Still working on the title - Excerpt 2

Moving on to the next chapter...but I feel I need to share one thought first...at times, I feel like I sound like I have it all together. For those of you who know me well, you know that's not true! However, for those of you who are new to my minor part of this world, please realize that even when I sound like I know what I am talking about, it has nothing to do with me. It's all God...so please don't let anything that I write lead you to believe otherwise.

God's blessings on your week! Thanks for reading and commenting!

p.s. Sorry about no new photos this week...it's hasn't been great picture taking weather recently!

We may be certain that whatever God has made prominent in His Word, He intended to be conspicuous in our lives.

-Charles Spurgeon

 As believers, it’s easy to get into a rut: Sunday morning church, Wednesday night Bible study and the once a month small group dinner. What’s wrong with that routine, you ask? Nothing. It’s really what you’re getting out of the routine that’s the issue. Are these events moving you toward God? If they’re not, then they’re moving you away from God. Christians can’t stand still and apathetically take in what is being said without acting. James 1:22 tells us Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.  Being content in our lives is Biblical. As Paul notes to the Phillipians, “I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am.” (Phil 4:11b) However, being happy with a less than passion-filled life for Christ means that something is seriously missing.

 Using a comfortable routine of appearing to be a Christian allows a wall to be built up against God.  You may not be overtly working against God, but you must be obviously working with and for God. In reality, such circumstances result in living a lie. Call it being naïve, but Satan may have you comfortably where he wants you. In his book, The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis has a powerful demon advising a less experienced demon and the more powerful demon says, “Never having been a human, you don’t realize how enslaved they are to the pressure of the ordinary.” The powerful demon goes on to discuss a man that he had under his strength who momentarily began to think about the deeper things of the Lord. The demon brags about how he distracted the man from God by simply placing a mental suggestion that it was time for lunch. Our simple routines can allow us to become apathetic and rut developers, losing sight of the God who loves us most of all. Do you sit and church and think about lunch? Maybe you make grocery lists or weekly to do lists?  I know I am personally guilty of at least starting to plan my week during a time when I should be focused on worship. Becoming complacent and comfortable in our everyday lives can easily cause us to miss out on the amazing gift of having a God who wants us near to Him and desires to be the center of our lives.

At times our everyday habits push God to the background. That is not where He wants to be! He commanded us not to have idols for a reason. He wants to be the center of our lives and He doesn’t want anything, even our daily schedules, to interfere in our relationship with Him. We become more entrenched in what we’re doing and forget why we’re doing it. Why are we here on earth? Why do we believe in God? What do we really believe about God? If these questions make you nervous or frustrated, it would probably be wise to examine them in the light of Scripture.

John Piper, author of Don’t Waste Your Life, notes that “God created us to live with a single passion: to joyfully display his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life. The wasted life is the life without passion. God calls us to pray and think and dream and plan and work not to be made much of, but to make much of Him in every part of lives.” Notice all of the active verbs in Piper’s quote. Having a relationship with God requires active participation and a longing to live beyond the routine life of thinking you’re happy only because you don’t give yourself time to examine your life. That we would all be like Abraham, who was so close to God that Abraham was called a “friend” of the Lord in multiple places in Scripture. “And the scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,’ and he was called God's friend.”