Post by TaQuilla on Jan 5, 2007 23:30:43 GMT -5
Why do we -“God fearing” Christians - strive so hard to constantly move forward in our secular lives, yet we’re completely comfortable not moving an inch in our spiritual life? Allow me to elaborate. Truly think about how far you’ve come in all other aspects of your life. How far have you come in the last 20, 15, 10, 5 yrs? How about the last year, 6 months, month, weeks, days, hours, minutes? What accomplishments have you achieved? What major renovations have been done in your life? Remember, we’re talking about the secular part of your life. Maybe you’ve bought a new house, a new car, a new TV, a new outfit, a cup of coffee. Or maybe you’ve changed your hair, remodeled your house, got married, had a baby, lost weight, gained weight, got a new job, got promoted in your old job, quit your job, got a degree, got two degrees, etc… The point is we are constantly making changes (with every intention) to improve our secular lives.
As humans, we are never satisfied, right? Wrong. All too many times we become satisfied w/ our relationship w/God, and do absolutely nothing to move forward in our spiritual walk. How satisfied would we be if we were still working the same $5/hour job that we worked when we were teens? How happy would we be if we still lived in that very first apartment? You remember, the one with hardly any furniture. How about if we still drove that first car, the one that always needed to be fixed? How many people do you know that are truly satisfied w/having little education? Not too many. Every time we turn around one of us is thinking of the next degree that we can get, so that we can get a better job, a better house, a better car, and live a better life. We push ourselves, our spouses, our children, etc., to always do your best, and never settle for mediocrity. Talk shows, home improvement channels, & self help books abound, because we are always looking for the newest way to improve our life, our health, our homes, our children…
Think about elementary school. What if we never made it past 5th grade? How well would we succeed in life? How equipped would we be to handle the pressures that the real world would throw at us? Yeah maybe we’d adjust, but it would be a lot easier if we just stayed in school and kept learning, right? Sure, elementary school laid some basic fundamentals of knowledge. But it was middle, and high school that shaped, molded, and matured us, right? We understand this philosophy when it comes to life, in fact we often go above and beyond the “required” high school diploma, and we yearn for higher education. We feel that it will give us recognition, respect, and advancement. Yet we are warned in the Bible of doing the very opposite w/ our spirituality. Therefore, let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation (Heb. 6:1)…
Can you imagine never leaving 5th grade, but constantly repeating it over and over again? Can you fathom still working the same job, driving that same car, wearing the same clothes, eating the same foods, etc., over and over again? No, you couldn’t. We live in America, and there is way too much variety in striving for the “American Dream” to be doing the same thing repeatedly with no results. When we find ourselves in a dead end job, we look for a new one, and then another. When we have a piece of crap car, we’re on the look out for one that’s reliable. When we live in an apartment, we want to buy a house. When we buy a house, we want to buy a bigger one, and so on. We don’t settle.
My question again, is why don’t we push this hard to improve our spiritual lives? How many of us are still in the same place spiritually, that we were in last week, last month, last year, 5, 10, 20, even 30+ years ago? Why are there so many 5-95 year old babies in the church? (Heb. 5:11-14). I’m sure that you will say to me at this point, I feel like I’ve come pretty far in my walk w/Christ. Well, we all know that Jesus said that we are to store up our treasures in heaven, because were our hearts are, there our treasures will be, also. (Matt 6:20) It’s so easy for Christians to feel like, they are storing up their treasures in heaven just because they go to church once a week, say grace before they eat, maybe a Bible Study here or there, etc… But really think on it.
What major overhauls have been made to your spirituality? How different is your spiritual life now than when you first came to believe? Especially compared to how your secular life has changed during that same amount of time. Not that anything is wrong with things that we do in our secular life, but when you compare the time and energy that goes into them vs. the time and energy that goes into our maintaining our salvation. (Notice that I did not say “earning” our salvation. That is given to us only through His grace, but this does not mean that we cannot lose our salvation {Heb.6}. We must maintain it, but that is a different study all together.) Just saying, “I’ve learned to be more patient in the last 5 years,” is like saying “I vacuumed my house this year.” Sure, it’s an accomplishment, but a minor one compared to the complete renovation of my bathroom. You see what I’m saying? There are huge spiritual truths still to be found in that book that’s collecting dust on our shelves…the Bible. We need to be constantly seeking to find these truths, and DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE TRUTHS THAT WE FIND.
Asking Christ into our hearts is just the beginning, we are only babies then. And as babies we often start off craving spiritual milk - which Peter tells us is essential for growing in our salvation (1 Pet. 2:2) - but then something happens. Some of us become babies who don’t want to be weaned, we spit out and reject the solid food that is given to us, and thus we never grow. We get so comfortable with only having milk, that we never even desire solid food. We sit in the same pews week after week, hearing the same sermons, only re-worded. We browse through the same verses for inspiration, feel good when we hear our spiritual music, and read devotional books about the same subjects that we were reading about years ago. We may even hear others discussing biblical truths that we don’t understand. We don’t care, or even want to understand. To each his own, right? We just go to church, and do whatever we’re told, without ever lining it up w/His word to see if it’s true. We know that something is missing, but we’re too comfortable to find out just what it is. We read our Bible, and try to study it, but it seems boring to just read the Bible, we just don’t get that thrill out of it like we used to. We have not left behind the elementary teachings. We have not matured.
Let’s not be satisfied w/mediocrity in our Christianity. Let’s “grow up in our salvation.”(1 Pet 2:2). If you still think the Bible is boring, do something about it. Start praying for the Lord to show us a dynamic, eye-opening, soul-changing truth every time we open that Bible. It will only be when we seek His truths whole-heartedly, and honestly prepare our spiritual digestive system, that He will begin to unveil the solid food. But, only if we are truly ready. Just like any loving parent, our loving Father will not force feed us food that we are not ready for. The solid food of truth is hard to swallow, and often takes a while to chew, and completely digest. But eventually it should happen. If we continue to reject his truths (spit the food out), or distort them (think mashed baby food) in order to make them easier for us to accept, then we still have not matured. The basics of the Gospel are in the most simple form, and are thus easier to swallow. But just as life is not all fun and games as we mature in our daily lives, there will be some areas of our spirituality that will have to be dealt with, and the sooner , the better. We can't eat solid food w/o teeth, though. ;D So we must ask God for His precious Holy Spirit, which will become our "teeth" to help us fully chew on the food that we need. Just being “saved” is not enough.
We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! As anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil… Heb. 5:11-14
…Mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. 1 Cor. 3:1-3
Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation…1 Pet. 2:2
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile (having no useful result), and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools… Rom. 1:21-22
But for those who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. Rom. 2:8
My prayer…is that they may be saved. For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Rom. 10:1-2
Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a “fool” so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. 1 Cor. 3:18-19
Do not use your freedom to indulge in the sinful nature…Gal. 5:13
Looking for something to strive for? This is it! Don’t settle.
As humans, we are never satisfied, right? Wrong. All too many times we become satisfied w/ our relationship w/God, and do absolutely nothing to move forward in our spiritual walk. How satisfied would we be if we were still working the same $5/hour job that we worked when we were teens? How happy would we be if we still lived in that very first apartment? You remember, the one with hardly any furniture. How about if we still drove that first car, the one that always needed to be fixed? How many people do you know that are truly satisfied w/having little education? Not too many. Every time we turn around one of us is thinking of the next degree that we can get, so that we can get a better job, a better house, a better car, and live a better life. We push ourselves, our spouses, our children, etc., to always do your best, and never settle for mediocrity. Talk shows, home improvement channels, & self help books abound, because we are always looking for the newest way to improve our life, our health, our homes, our children…
Think about elementary school. What if we never made it past 5th grade? How well would we succeed in life? How equipped would we be to handle the pressures that the real world would throw at us? Yeah maybe we’d adjust, but it would be a lot easier if we just stayed in school and kept learning, right? Sure, elementary school laid some basic fundamentals of knowledge. But it was middle, and high school that shaped, molded, and matured us, right? We understand this philosophy when it comes to life, in fact we often go above and beyond the “required” high school diploma, and we yearn for higher education. We feel that it will give us recognition, respect, and advancement. Yet we are warned in the Bible of doing the very opposite w/ our spirituality. Therefore, let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation (Heb. 6:1)…
Can you imagine never leaving 5th grade, but constantly repeating it over and over again? Can you fathom still working the same job, driving that same car, wearing the same clothes, eating the same foods, etc., over and over again? No, you couldn’t. We live in America, and there is way too much variety in striving for the “American Dream” to be doing the same thing repeatedly with no results. When we find ourselves in a dead end job, we look for a new one, and then another. When we have a piece of crap car, we’re on the look out for one that’s reliable. When we live in an apartment, we want to buy a house. When we buy a house, we want to buy a bigger one, and so on. We don’t settle.
My question again, is why don’t we push this hard to improve our spiritual lives? How many of us are still in the same place spiritually, that we were in last week, last month, last year, 5, 10, 20, even 30+ years ago? Why are there so many 5-95 year old babies in the church? (Heb. 5:11-14). I’m sure that you will say to me at this point, I feel like I’ve come pretty far in my walk w/Christ. Well, we all know that Jesus said that we are to store up our treasures in heaven, because were our hearts are, there our treasures will be, also. (Matt 6:20) It’s so easy for Christians to feel like, they are storing up their treasures in heaven just because they go to church once a week, say grace before they eat, maybe a Bible Study here or there, etc… But really think on it.
What major overhauls have been made to your spirituality? How different is your spiritual life now than when you first came to believe? Especially compared to how your secular life has changed during that same amount of time. Not that anything is wrong with things that we do in our secular life, but when you compare the time and energy that goes into them vs. the time and energy that goes into our maintaining our salvation. (Notice that I did not say “earning” our salvation. That is given to us only through His grace, but this does not mean that we cannot lose our salvation {Heb.6}. We must maintain it, but that is a different study all together.) Just saying, “I’ve learned to be more patient in the last 5 years,” is like saying “I vacuumed my house this year.” Sure, it’s an accomplishment, but a minor one compared to the complete renovation of my bathroom. You see what I’m saying? There are huge spiritual truths still to be found in that book that’s collecting dust on our shelves…the Bible. We need to be constantly seeking to find these truths, and DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE TRUTHS THAT WE FIND.
Asking Christ into our hearts is just the beginning, we are only babies then. And as babies we often start off craving spiritual milk - which Peter tells us is essential for growing in our salvation (1 Pet. 2:2) - but then something happens. Some of us become babies who don’t want to be weaned, we spit out and reject the solid food that is given to us, and thus we never grow. We get so comfortable with only having milk, that we never even desire solid food. We sit in the same pews week after week, hearing the same sermons, only re-worded. We browse through the same verses for inspiration, feel good when we hear our spiritual music, and read devotional books about the same subjects that we were reading about years ago. We may even hear others discussing biblical truths that we don’t understand. We don’t care, or even want to understand. To each his own, right? We just go to church, and do whatever we’re told, without ever lining it up w/His word to see if it’s true. We know that something is missing, but we’re too comfortable to find out just what it is. We read our Bible, and try to study it, but it seems boring to just read the Bible, we just don’t get that thrill out of it like we used to. We have not left behind the elementary teachings. We have not matured.
Let’s not be satisfied w/mediocrity in our Christianity. Let’s “grow up in our salvation.”(1 Pet 2:2). If you still think the Bible is boring, do something about it. Start praying for the Lord to show us a dynamic, eye-opening, soul-changing truth every time we open that Bible. It will only be when we seek His truths whole-heartedly, and honestly prepare our spiritual digestive system, that He will begin to unveil the solid food. But, only if we are truly ready. Just like any loving parent, our loving Father will not force feed us food that we are not ready for. The solid food of truth is hard to swallow, and often takes a while to chew, and completely digest. But eventually it should happen. If we continue to reject his truths (spit the food out), or distort them (think mashed baby food) in order to make them easier for us to accept, then we still have not matured. The basics of the Gospel are in the most simple form, and are thus easier to swallow. But just as life is not all fun and games as we mature in our daily lives, there will be some areas of our spirituality that will have to be dealt with, and the sooner , the better. We can't eat solid food w/o teeth, though. ;D So we must ask God for His precious Holy Spirit, which will become our "teeth" to help us fully chew on the food that we need. Just being “saved” is not enough.
We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! As anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil… Heb. 5:11-14
…Mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. 1 Cor. 3:1-3
Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation…1 Pet. 2:2
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile (having no useful result), and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools… Rom. 1:21-22
But for those who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. Rom. 2:8
My prayer…is that they may be saved. For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Rom. 10:1-2
Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a “fool” so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. 1 Cor. 3:18-19
Do not use your freedom to indulge in the sinful nature…Gal. 5:13
Looking for something to strive for? This is it! Don’t settle.