Tuesday, August 31, 2021

ONCE A WEEK OR 24/7?

Luke 9:23

Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

                Is your faith a one-a-week experience or a 24/7 lifestyle? We have all become very adept at compartmentalizing our lives. We divide our lives into neat packages, which remain, for the most part, separate from each other. We have a work compartment, a family compartment, an entertainment compartment, and a spiritual compartment. In our compartmentalized world, it is easy for us to relegate our faith to an hour or two on Sunday morning, then live the rest of the week as if our faith doesn’t apply. It is the classic secular/sacred divide that has permeated our world. We have heard the mantra of separation of church and state so often that we have internalized it. We see some parts of our life as secular and some parts as sacred, and we don’t mix them. But the Bible never makes such a distinction. All of life is sacred in God’s eyes.

                Jesus made it clear that if we want to follow Him, we need to take up our cross daily. To take up our cross means to die to self and live for Christ. It means putting Christ first in every aspect of our lives. Everything we do should be informed by and directed by our faith in Christ.

                Work, for most people, takes up a lion’s share of their daily lives. It is easy to compartmentalize our work to just that, work. We may enjoy it or we may not, but it is a necessary evil. We don’t routinely see it as an act of worship, but we should. God has given to each of us certain talents that He intends for us to use for His glory. Most often we use those talents in our work. The way we do our work speaks volumes about our faith.

                In Paul’s letter to the church at Colosse, he emphasized that our work should be seen as an act of service to Christ. Writing specifically to slaves he said, Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. (Colossians 3:23-24) That is the attitude that God wants us to have everyday as we go to work. It doesn’t matter what the work is as much as how we perform our duties. Even the most mundane tasks can be done to the glory of God. Seeing our work as an act of worship can transform both us and our workplace.

                The way that we interact with those around us is also a measure of our faith. Throughout Paul’s letters he continually calls us to demonstrate Christ’s character for one another. For example, Paul wrote to the Ephesians, Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. (Ephesians 4:32) The way we treat others is a reflection of our faith. John makes it very clear that we cannot say that we love Christ if we refuse to love one another. If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. (1 John 4:20)

                Even our leisure time can be an act of worship. When we delight in the world that God has created and recognize it as a gift from God’s hands, we are offering God a sacrifice of praise. We live in an amazing world with many things that can take our breath away. We can go through life blind to these things. We go through life seeing then but not seeing beyond them. Or we can go through life seeing them and giving God the glory. This world and all of its wonders is a gift to us from God’s gracious hand. When we rightly enjoy the delights of this world and thank God for them, we enter into genuine worship.

                We need to break our faith out of the neat compartment that we have placed it. We need to see that all of life is sacred. We need to actively take our faith out of the church building and live it in the office, in the neighborhood, and in our homes. Let us not be content with a one-day-a-week faith. Instead let us strive to live a 24/7 faith that transforms every aspect of our lives.

Colossians 3:17

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

 


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