We Don’t Simply Drift Toward Holiness.
Why did I stop doing the daily “Tasty Tidbits”? A few people asked me this. The reason is that I do not simply drift toward holiness. In other words, it takes too much time. Every day I have to read a number of articles and then post them. That takes 45 minutes to two hours. That is a lot of time. Something had to give and it was not going to be my sleep or work, or my family so my devotions began to suffer. When my devotions and prayer life begin to suffer, I lose the spiritual food that I need to survive in this fallen world. I open myself up to temptation when I am not constant in prayer. The tasty tidbits were easy to write, but they kept me far too busy…and busyness is one of Satan’s subtle tools to distract us from Christ. When we are distracted from Christ, we begin to drift. And when we drift, it typically is not toward God but away from HIm… Like DA Carson said:
People do not drift toward Holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.
I will still post once or twice a week, and I will likely post a daily verse or quote on Facebook. But I have taken a step back from blogging. Even though I write about Christ, and the Bible and Prayer…does not necessarily mean that I am reading the Bible, Praying and cultivating my relationship with my redeemer enough to ensure that I am not simply drifting. What about you? Are you drifting?
Hebrews 1: We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. For since the message spoken through angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.
It’s important to focus on your family for sure. Your post makes me think of men who are so busy with church life and meetings but neglect their families. I’m very thankful for a husband who makes time to be there for his family. Be there for your wife and children first of all….and I look forward to future posts 🙂
That is one of my fears Cecile. I have become very busy with committees, groups, and having one on one’s with both believers and unbelievers that my family might begin to suffer. I am noticing the strain on both my family and my own personal spiritual growth. It is so easy to be too busy, we start off with good motives by living a life of thankfulness, then we slowly forget to keep Christ central, and then our family is next to suffer. Criteria for office bearers is not to have a busy church life nor a lot of committees under his belt, or being a good speaker, or having a good blog…but… having a good family life is a criteria… being a godly man is far more important than being a busy man – even busy with the things of God. Thank you for your comment Cecile
The devil often tries to make us too busy for time with our redeemer, usually he uses worldly cares concerns and activities, when that does not work he will try the other way and have us focus so much on service to our local church that we still do not focus on Christ but are under the delusion that seeing as we are so busy with church stuff that things must be good with our relationship to Him. Either way our faith suffers, “be not weary in well doing”. Seek ye first the kingdom of God, with out doing this all things will suffer. God Bless.