Have you ever been to a church camp or a weekend retreat and gotten on a spiritual high only to come back and forget everything you learned and slip back into your old routine? Or maybe even just from Sunday to Sunday... you hear a great sermon, you're determined to "change your life" and live "better", only to wake up Monday morning with the same dreadful attitude about the work week, and doing anything you can just to make it until Friday night?
I love great sermons, don't get me wrong, I like reading the Word myself, too, but there's just something that stirs inside of me, when someone who has studied every cross-reference, and read the entire context of the verse, telling me how it is, was, and needs to be. I finally thought to download some podcasts from my favorite ministers/leaders (Loran Livingston, Greg Laurie, Beth Moore, and Jeff Dunn) and it made me think... why don't we find those things that change our lives, make us fall in love with Christ all over again, keep us on a spiritual high, and give us the desire to be that "better Christian?"
We can say we'd be "better Christians" if: we just had more retreats, less stress, better speakers, cooler music, more friends that went, less temptation, more events, less responsibilities, more money, more this and less that... What is holding you back from where you need to be? Sometimes it is easy for us to point out the "what", but let's focus on the "why."
Why don't you seek out more retreats? Why don't you find podcasts from your favorite speakers? Why don't you choose to listen to more contemporary Christian music between Sundays? If our whole life's purpose is to know God and to make Him known, and we aren't making that relationship with Him our top priority, then we will never be content or satisfied.
If you are content, then good for you, but if you are feeling less purposeful and know that you could be a better Christian than you are... then what would it take for you to make that a priority?
I know that one day I will die or Jesus will return and we will all face judgment (Romans 14:10). The Bible says we will be held accountable for even our "idle words" (Matthew 12:36). On judgment day (2 Cor. 5:10), Jesus will ask us, individually, how we used the talents and gifts we were given, our motives, what we achieved, our focus of accomplishments, what we sacrificed, how we acted and what we said to build up the body of Christ for eternity. When I stand before God, I want to say that I did whatever it took.
If I needed a good sermon to draw me closer to God and to keep me there, then I listened to a sermon online as much as I could in downtime at work. If I needed fellowship with other Christians, I searched across the city for different church events and programs catering to my needs. If I had too many temptations, I avoided things that made me stumble and found the "out" God promised to give me.
This life is so short compared to eternity, so why are we not more focused on eternity than our job promotion or future spouse. We don't know when He is coming back; we can't get ready right before he comes. We have to be ready at all times, because the Bible says "He will come like a thief in the night"(2 Peter 3:10). This life may be good, but I'll take a perfect paradise over this old earth any day. I challenge you to start doing whatever it takes to be the Christian you were called to be, living in light of the end being so near!
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