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"You Are Here"
Jon Burgess“Set up road signs; put up guideposts. Take note of the highway, the road that you take. Return, Virgin Israel, return to your towns.” Jeremiah 31:21
"Welcome Home" is the overwhelming message from our Lord to His people in this passage filled with promise. A message of gathering together to a people scattered apart. They had been a lost and wandering people and God is now calling them home. He does the heavy lifting- the restoring, refreshing, renewing, reviving. He does give them a responsibility in the response to all this. What is it? Put up signs. Make it clear through guideposts so that all who wander no longer have to wonder how to get home. In other words, don't just get home yourself, but make sure you are bringing others home with you. God knows that not all return at the same pace but He's calling all back to the same place! How will others find their way back to God? God's people must put up clear markers providing directions anyone can understand creating a clear pathway back into the presence of God.
How do I find my way home to God? This is the question every Christian must give our lives to answer for those around us. We know Jesus will turn their mourning in to gladness and give comfort for joy, but it's our job to help them find Him! How? The Holy Spirit in us and working through us and our story is a powerful sign post to the Savior. We must continue to think and pray through our creative communication of the Gospel of Christ to the lost and wandering around us. Have we made some permanent sign posts in a rapidly shifting landscape that stand the test of time? Maybe the location of those signs worked 10 years ago but the pathway of people moving through shifted to another location? The message of the sign stays the same, but the way we post the sign must constantly change. The word contemporary means "with temporariness". The Gospel- the good news that we are welcomed home- is timeless. The way we post our signs leading home must be contemporary. God will do the calling, convicting, & convincing. We must be the confirmation all along the way. It reminds me of when Cyndi and I recently walked into a Kmart. It was a massive store, lots of items for sale nad stacked high on shelves. We had gone in for one specific thing and found ourselves wandering the aisles in frustration. Why? Because, unlike other stores of this kind, like Target who are constantly changing the signs to provide better direction for the customer, this Kmart didn't have any signs at all. Let me clarify. It had a lot of signs shouting obscure things in bright colors like "blue light special" or "60% off" these items, but there were no directional signs on any of the aisles. We would stand at the front of one these eternal looking aisles and have no idea if what we were looking for was in this section. There were no directions or descriptions to show us the way. There were no "you are here" maps of the store to give us the big picture. We didn't want to commit to walking down the whole aisle if what we wanted wasn't on it, so we just wandered the periphery until we finally came upon what we were looking for. Why is the church having a hard time reaching the lost? The message hasn't changed. How we communicate that message must. People are walking into the wear house of spirituality trying to find the path to God. Instead of walking down an unmarked eternal aisle they stick to the periphery hoping to eventually bump into what they were seeking. We must provide more then loud sign advertising obscure programs. We must answer questions seekers are asking. Our lives, marked by Christ, must mark the aisles of our world through creative endeavors. Our lives, our programs and presentations must shout out to all who seek "You Are Here" on the map of life and show clearly, "God Is Here" for you! We don't have to be the Savior, just the sign that points the way home to Him!
We can't do this without You Holy Spirit. You were sent to bring glory, attention and direction to the Son. Let us work in conjunction with You, because You know exactly how to show the heart of the lost how to find home. Both inside the church and outside the church let my life be a bright marker in the night towards You!
