Sunday, June 19, 2011

Medium

Medium
June 20, 2011
Hebrews 5:12 "In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food!"

Everything in this world can now be adjusted to fit your exact lifestyle. You can customize anything you want to have it EXACTLY the way you want it. Manufacturers have worked hard to give you many options in order to entice you to purchase from them. You can have your salsa mild, medium, or hot. You can have ANY option you want on your vehicle to suit your preferences. You can make your smart phone a one-of-a kind to fit your personality. EVERYTHING is adjustable and customizable. We have grown accustomed to this as a culture, not letting anyone else or anything else dictate who we are or what we do. We are free to choose and free to be whoever we want! I wonder, though, if diagnosed with cancer, if you would choose your own personal and customized dose of medication needed. OR would you take what was recommended by the professionals for the best possible outcome? It sounds silly, but you and I do this on a daily basis.

Every day, we chose how much of the Lord we want in our life. Every day we customize our dose of Christianity to suit our lifestyle, to make it comfortable, to make it our own. Every day we decide how much sin is acceptable and which ones we are going to hang on to, keeping what makes our lives our own. Don’t let someone ELSE dictate what we can and cannot do, this goes against everything we live for or have worked hard to implement for our lives! We hear messages in our church that the Lord accepts us for who we are, challenging us to stay the same; the Lord can just meet us where we are, right now. The Lord loves us just the way we are today, no need to improve on it, right? If the Lord accepts us, then He must accept our lifestyle, we reason. But this is not actually so.

Yes, the Lord accepts you for who you and are how you are today, IF this is your starting point with Him. But once you start a relationship with the Father, you are then put on a track of being made more into His likeness. This is not an option and there is no customizable Christianity. You cannot chose which of the Lord's doctrinal truths to implement in your life and which ones to ignore. You cannot decide what you want for your life if it differs from what the Lord wants. When you were a child, you lived and acted like a child, but when you became an adult, hopefully you put childish things behind. This is how it is with your Christian walk. You cannot live on baby’s milk forever; you must mature into eating meat to survive. Your spiritual journey is the same. It must be a path of constant maturity, constant refinement, constant surrender of what you want and a submission into what makes you Christ-like. There is no customizable menu here, there is only what the Lord wants, what He asks of you.

Listen to what the Lord says of you if you try to customize your own Christianity. He says you are medium, neither hot nor cold. And His EXACT words: “I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” The tone and verbiage the Lord uses when He says this is akin to vomiting. Your lifestyle, should you chose to customize it to make your Christianity “medium” will cause the Lord to vomit. It sounds harsh, but it is how He feels. Begin today, putting your life in the Lord’s hands, asking Him to show you the areas of your life where you are trying to customize. Then, surrender those things to Him. I don’t think you’ll be surprised; you’re already thinking of those few areas you need to submit to Him! It's time to start living by ALL of the Lord's words, not just a select few when it is convenient.

If you need a fresh start, He'll give you one, but remember this time to mature with no holds barred. Even the most devout Christian has something to improve upon. I know I have lots of areas needing improvement.

Don't take my word for it; look it up: 1 Cor 3:2, 1 Cor 13:11, 1 Cor 14:20, Heb 5:13, 1 Peter 2:2, Rev 3:15-16

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