poolsandpastures
Thoughts on the Gospel, Life, and Ministry
Keep Calm and Trust Jesus
One of the aspects of my job that I never thought I would enjoy as much as I do is reading. I read a lot. I read for sermon prep. I read for Bible Studies. I read for ministry vision. I read to understand what’s going on in this world. And, I read for personal enjoyment and edification.
My reading takes me through the centuries of Christian history all at one time. One of the things that I’ve noticed is that the devotional emphasis of the authors from different centuries has changed. In earlier writings, there is an emphasis on enjoying communion with God through one’s relationships with God personally and with his people, the Church. Many modern authors, however, emphasize experiencing one’s relationship with God through activities of personal devotion and individual discipleship. They tell us that we need to pray more, tithe more, evangelize more, volunteer more, etc.
I think this modern emphasis on doing more things to enhance our experience of our personal relationship with God is a reflection of the contemporary understanding of Christianity. In my opinion, Christianity has become an adjective of our lives that describes the activities that we do rather than a noun that defines us. The more devout we are in participating in Christian activities (prayer, bible study, church, missions, evangelism outreaches, etc) means that we are more Christian than those who are less devout in those same activities. And, since devout equals Christian, we want to be more devout so that we can be more Christian (as if that’s possible). So, we readily accept the challenge to do more things for God, at least on the surface.
I find this to be exhausting. I can’t do everything that I keep reading modern Christian authors telling me that I need to be doing. You can’t either. This mindset creates an insane fury of activity in our lives that we can’t keep up.
The ancient authors, taking their cue from the Bible, offer a helpful reminder to us. Christian is not something (or many things) that we do; it is who we are in Christ. He’s done everything for us. We can’t improve upon his work. Therefore, we are to enjoy our secure life in him by enjoying our time with him and our relationship with his people. We glorify him by using the gifts he has given each of us to do what you can do to serve him in the context of our daily lives as we walk with his people. Then, we trust him to do the rest through the gifts and opportunities he has given to the other people in his church. In modern parlance, we are to “keep calm, and trust Jesus.”
CHD
poolsandpastures 
I agree completely.