Captivated...

My pastor asked an extremely challenging question during his sermon on Sunday.

"Are you captivated by the person and work of Jesus?"

Honestly, my answer would be no. As much as I want to dance around it and say well yeah, I do this and I do that, I'd simply be fooling myself into believing a lie.

What does captivated mean anyway? How do I become captivated by someone? I love this definition from the Princeton WordNet Search: "beguiled: filled with wonder and delight."

So to be captivated by the person and work of Jesus I simply must be filled with wonder and delight, easy right? I wish.

I wish it were that easy. I think if it were, I wouldn't be writing this post, I'd be thinking about Jesus instead. However, it's not that easy, and here we are. I think it all starts with us coming to the realization that God is entirely and completely who He says He is. Once you begin to realize that everything God says about Himself is Truth (with a capital T) it's impossible to not be captivated.

The verse in Colossians becomes a possibility. "Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things." - Colossians 3:2. I can do this at times. When I really try hard, I can set my mind on God, on Jesus, on what He did, on who He is, but sadly, it often doesn't last long. I'm distracted by things of this world, by desires of the flesh.

However, when we are captivated by God, by Jesus, by what He did, by who He is, we can't help but set our minds on Him. And so, rather than fight the losing battle of trying to live out Colossians 3:2 on my own, I need to employ the power of the Holy Spirit in my life. I need my heart to be changed. I need my understanding to be deepened.

So this is where I find myself. I cannot do this on my own. I do know someone who can. I'm a witness to the power of God. I've seen the way my life has changed these last few years and so I should have no doubt He won't continue what He has already begun... He tells us: "being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." - Philippians 1:6.

I'm going to pray every day that I will become captivated by the person and work of Jesus. Hold me accountable.