AT HIS FEET

By: Doctor Charles Lundberg, P.H.D

It's always good to come back from vacation and see some old familiar sights. You come back and you begin to see things you had forgotten about. One of them, for me, was taking the kids to school. And on the way to and from the school there's a place called English Gardens where they sell plants and trees .... it's a garden place. They also sell lawn decorations. And there's this one ....it's a duck ....you stick this thing in the ground and the wind blows and its wings flap. When the wind blows, this duck wings are moving. He's moving.....he's flapping ....but he is going nowhere.

This duck is going nowhere. All this motion and he going absolutely nowhere ....and somebody will pay $9.95 for him.

As I was riding about 50 feet farther, I looked up in the sky and there's this crow. He's flapping .....he's moving….this crow is going. Not very spectacular looking...not even very pretty ....but he's getting to where he wants to go.

Obviously you can see the analogy I'm trying to make. It' not hard to find a flapping, yapping Christian who's going nowhere because Jesus is not the center of his life. He has the right lingo ....he appears to be like a mighty man of God. But God weighs the heart and he can see the life that is committed to Him and the one that is doing nothing but putting on a sham. God can see it; He cannot be fooled.

And so we're flapping, we're yapping .....and we're going nowhere. And we need to ask ourselves before it's too late ......

"Is the Lord my all? Or is the Lord just a small part of my life? Is serving Jesus everything to me? Or is serving Jesus just a good way to keep certain people off my back? Am I serving Jesus because he has called me? .... touched me.... and set me aflame for him and I can do nothing else but serve him with all my heart? Or am I like that duck on the side of the road going through the motions?"

Sometimes believers can be the most competitive people on the face of this earth. And there's more of this spirit than we realize ......

"Lord, will I be on your right hand or your left hand?"

Don't kid yourself, it's still going on.

"Lord, do you have that place marked out for me yet? You know, that place where everyone is going to see how wonderful I served you. They'll see how you put this ribbon in my hair or this crown on my head .... and they'll applaud. Lord, have you got that place ready? .... that stage?.... that auditorium?"

I believe what the Lord has shown me, through difficulties is that there's a place we need to be. We'd better stop worrying about thrones, about decorations, about trophies, about crowns and garments. There's a place you and I are called to. I believe, before God, we need to grab that place like we've never grabbed it before .... and that place is where many of us don't like to go...and that's at the feet of Jesus...at the feet of Jesus. There's no better place...and it's time we got serious about that.

The feet of Christ...let the thrones go for now...it will be there when you get there. The crowns, the glory, the singing, the praise...it will all be there. Today we need the feet of Jesus under our face as we grab him.

And Jesus departed from thence, and came nigh unto the sea of Galilee; and went up into a mountain, and sat down there. And great multitudes came unto Him, having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, and cast them down at Jesus' feet; and He healed them. (Matthew 1`5:29‑30)

...and cast them at His feet.

Four things we need to grab today and I pray that we would weigh them on our hearts.

And, behold, there came a man named Jairus, and he was a ruler of the synagogue; and he fell down at Jesus' feet, and besought Him that He would come into his house... (Luke 8:11)

And she had a sister called Mary; which also sat at Jesus' feet, and heard His word. (Luke 10:39)

Then they went out to see what was done; and came to Jesus, and found the man, out of whom the devils were departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind: and they were afraid. (Luke 8:35)

And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. And He laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen... (Revelation 1:17‑18)

Praise God for that ......

1. We see Jairus grabbing Jesus' feet because his daughter was sick, to the point of dying.

I guarantee you that one thing God always honors is holy desperation. People who are desperate to the Lord get answers from the Lord. But we often tend to want to get our act together. We want to get things together in our life and then I can be desperate. And God is saying,

"Come now.....as you are....."

This sense of..."Lord, I have nothing but you." We should be at his feet. We take time, we shut the door...and we kneel and say,

"Jesus, make yourself real to me. Be there Lord. Touch me Lord. Quicken my dry life Lord."

.....and He will do it!

We're too laid back...we're too non‑chalant...we're too wishy washy..."Oh well, maybe, tomorrow." And God is saying,

"Come...come."

We come to His feet almost as a sign of death. Paul says,

"Oh, you people in Corinth, you're so together... you're so wise, so rich. You're lifted up. Everybody knows you and loves you. But me, I'm weak, I'm despised, I'm going around hungry and thirsty. We, the apostles, are the scum of the earth."

And we, as believers, need to begin to grab the feet of Jesus and ask Him to flood us with His mercy and presence.

I read the greatest book on revival I've ever read...Azusa Street. There were some strange things going on, but the brother who chronicled the history of that revival says it's interesting. In the middle of the revival the people who were preaching and teaching and sharing were buried in the sawdust in humility and submission before God...they had to dig them out of the ground so they would go up and speak the word of God. They were drenched with holiness and humility. Today, you can't get people off the platform...they're up there before they've even been invited. A sense of brokenness is nowhere to be found...we're too together...and God is saying,

"Oh, if My people only knew what I have for them...that they would repent and be broken before Me."

Let's grab His feet in desperation...we don't have our act together. We don't have what we need. We settle for cheap, cheap stuff because we've settled for something less than Jesus.

Do you know the hottest selling items in stores today? One of the hottest selling items is self‑esteem tapes. You put the tape in and listen. It has these nice waves crashing...the birds squawking. And a calm voices says, "You are wonderful, you are beautiful, you've got your act together. Everybody else is a mess." People grab these tapes like they're going out of style.

That brings me to my second point...

2. Mary stayed at the feet of Jesus, to get a word from Him. We have to start getting our words from the Lord and no one else.

There's this Comerica Card banking these days. You don't even have to go into the bank. You just put your card in the slot, get your money and get out. And that's the kind of Christianity we have today.

I'll get the answers from this book... or I'll ask sister so‑and‑so, or brother so‑and‑so.

And we forget to say, "Lord, what do you want from me? What will you have me do? What is your word for me?"

We go everywhere else but we don't sit at the feet of Jesus as Mary did and say, "Lord, I am listening now...speak...speak Jesus. Clearly speak to me."

He will!

3. As the demonic was healed, he sat at the feet of Jesus and wouldn't move from there.

They weren't asking for the healed man's autograph...he wasn't even giving his testimony. He was at the feet of Jesus. That was his haven...that was his place of rest. And he didn't leave there until Jesus basically shooed him away.

"Go, tell what God has done for you."

He didn't want to leave. He begged the Lord to take him with him. A haven of rest is in the shadow of Jesus...it's at His feet brothers and sisters ...let's quit straying.

Two years ago my wife and I and the kids went on a trip to Wisconsin. I don't know about you, but every time I'm on a trip and it's raining, my gas gauge is on empty...you can count on it. So, it's raining hard and we pull into this gas station. This gas station has a little covering from the rain, but being fairly impatient I got out, put $10.00 of gas in the car and went into the station to pay. There I am...soaking wet. And here's eight people inside this station standing and waiting for the rain to stop...they're dry. And I go in there like a wet rag, and I say to these people, "I thought this was Wisconsin...we're supposed to be tough. You guys are like a bunch of Floridians on retirement. Get out there...pump your gas."

After we left the gas station we stopped to eat. Here I am in this restaurant...soaking wet...can't even enjoy my food. I paid a price for being impatient, for being hard, for being arrogant, for straying from a shelter in the rain.

And we will always pay some sort of price when we stray from the feet of Jesus...you can count on it. You and I will pay a price. It may not be wet clothes, but it will begin with a hard, cool heart that begins to be very critical...a heart that was once burning with love becomes dry and stale.

Let's stay at the feet of Jesus...don't leave there.

4. His feet is a place of worship. A place where we lay before him as if dead to worship him for who he is.

Too much worship today is egotistical, arrogant, of the flesh and selfish. And it looks to itself when it worships. It's time we forgot that...it's time to forget what others think and we wor­ship Him for who He is...a Lord who deserves praise.

I pray that before God today, we will grab the feet of Jesus like we never grabbed Him before. Let me give you one guarantee...the Lord never kicked, never stepped over, never pushed aside anyone who fell at His feet. Look at scripture...every time someone who in desperation fell at the feet of Jesus you know what He did? He raised them up...He lifted them up. He touched and He changed their lives.

God help us...God do something. Let us love you more than we have settled for.

I read a little article where it said, "A perfect prayer is for God to give us the passion and the love He has for Jesus."

Imagine that..."God, let me love Jesus the way You love Jesus." And I think we need to pray that...that we will love Jesus...that He will be our all...and that at His feet is the place of my rest, the place of my longing...the place of my cry.

When I am at His feet, His hands can touch me and lift me up and make me whole...God help us...

We have a privilege today in serving God in a blighted, filthy, sick world. And we need to be desperate for God that we, as believers, would quit being blighted, filthy with sin, sick ourselves. And as we sit at the feet of Jesus, the mercy of Jesus would stir us up and make us desperate for what He has for us. That we no longer settle for this lukewarmness that's so easy to get into and that we would be broken before Him, and serve Him in a world that is going to hell.

We have the words of eternal life because He gave them to us. We have a ministry, a work. And may God stir us up to begin today to fulfill our calling. May we be a light in a dark place, a city on a hill. But we cannot do that until we have the fullness of Jesus upon ourselves. We will burn out, we will get flushed out. We have to grab Him at His feet and tell Him,

"Lord, I'm desperate. I've been desperate and insecure too long. I want a word from You to scorch my ears and my tongue."

We want to stay at His feet and quit getting sidetracked...and we want to worship.

"Oh God, take our life that it would be a worship."

Brothers and sisters, God wants to do that in a gentle merciful way...He wants to give us everything He has. Let's quit settling for second best...may we just be desperate and grab His feet and not leave there until He touches us with His mercy and presence in abundance.

"0 Lord, we come before You so often. If sin doesn't rule us, often a dryness does, a deadness does, a dullness does. Our first love is nowhere to be found. And we pray that beginning today we would begin to see afresh Your mercy to us. 0 God, we're desperate. The world is desperate to sin, but we're desperate to know You. We pray that Your word would come upon our hearts and minds, and that You would deliver us from the shackles that have bound us for so long. Oh Jesus, be next to us, be real to us...let this falseness stop. And we pray Lord that we would worship You because we know You, and we know who You are and what You have done and may we worship You with our lives and our hearts.

0 God, come upon us today...come upon us with a double portion of your Spirit and let us live for You fully... for I ask these things in Jesus' name...Amen.