we can tend to "church-ify" things or "religify" things. Let’s think about this. It says, Where two or three are gathered together as My followers and other translations use gather together in my name. A lot of times when we get together as Christians, we may gather together in the name of a denomination. We may gather together in the name of a church. We may gather together in the name of a pastor or a worship leader or something else. Many times we can gather together in my name or your name, making it about us.
Imagine if we start really gathering together as His followers, gathering together in His name. That changes the dynamic, doesn't it?
Our Role in Seeing Jesus
When we talk about this verse, when we want to see Jesus—we so desperately want to see His presence and we want to see Him amongst each other. We want to look for Him in every other place. It's actually our role to spend that time with Him. Just like Moses coming down from the mountain after he got the commandments and the people knew by the look on his face, they knew by God's glory shining from his face that he was in the presence of God.
Imagine if we looked at our verse like this. If we took the time that we got in His presence, and we were so passionate about having Jesus pour into us, that we focused on spending time with Him so that when we come together, we can't help but see Jesus in each other. That's the beauty of the body of Christ.
The Body of Christ in Action
He is the head. We're the body. As we come together collectively, we are all functioning together, that we see the presence of the head amongst our different parts of the body. Imagine what that could look like. Then it doesn't become about, I'm following this pastor. I'm following this worship leader. I'm following this belief or this denomination.
I am a follower of Jesus Christ and Jesus is pouring into me. It's His presence that's reflected back to others around me. It's not based on my agenda. It's not what I'm looking for or what I want out of you. It's about the fact that we have been with Jesus.
When we get together, it's a celebration of seeing the presence of Jesus amongst us. Wouldn't it be great if we had lineups to spend time together to see Jesus in our midst.
Take Time With Him
I would encourage you to take some time with Jesus. Let His presence pour into you so that when we gather together, we can see that we have been in His presence and we bring Jesus into our midst. Take time with Him today.
