This past Sunday, I talked about our value of Learning at Eternity and simply asked the question: “When you die and you open your eyes and see Jesus, Is He going to be a stranger to you?”

This morning, my own question hit me upside the head. These past few weeks have been amazingly exciting. We are preparing for our first public gathering on March 1st. Our children’s area has been transformed and looks amazing. Our room where we will gather to worship together has come together nicely. We have seen new visitors come and be a part of our group. Our folks have continued to be very generous financially. The teaching of God’s word has stirred questions and passions in the folks who have heard. Our community groups have started off nicely and are looking promising. In short, Eternity is fantastic.

Marc, however, has begun to show signs of wear. It’s always amazing to me that the busier I get, the quicker that my passion for Jesus wanes. And I can tell you that as I look around at the Christians I encounter who are seemingly dead spiritually, the number one factor that I can point to is their schedule. It is so easy for us to get wrapped up in what we are doing and the “tyranny of the urgent” that we forget whose show this really is!!!

And so we begin, subtle it may be, to live for the applause of men. We may not even recognize that we’re doing it but we start worrying about winning man’s approval rather than resting and basking in the approval of Jesus. We start sacrificing our own learning and renewal for the completing of tasks. We start believing that it has to be done now and that if it’s not, calamity will ensue. What we don’t understand is that by neglecting our own souls, we are speeding the greatest calamity of all - the freezing and deadening of own passions. We may get a lot done, but in the end we’re going to be pissed off, burnt out, on edge, angry, hurt, suspicious, fried, and disillusioned.

And what we’ll discover is that we traded the completion of a to-do list for the most important things in our lives. We’ll be standing in the middle of a nicely-built house and hate the fact that we have to live in it.

I so want to protect my own soul from the deadening effects of doing. I want to “do” amazing things for our family, for our church, for our city, for our state, for our world but I don’t want it to come at the expense of my own heart. I love Jesus and when I stay focused on Him - there is a passion in my heart and in my life that I pray is infectious. But just as my passion for Jesus can run white hot, when my passions have waned and I am burnt out, my cynicism and my negativity can be just as infectious - only far more deadly.

I fought myself this morning to get up and spend time nourishing my own soul. I understood that if I am to nourish the souls of those at Eternity - I must nourish my own first. It was a battle. And by God’s grace I got out of bed and spent time being renewed this morning. I am glad I did. I pray that battle is won every day!!!