Doing the Church Thing

     Sometimes, motivation is everything.  Staring at the treadmill, knowing you should get on, is about the time your gusto for working out because it's fun and good for you....quickly dissipates.  However, when you realize that the only way you are ever going to run that 8 minute mile you have been training for is by training, the motivation quickly returns.  Or how about saving  up for your new iPhone?  Babysitting doesn't always sound like fun, until you are reminded it brings you one step closer to owning a new piece of technology.  You see, motivation is the catalyst that drives us to action.  By examining our motives, it doesn't take long to figure out why we do what we do.
     So, let me ask your a few questions:

• Why do you go to church?
• Why do you read your Bible?
• Why do you pray?
• What is motivating you in your Christian life? 

   There are many of us who have grown up in the culture of Christianity.  Praying, reading the Bible and going to church has always been a part of our lives.   Some would say we have been taught while others would prefer to use the term indoctrinated.  Many people look with pity on young adults following in their Christian parents footsteps with a sigh, saying, "It's all they have ever known."  Are these skeptical bystanders right in their assumption that many of us are just doing the 'Christian thing' because it's how we have been raised?  Why do we do what we do?

      For some, our Christianity could be classified as simple ritualism, going through the motions on the outside but on the inside there is really no lasting motive to keep it up. There is an outward conformity that is not matched by an inward desire and longing for true righteousness.  In Isaiah 29:13, we catch a glimpse of the same empty religion that Israel fell into:

...this people draw near with their mouth and honor Me with their lips,
while their hearts are far from Me,
and their fear of Me is a commandment taught by men...

     You see, it's an issue of the heart.  There is a deeper purpose behind the Bible reading and praying that transcends the culture in which you are reared.  Christianity isn't about following rules and regulations, it's about being purchased by the blood of Christ. Salvation is the work of a heart of stone being transformed by the power of God into a heart of flesh.  Maybe that isn't really what is it all about for you.  Maybe for you, Christianity is simply cultural, trying to make your parents happy and meet the 'good kid' expectations set up by your elders.  However, being a Christ follower doesn't consist of the things you do, it's Who you serve.  Just as going to McDonald's doesn't make you a hamburger, so going to church doesn't make you a Christian.  On the outside you might fit the 'good Christian kids' mold well. However, we can only hang fruit on a dead tree for so long.  There has to be life in the roots so the fruit produced can be genuine.  Has your heart been changed?  

For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. 

And his commandments are not burdensome.

1 John 5:3 

           Reading your Bible, praying, spending time in fellowship with God's people, it's all a means to an end.  They are not an end in themselves. There is no eternal benefit from loving the law but despising the Savior.  The do's and don'ts of Christianity can never cover you with the righteousness of God.  Like a big arrow pointing us to Christ, these 'duties' should leave us in a greater understanding of who He is and lead us to a greater awe and worship of Him, not give us confidence that somehow we are 'good enough' to be a Christian.

     For a long time I fit into the good Christian kid mold.  If you would have asked me if I was saved my answer would have been,"Yes".  I mean my dad was a pastor, how could I not be saved?!  I grew up in the culture of Christianity and I conformed to it pretty well.  Inside I was dead.  Church was a time I got to hang out with friends. Helping do service projects made me look good in the eyes of other people and as long as I didn't do anything too bad, I had some wiggle room to live for myself and my desires.  Jesus wasn't my Savior and He definitely wasn't my Lord, I was.  My righteousness was based on how well I could perform, the amount of good things I could do, Bible verses I could recite, and scripture trivia questions I could answer. These somehow equated that I was 'saved'.  My confidence was not in the righteousness of Christ but it was firmly fixed in the righteousness of Kayla.
     By God's grace and mercy, He soon took it all away.  Giving me an understanding of my sin, He showed me who I really was.  My life was defined by sin and selfishness and I had little care about God and being obedient to Him.  I had been playing the double life and He caught me red-handed.  Through His mercy, God broke me and asked for it all.  He didn't ask for my goodness, I had none.  He asked for my sin and He placed it upon the shoulders of my Savior who bled and died for me and in return for my dirty, repulsive, filth laden sin rags, He bestowed on me the righteous robes of Christ.  He changed my heart and all I can say is I have a gracious Savior who saves us not because of works done by us in righteousness, but because of HIS mercy. (Titus 3:5)
    Please examine your heart. Are you just doing the church thing or has God brought new life to your soul?

Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!

2 Corinthians 13:5