Are you in relationship with God or with the church?

I remember when I started out in youth ministry, I was on fire for God. We would stay up all night having prayer meetings and never missed a time to worship or hear teaching on the word. I remember a few buddies and myself telling people we were "Jesus Freaks", yep "Jesus Freaks". That was around the time DC Talk had released that song. We wouldn't just soak up the experience either we were acting on the voice of God and being led by the Holy Spirit. You know that little tug at your heart or thought that enters your head quickly about helping someone or praying with them or sharing the love of God with them or giving something away that may be crazy in your mind but in your heart you knew it was the right thing to do and you would feel so good for doing it.

I know as we get older and have more responsibilities we can not do all the crazy things we used to do, but we should not lose that passion and love for God or lose the relationship with Jesus. Early in my ministry I learned this lesson hard, I lost that love and desire to see lives changed because I felt like I was performing each week, like I needed to meet peoples expectations. After I sat back and reflected I realized I had allowed my relationship with the church, or my ministry to replace my relationship with God, my father. You see this is very common among ministers, we spend time preparing a message or studying the word and other texts we don't keep up with our daily time with God, that one on one.

I had someone tell me once always remember 1. God, 2. Family and 3. Church. Now I understand what they were talking about, we have to protect that personal time with God, which is not to be replaced by doing things at the church or for the church this includes our ministries. A few good self examination questions to always ask yourself is:
-Why am I doing this?
-Do I truly know who Jesus is?
-Have I spent time with him today?
-Am I still passionate and hungry for the word and his presence?
-Do the things of God flood my thoughts and actions constantly?

We have a life to get to know the greatest person you will ever know, but you have to work at it every day and even though you will be tossed a few curves we need to stay focused and fall in love with our maker and creator all over again. I pray for everyone who reads this that you honestly ask yourself are you MORE hungry today for God that you were 10 years ago, if the answer is no then do something about it!