It's Not The How; It's The Wow!
by Jon Walker

"Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:20 NLT)

Long ago and far away, there was a teacher who worked painstakingly to teach me how to play the guitar. Every week, we'd climb up and down musical stairs crafted from the pentatonic, hexatonic, heptatonic, and octatonic scales. This emphasis upon technique frustrated me, and I grew to hate it so much that I abandoned the guitar – until playing it again became a positive part of my mid-life crisis.

OK, OK … Yes, I would have been better guitar player today if I'd practiced what my teacher told me (and, kids, eat your spinach too). But somehow I became so buried in the technique of making music that I lost the exhilarating pleasure of the music – with its power to make my heart soar toward the grace-filled face of God.

You might say the «How» of guitar-ianity muted the «Wow!» of the music.

And in our well-intentioned focus on the «How» of Christianity, I sometimes wonder if we lose sight of the «Wow!» – that God's Holy Spirit lives within us and that he is with us always, day after day after day, until the very end of time.

Wow!

Can I get an «Amen?» Say this with me, brothers and sisters:

Wow! The God of the universe is present by his Spirit within me!

Wow! The God who spoke the world into existence lives within me!

Wow! The same God who placed the moon and the stars and the sun into the sky also placed his spirit within me!

Wow! The God who owns the cattle on a thousand hills considers me one of his heirs and is pleased to give me a share in his kingdom!

Wow! The God of Creation spoke me into my mother's womb, SHAPEd me as a masterpiece crafted for the mission of proclaiming his Wow! throughout the world! (Jeremiah 1:5)

It's not the How; it’s the Wow!

Good God Almighty, he lives, he lives, Christ Jesus lives in me today! (Galatians 2:20) The Wow! is with me always and forever, yesterday today and tomorrow, forever and again, amen.

The Good News we proclaim without shame is that the Wow! is in our hearts, and the Wow! will come into any heart that confesses Jesus Christ as Lord.

What does this mean?

· Set your heart on the Wow! – You must be deliberate in staying focused on the Wow! "Set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things." (Colossians 3:1b-2 NIV)

· Relationship over results – God is more interested in you than he is in your methods. Wow! And the Good News we carry is that God is truly interested in the life of each person he placed on the planet. Are there some relationships where you emphasize the How over the Wow?

· No commandment harmed – No commandment was harmed in the making of this devotional. Ha! Staying intimately focused on the Wow! does not suggest the How is unimportant or that the Wow! can compromise biblical truth or downgrade "the way, the truth, and the life." (John 14:6 HCSB)

· The greatest How – is «Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind." The second is "Love your neighbor as yourself." (Matthew 22:37-40 HCSB) The Wow! guides the How.

© 2007 Jon Walker. All rights reserved.