God's Help Our Response

Well, I'm not feeling particularly good about this morning's sermon.  I'm not sure why.  It might just be a feeling.  In fact, I feel (there's that dangerous word again) that whenever I explore that theme there's something wrong with what I'm saying or how I'm saying it.  

For now, I believe what I'm trying to communicate, but perhaps falling short, is that we're called to work with God so that we might learn to love as he wants us to love.  We can't change ourselves.  We need God's help.  The logic works like this:  God has worked and is at work and will work, therefore, we can work--and we should work!  We should work with the God who is working toward our own transformation.  Translation:  We have to be in the business of placing ourselves in environments where God can do his best transforming work.  

But here comes the hard part--how to talk about the practices that place us in an environment of God's transforming love?  Here's where I struggle.  I believe we should embrace certain means of grace--avenues that open us to God's love.  However, I don't want to impose those on anyone as "have-to's."  They should be "want-to's."  In other words, being called by God to participate in his kingdom, we then submit to a variety of means of grace.  And we need to learn to stay put, to practice stability in those things that really make a difference.  

What are the means of grace?  Here's a rough idea . . . as God calls you, of course:

Christians should pray.  Start with offering yourself to God everyday, perhaps.  Or find sometime to think about your day and begin to ask God how he might want you to live.  Open the bible to a Psalm and just let the words of the Psalmist guide your prayers.  These are just suggestions to get started.  

Christians ought to give themselves over to substance.   Devotional reading.  Scripture reading.  Thinking.  Good conversation.  These things are so important.  

Fellowship/Church.  It's what the good doctor orders.  Furthermore, we need to learn to stay put in those practices.  

Giving.  Giving transforms us.  Give it a try. 

 

Disciplines of denial.  There are moments when we need to go without something so that we might focus on the things of God.  Fasting from food.  Fasting from TV for a while, to spend more time thinking and praying.  

Again, these aren't "have-t0's," but "want-to's."   

What say you, the church?  

Peace!

Acedia and the Noonday Demon

As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  Perhaps we could also state the road to hell is paved with a slow descent into apathy, continually choosing the path of least resistance.  

The early monks were very concerned with this problem.  They sometimes referred to it as acedia or the noonday demon.  Both are related.  The noonday demon (I'm not picturing a literal demon here) comes and tries to knock us off course when the journey seems long.  The noonday demon makes us think that perhaps it isn't worth it:  the struggle, the toil, trying to love, trying to pray--it's all a waste of time.  

If we indulge those thoughts we might end up in a state of lethargy; we become infected with acedia.  We become apathetic creatures no longer capable of hope or of anger.  We become reluctant lovers.  Pain and suffer no longer move us.  Not even God and his great love is capable of motivating the slothful.  The status quo becomes our watchword and song.  No commitment is worthy of our lives other than the commitment to be committed to nothing so that we can keep our options open.  Many jealously guard the freedom to be committed to absolutely nothing; they don't want anyone to disturb their comfort.  A chaotic life without meaning or purpose is often the result; for without organizing our lives around something solid we let everyone else tell us how to live.  

To get out of this mess, we must continually respond to the Christ who is knocking on the door of our hearts (Revelation 3).  As he continued to pursue the lukewarm Laodiceans, so he continues to pursue us.  If only--if only!-- we will open the door of our hearts through prayer, study, and fellowship.  

Peace.