Don't Miss Jesus

In his book, Objects of His Affection, Scotty Smith says, 

"It's one thing to go to church, but quite another to go to Jesus." 

Now, these are not mutually exclusive. We can, I hope, "go to church" and "go to Jesus." But I can relate to just "going to church." I know what it is to be compelled by religious duty. This can also happen in the evangelical "quiet time." The point is that I can go through the religious motions, and still miss Jesus—because religious motions are about what I do, while the gospel essentially is about what Jesus has done. So I suppose the distinction between religious activity and true spirituality is that the religious life is driven by guilt and duty, while the life of being a disciple of Jesus is driven by grace. So my prayer today is that whether "in church" or in my "quiet time," or in whatever I'm doing, that I would experience a living, vital, faith-filled, grace-dependent communion, not with a religious duty, but with Jesus.