When religion is boring
Posted in Jerrod's Posts 0 comments
Just some thoughts from my scripture reading this morning.
This is what happens when Sabbath is not a day of rest and refreshing, but a burden to be endured. When we are ready for our religious rituals to be over so we can get on with life, get back to our jobs, making a living, being productive. Not only this, but those who feel the Sabbath is a burden have no intentions of even honoring God the rest of the week with their lives, but to continue living after their own desires and ways. Sabbath is only a ritual that we are forced to acknowledge, not a day of renewal, reflection, refreshing, refocusing on the Lord.
To hear God’s word taught does not renew, challenge, encourage, or convict, but only hardens us and bores us.
When you are in a place where the Word of God HARDENS you and does not soften you, beware! This is a very dangerous position to be in, because the Lord warns what this will lead to:
There is nothing more frightening in my imagination than the thought that God might cease from speaking to us through illumination of His Spirit, but closes us off from His leadership and guidance. He leaves us with some old words in a book, which we cannot interpret or apply because our hearts have grown cold. It is with God word that salvation comes. Christ is God's ultimate revelation to us, but when Christ Himself becomes boring and mundane, we are in a very dangerous position before God. "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?" (Heb. 2:3a)
Keith Leroy Brooks wrote, "To continually trample under foot the Word of God will end in a famine of the Word of God, which in a time of trouble will be the sorest judgment."
Martin Luther once exclaimed “Bless us Lord! Yea, even curse us. But please be not silent!”
Do not let your zeal for the Lord grow cold, or the bible teaches that God will eventually cease speaking to You through His word. Examine your heart. When worship becomes mundane, when bible reading is only a chore, when Sunday morning is drudgery, examine your heart, seek repentance. Don't remain quiet and complacent. Fight!... Fight for your life! Humble your heart, beg God to wake you up!
Need something practical to get you started into a season of seeking renewal in your walk with the Lord? Fast for a day or two (or more), use the time you would spend eating and pray instead. Turn off your computer for a while. Put down your phone. Spend some time alone with the Lord, humbling yourself. Feel the sadness and weight of having become distant from God. Let that sadness overwhelm you, let it drive you to confession and repentance. It is in that condition that the Lord may begin to restore you.
Hear this, you who trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end, saying, "When will the new moon be over, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great and deal deceitfully with false balances, that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the chaff of the wheat?" The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob: "Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.
(Amos 8:4-7)
This is what happens when Sabbath is not a day of rest and refreshing, but a burden to be endured. When we are ready for our religious rituals to be over so we can get on with life, get back to our jobs, making a living, being productive. Not only this, but those who feel the Sabbath is a burden have no intentions of even honoring God the rest of the week with their lives, but to continue living after their own desires and ways. Sabbath is only a ritual that we are forced to acknowledge, not a day of renewal, reflection, refreshing, refocusing on the Lord.
To hear God’s word taught does not renew, challenge, encourage, or convict, but only hardens us and bores us.
When you are in a place where the Word of God HARDENS you and does not soften you, beware! This is a very dangerous position to be in, because the Lord warns what this will lead to:
"Behold, the days are coming," declares the Lord GOD, "when I will send a famine on the land-- not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD.
(Amos 8:11)
There is nothing more frightening in my imagination than the thought that God might cease from speaking to us through illumination of His Spirit, but closes us off from His leadership and guidance. He leaves us with some old words in a book, which we cannot interpret or apply because our hearts have grown cold. It is with God word that salvation comes. Christ is God's ultimate revelation to us, but when Christ Himself becomes boring and mundane, we are in a very dangerous position before God. "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?" (Heb. 2:3a)
Keith Leroy Brooks wrote, "To continually trample under foot the Word of God will end in a famine of the Word of God, which in a time of trouble will be the sorest judgment."
Martin Luther once exclaimed “Bless us Lord! Yea, even curse us. But please be not silent!”
Do not let your zeal for the Lord grow cold, or the bible teaches that God will eventually cease speaking to You through His word. Examine your heart. When worship becomes mundane, when bible reading is only a chore, when Sunday morning is drudgery, examine your heart, seek repentance. Don't remain quiet and complacent. Fight!... Fight for your life! Humble your heart, beg God to wake you up!
Need something practical to get you started into a season of seeking renewal in your walk with the Lord? Fast for a day or two (or more), use the time you would spend eating and pray instead. Turn off your computer for a while. Put down your phone. Spend some time alone with the Lord, humbling yourself. Feel the sadness and weight of having become distant from God. Let that sadness overwhelm you, let it drive you to confession and repentance. It is in that condition that the Lord may begin to restore you.
But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
(James 4:6-10)
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.
(Psalms 51:10-12)
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