As I send my blog out into cyberspace each week, I can’t help but wonder if anybody reads them. An even more intriguing question I have is, does anyone relate to the thoughts and challenges that I put forth? There certainly have been a few of them as we have moved through this series of articles on getting our head into God’s game plan. By way of quick review, I’ll list again some of the core challenges. Getting engaged in God’s game plan means moving away from casualness and selfishness in our Christianity and getting into a revelatory place of God’s perspective where we are communing with Him and learning what He wants to do through us. It means that the worldly orientation that we default to needs to be replaced by a kingdom and destiny orientation.
The final challenge that I want to put forth in the conclusion of these articles comes out of Matthew 16:24-25 where it says: Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.”
In my opinion, the principle of “self-denial” has been somewhat lost in our current Christian way of life. We have become caught up in a culture of grace. This has been a good thing and personally has been very liberating to go from a legalistic mindset of living by a set of rules to coming to grips with what it really means to be under grace. This shift has been very necessary for the propagation of a Christianity that is truly unearned and unmerited.
At the same time, our headlong running toward living under grace has introduced us to a very slippery slope that we need to be careful of. The slope that we so easily slip on is this: Our flesh desires many things and can easily convince us that we are okay to involve ourselves in these things under the banner of grace. Because we are free and there are so many things in life that appeal to us, we are at risk of becoming ruled by our flesh. Part of the danger for us is that we justify our involvements on the basis of not being outwardly sinful. Being sinful or not sinful should not be our only criteria; being more or less kingdom of God oriented should. The big problem with giving into more and more of what appeals to our flesh is that less and less are we inclined to have our heads into God’s game.
I wonder if you are anything like me. I tend to give more and more of my time to computer and internet related activities (like facebook surfing and writing blogs). My finances, recreational goals, and the upkeep and improvement of my home are on my mind a lot. I think and plan what I want to eat, drink, play, and spend my time doing for my personal enjoyment. I could go on, but it’s too painful. None of these things are in themselves sinful. I just recognize that my flesh needs to be reigned in so that I am not being ruled by these things instead of a missional mindset. The Apostle Paul said that lots of things are legal for me to involve myself in as a Christian but not all of those things are in the best interest of the kingdom (my own words). He also said that a healthy relationship with grace will teach me to say “no” to things that will lead me away from God’s way (again my own words).
The conclusion I have come to is this: God wants me vitally invested in His kingdom work. Even though I am free in Christ, I need to consciously give myself to the agenda and ruling of the Holy Spirit at the expense of denying many of the desires of my flesh. Any productivity or fruit I hope to be involved in for the kingdom of God depends on my relationship to these principles. I personally want to come back to a fresh relationship of denying my flesh much of what it desires so that I may experience more of God’s grace working through me. I am purposing to curtail my activity on many levels so that I give more time towards communing with God and seeking His agenda.
I wonder, are you with me on this? Where are you with some of these challenges? I want to ask you to do something for me. Please post a comment. Write a short response if you’re reading this and tell me what God is saying to you personally. I ask you to do more than just browse, take the time to write a quick response to what God is saying to you through this. Doing so will not only give my ego a boost it will be healthy for you to think more than a few seconds on what this means to you. It is also quite possible that we might get some clue about what kind of CSCC Blog readership we have.
