This might offend you - not for the faint of heart

On spiritual growth . . . not for the faint of heart

Good Day.
One other thought keeps creeping in—is there any room?
When I decide to get physically fit, I must make room in my life for exercise and giving attention to proper nutrition . . . and the same thing applies if I want to get spiritually fit. I must make room. I mean, really, you invite God “in” and give him what—a little corner of yourself? ‘Come on in, God, change me, grow me—I’ve given you this little bit of myself . . . so come on, perform—‘ That’s what so many of us do, and then we wonder why nothing really seems to change.

You see, practicing spiritual disciplines—like Bible study, even praying in earnest--is great, but I think it would be easy to miss that what God really wants is our heart. He is not really interested in just a little corner; he wants all of us. Maybe we fall backwards in our spiritual walks because we either fail to give him our whole hearts from the ‘get go’, or we just keep knocking him off the throne, and putting ourselves—our wills and wants back in charge.

Several times in the last year we have discussed the problem with contemporary Christianity—it just is not very Christ-like, in many respects.
I think that is because we Christians are not a terribly committed lot. [note to self: the first Christians did not name themselves; people who knew them gave them that name because they were little Christs—that is to say, they lived like Jesus . . . I’m wondering who watches my life, and says, ‘she is Christ-like’ – and you? Do people observe your life and know you follow Jesus? Just a thought-] We are committed to the extent that it suits us, maybe to what is visible to others, but not to where it would inconvenience us or require too much of us.

Jesus taught that following him would be costly; he did not teach that it would make us popular or prosperous. So should you choose to just dabble in Christianity that is okay, but honestly, that is all it will be—just okay. Plus, I’m not sure how interested God is in the fragmented self we offer; after all, God sent the MOST he had,
the MOST he could give,

the BEST he had . . . his one precious Son.

Jesus said the greatest command was to ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ He did not say ‘love God with this little leftover portion of yourself that you have allotted to God, or ‘spirituality’, as folks like to say now. Let’s ‘examine and test ourselves and see whether we are in the faith,’ 2 Corinthians 13.5.
>What do we spend most of our waking hours thinking about?
>On what do we spend our money?
>Where do we serve God and others?

“I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” Rev. 3.15 God is going to ‘spit’ us out of his mouth? The word ‘spit’ in Greek here connotes gag, hurl, retch; now reread that sentence.1 If we obey the greatest commandment to ‘love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength’, how could our lives possibly reflect a lukewarm Christianity? They couldn’t, of course. ‘Fact is, if many of us were honest, we think a little like this guy: “I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please, not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don’t want enough of him to make me love a black man or pick beets with a migrant. I want ecstasy, not transformation; I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.”2

‘Many of us believe we have as much of God as we want right now, a reasonable portion of God among all the other things in our lives.’ Most of our thoughts revolve around other things in our workaday worlds, right? But the fact is, all of this will pass away, yet our souls will remain, so
nothing should consume us more than our relationship with God.

‘God is not someone who can be tacked on to our lives.’ And after all, it is about eternity, and nothing compares with that, my friends.

So as we embark on this new year, I challenge you to give yourselves wholly over to God. Simply tell him,
“God, I let so many things crowd you out—I get lost in the details of my schedule and demands . . . I would like to know you more, and I would like to know how to love you more. Could you show me? On this day, I, ____your name___________, surrender my life to you. I want to live for you, so show me how to be a fully-devoted follower. Amen”

Perhaps you could take a minute to click on this link and give a listen to
great song by my friend, Gary Rea – “Yours is the Kingdom”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeQ3C1_Rwjk&feature=related

Not a lot I can add to that song, for Lord, “Yours is the Kingdom!” Amen.

Christine podcast: www.pastorwoman.com



1 - p.84, Francis Chan, Crazy Love – a great, unconventional ‘read’, by a radical, unconventional Southern California preacher.
2 – Wilbur Rees, “$3 Worth of God”, quoted by Tim Hansel, in When I Relax, I Feel Guilty