PrintI look back over my years as a Pastor and I need to confess that I have often been guilty of preaching and teaching about what we should and should not do but I have not matched the "should" with the "how". I sometimes wonder how many people have inwardly responded to my preaching with "I want to do what you have said but I don't know how and you haven't told me".
In my last log book entry when I recorded my encounter with what I called "drifting indifference", I mentioned how the Biblical writers gave us three directives to counter the danger of drifting.
1. Listen very carefully to the truth we have heard (Hebrews 2/1)
2. Continue to believe this truth (Colossians 1/23)
3. Stand in it firmly(Colossians 1/23)
I feel like I am in the pew and they are in the pulpit - a reversal of roles, if you like! Now it's my turn to say, "What do you mean? How do we fulfil what you have told us to do?"
1. "Listen very carefully to the truth we have heard".
If I've already heard it, why am I still urged to listen very carefully? Oh, I get it! The dynamic nature of the living Word of God requires me to not only hear it in the sense of receiving information but to keep hearing it, to let it permeate every fibre of my being, to change my world view so that it increasingly influences my decisions and values.
By constant reading, meditation, reflection and practice (obedience), I am to be like the man who gazes with intensity into the Word of God, not like the one who gives the Word of God nothing more than a cursory glance. Gaze, not glance.
If you don't obey, you are only fooling yourself.For if you just listen and don't obey, it is like looking at your face in a mirror but doing nothing to improve your appearance.You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you keep looking steadily into God's perfect law — the law that sets you free — and if you do what it says and don't forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it. (James 1:22-25 NLT)
2. "Continue to believe this truth".
If I have understood the first directive correctly (i.e. I am to continue listening very carefully to the truth I have heard) then believing that truth must also be a continuous commitment. I am not only saved by grace through faith (i.e. believing) but I am to live by faith day by day as I journey onwards.
Now faith always involves "doing". To believe truth is to practice truth. If I am not doing it, I don't believe it. So, in this case, continuing to believe is identical to continuing to practice. If I "take down the sail" I am drifting. If I turn off the engine, I am drifting. If I stop rowing, I am drifting. In other words, if I stop "doing", I am adrift and at the mercy of every tide and current.
Maybe that's what Paul meant when he wrote the following:
Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. (Eph 4:14-16NIV)
3. Stand in it firmly.
The Apostle will go on to call his readers to stand firm in the Lord
Put on the full armour of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand . Stand firm then...... (Eph 6:11-14 NIV)
The word, "stand" is virtually the opposite of the word, "drift". To "stand" means to resist and reject the many other influences that try to control our direction and destiny. The drifter, on the other hand, has no anchor (or doesn't know how to use it!), no power, no desire and no goal.
It occurs to me that one of my purposes in presenting Barnabas Network is what I've labeled "To Stretch the Comfortable" by which I mean:
To sound a warning for those who have surrendered their spiritual "cutting edge" in preference for a safer or more comfortable journey and to encourage them to re-engage with their high calling.
Maybe these reflections about drifting might just be the timely word of the Lord into the lives of a number of our readers?
