01 March, 2009

Christian Mediocrity

Today is the beginning of a new week, a fresh start, new mercies poured out upon me but last week spoke volumes to my soul. The Holy Spirit spoke to me in so many ways last week but clearly the thing spoke with the most veracity and volume was Christian mediocrity.

Over the past year there has been a continual backsliding into being a lazy Christian. Sin becomes more palatable, the things of God less desirable, life more miserable. My drive and will to fight with all that is bound up in my soul dwindles as the road I start to travel becomes wider and wider.

Blessed be God my Lord who cares for me and loves me. I was reading Psalm 30 today and it's so good I have to post the entire thing but the verses in bold are the ones that particularly stood out to me.

1 I will exalt you, O LORD,
for you lifted me out of the depths
and did not let my enemies gloat over me.

2 O LORD my God, I called to you for help
and you healed me.

3 O LORD, you brought me up from the grave;
you spared me from going down into the pit.

4 Sing to the LORD, you saints of his;
praise his holy name.

5 For his anger lasts only a moment,
but his favor lasts a lifetime;
weeping may remain for a night,
but rejoicing comes in the morning.

6 When I felt secure, I said,
"I will never be shaken."

7 O LORD, when you favored me,
you made my mountain stand firm;
but when you hid your face,
I was dismayed.

8 To you, O LORD, I called;
to the Lord I cried for mercy:

9 "What gain is there in my destruction,
in my going down into the pit?
Will the dust praise you?
Will it proclaim your faithfulness?

10 Hear, O LORD, and be merciful to me;
O LORD, be my help."

11 You turned my wailing into dancing;
you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,

12 that my heart may sing to you and not be silent.
O LORD my God, I will give you thanks forever.

My friend Kyle and I are going to work on edifying each other unto good works.

So What Is Christian Mediocrity?

It's living your life as if Christ had not died for you. It's being lukewarm when you should be red hot. In practical aspects you will see this in your life in 3 ways.
  1. Your reading/meditating on the word daily becomes anything less that vibrant.
    You don't read every day, you find it hard to read, you tell yourself to read but you get easily distracted. God's word becomes an obligation that you know is essential but you treat it as voluntary.

  2. Your Prayer life suffers.
    Coming to God with praise, request, repentance and all the other reasons we come to God starts to seem useless. God is there and you need to talk to Him but it takes time and your too busy or you don't want to talk to God because He may have other ideas for you that you don't like and you would rather Him just listen to YOU and do it YOUR way. But since you know He won't do that you start to ignore Him and eventually He will start to ignore you.

  3. Memorization is not constant
    Memorization is another key to the christian life I am convinced. If you are not actively memorizing God's word you are doing yourself a disservice and opening up yourself to be attacked.
If these three things are not present in your life I might suggest to you that your living a mediocre christian life.
  • If your not reading God's word you are stripping the tools used to reprove, correct, and encourage you.
  • If you are not praying you are not opening up your heart to let God mold it into being more like Christ. If your not praying how do you expect to receive what you have not asked for? If you only pray to ask most likely your asking with the wrong motives.
  • If your not memorizing you are not storing God's word in your heart to be with you when satin or one of his servants is attacking you. Your setting yourself up to fail.
I have been failing at all of these and the cause of that is a slow erosion of my soul. Praise God He spoke to me last week about this aria in my life and has placed me in good company.
Today is the first and with that I read Psalm 1, perhaps my favorite Psalm ever written. Read it.

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