Disciplines Divide
Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Ephesians 6:13
God is the God of good times and bad times.
I’ve been thinking about people who have an experience in their lives where they seem to understand that Christ took their sin on Himself at the Cross. They are very grateful and invite Him to be their Savior, to live and reign in them. They are so enthusiastic for a while and they attend church and maybe even get discipled by an older, wiser, Christian.
Some profess faith in Christ and started attending church at difficult times in their lives. For two I know, it was marriage problems. They wanted the Lord to work in their husbands and to heal their marriages. Today, both of these women – several years later for both of them – are living happy lives in marriages with the husbands of their youth. Praise the Lord, He changed both them and their husbands!
But now, I don’t see them at church or even know if they are at any other church. I know that I’ll probably see them Christmas Eve or hear about the service they went to somewhere else. But, week by week, they don’t feel like they need to be taught or to study God’s Word. Work schedules and sports schedules have taken over their Sundays.
The Bible tells us in the book of Hebrews:
“We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.” Hebrews 2:1 “We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.” Hebrews 6:12 And, “So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.” Hebrews 10:35
To stay in fellowship with other Christians and to keep our minds in the Word of God is to be prepared when troubles hit. God is sovereign over our good times as well as the difficult. When we step away from the disciplines of the faith that remind us of His love and faithfulness, we lose our confidence, we have no patience because we haven’t been reminded of what the Lord will do for us.
As we look at the Old Testament passages when God was saving His people, Israel, He had to keep reminding them of who He is and what He had done for them. They repeatedly forgot and so do we. We forget His attributes when we aren’t regularly reminded of His goodness, faithfulness, mercy, and love.
I worry about “Christians” who fail to practice the disciplines of the faith: read God’s Word, hear it preached, or fellowship with others of the faith, as ways of reminding us of how He ministers to His people.
Do they know God? When trouble comes again, will they wonder where God is and run to the church to look for Him?
It seems that the keeping of these disciplines is what divides the real Christian from the professing person who only wants God to help in hard times.
Ladies, in the busy-ness of life, will we keep the disciplines – or be dragged away by the demands of the culture? God is faithful to us. Will we be as faithful to Him?