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| Christian Boredom |
1 Corinthians 10:7 - (7) Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written, The people
sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.
After the Lord had delivered Israel from Egypt, they quickly got bored and
turned away from Him to worship a golden calf. Many Christians do this today
when they get bored of the Christian life because they figure deliverance is all
that the Christian life consists of.
Let’s say a man is newly born again. He has recently repented and struggled
bitterly to successfully overcome his old habits that he used to be entangled
in: drunkenness, lust and the like. He is immensely encouraged because of this
triumph. But now he finds himself with no struggle: very little to pray about,
and little reason to study scripture. Previously his toilsome fight with sin
kept him working, praying, studying, and striving. But he has overcome… now what
is left? This was exactly Israel’s attitude. “We have been delivered from Egypt!
… But… now what?”
So what happens? The boredom leads to stagnation and sluggishness, which slowly
leads into a progression back to where they started! Israel was like a bicyclist
that ran out of breath on the way up a hill and then started drifting backwards.
Instead of fighting hard to press on up the hill, they found themselves taking
the easy comfortable road back down the hill… and even looking forward to going
back into Egypt.
Boredom is the most understated trial of a believer’s life. If Satan can’t cause
you to fall back, he’ll at least attempt to keep you from going forward.
A Christian life where there is little struggle with sin (because much has been
overcome), but also little growth in grace is not what the Lord meant for. The
old man has to be put off, and then the new man must be put on. If you only put
off the old man without putting on the new, what good will that do you?
A car painter doesn’t scrape off all the old paint only to the let the car rust.
He puts new paint on. You don’t take off your old dirty clothes only to run
around naked. No… you put on your new clean clothes. When you were baptized, you
did not sink down into the water, never to come up again… that would be tragic.
No, you went down dirty and rose up out of the water again clean. God doesn’t
deliver you from wickedness simply to put off wickedness. He saves to put on
Christ (Rom 13:14).
When you hit those points of boredom in your walk, slowly press on forward. Do
your devotion and prayer even if you don’t feel like it. Don’t be like the
bicyclist who took the easy road back because he was out of breath. Keep
yourself from falling back. It would be foolish to start wasting your leisure
time that you used to spend with God on meaningless activities like sports and
television. It would be foolish to spend the money you used to give to missions
on baseball cards.
The main lesson here is: even when your flesh doesn’t ‘feel’ like doing your
duty to the Lord, you do it anyway. Boredom is no reason to stop serving the
Lord. |
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