Are you bored with the Christian walk? Does apathy characterize you? Well you aren’t alone. In fact, as a pastor of a relatively large church, a big part of my job is spent trying to motivate people to take their faith serious. Not an easy assignment. After a good 25 years in ministry I am convinced the trouble people have with following Jesus is very simple: We don’t take Jesus at his word. People will often tell me that the Bible is hard to understand. Sermons are confusing or irrelevant. The music doesn’t inspire. All smokescreens. I think the root of the problem is a lack of active faith - - people don’t live what they say they believe. I will give you one example that is centered on a really easy word. It is the word “MUST.” We all know what this word means, “It is an obligation, something that should not be overlooked or missed.” When an angry mom derides a lazy child with the word 'MUST' even a two year old understands it's clear intent. But when we come across the same word in scripture, many of us change it's meaning to “an action that is optional; something to do when I have the free-time; a suggestion to consider.” Take this verse for example: “This, then, is how you ought to regard us: as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed. Now it is required that those who have been given a trust MUST prove faithful.” 1 Corinthians 4:1-2 Or how about this one? “Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple MUST deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Mark 8:34 Here is another: “We MUST pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.” Hebrews 2:1 I am not sure we take MUST seriously. When must becomes maybe, we have begun dictating to God, we stole his throne. And without knowing it, his importance and majesty means very little to us. We become bored with him. When we lose our respect for someone, our natural tendency is to write them off. Do you find yourself bored with the person of God? Have you written him off? Maybe the meaning of the word must does not mean what you think it means? I learned a very interesting concept about how the Hebrews understood the word “know.” Instead of seeing "knowing" as referring to the acquisition of knowledge; it means being implicated. If I know something, I am implicated in the knowing. In other words, I MUST do something about it. American knowing is simply the accumulation of knowledge. Our form of knowing is selfish, it is lazy, is is only for my benefit. No wonder we are bored, we are like the Venus Fly-trap in "Little Shop of Horrors." After we hear a sermon, or read a blog, we lick our lips, belch, and then once again say "Feed Me." To the true disciple of Christ, truth MUST be worked out. And when you work it out it becomes alive. Listen to Philemon 1:6, "I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ." Share to know, exercise to experience...knowing drives us to must. Are you bored? If you are, answer me this: "Can you really blame it on the preaching, the music, or the Bible?" Could it be you?
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
August 2018
|