Encouragement for people tempted to quit

Pew potatoes.

sonnyholmes
May 30, 2020
3 min read

1998 was in another millennium. But, it seems like yesterday is some respects. That's when our family doctor told me I was obese and diagnosed my Type 2 Diabetes. After the exam he explained that my condition was the result of physical inactivity. He called me a couch potato. If my memory banks are functional today I think it was the first time I had ever heard that term. Weighing in at 260 lbs., breathing hard after a short flight of stairs, and just months from my fiftieth birthday, it was a moment on Mt. Sinai for me. It was the reality therapy this middle aged guy needed to hear. A year later I was down to 185 and could jog five miles paced with 10 minute miles. Couch potato days were over.

It's an old concept now, the couch potato thing. Over the years, however, the idea seeped into my spiritual leadership as a church pastor. Today, with the spiritual indicators of the nation hitting all time lows it seems obvious to me, and most observers and analysts, that a good number of our churches are the spiritual homes of millions of pew potatoes. We go to church, experience relatively sedate worship, sit through countless Bible messages, maybe even attend a small group of some kind, and rarely do anything apart from those Sunday only faith exercises. In a big way we're a nation of pew potatoes.

Sluggishness isn't the biblical outcome for heart healthy Christians. Scripture portrays spiritual vibrancy among the elect of God. Yes, there are moments of stillness, quiet, reverence, and silence in the Christian life. Waiting on God, listening to God, humbly worshiping God are Christian virtues. Still, the Christian life is about obedience as we grow and mature in the faith. Paul wrote these important word to Timothy---

But reject profane and old wives’ fables, and exercise yourself toward godliness. For

bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of

the life that now is and of that which is to come. This is a faithful saying and worthy of

all acceptance.

1 Timothy 4:7-9, NKJV

What then are the spiritual exercises that produce the heart healthy Christian life? Let me mention a few---

1. Personal worship and Bible study.

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no

need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

2 Timothy 2:15, ESV

2. A consistent and vibrant prayer life.

Praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end,

keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints.

Ephesians 6:18,ESV

Pray without ceasing.

1 Thessalonians 5:17, ESV

3. A life of specific Christian service.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own

doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For

we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God

prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Ephesians 2:8-10, ESV

Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.

Romans 12:11, ESV

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we

do not give up.

Galatians 6:9, ESV

There's a warning about any of the spiritual disciplines, including the three mentioned. We humans have a tendency to equate busy-ness and activity with spiritual discipline. It's symptomatic of Christians today as in every generation. The meaningful exercise of heart healthy Christians isn't just longer to-do lists. more meetings, or additional time in peripheral church business. Heart healthy Christians exercise in ways that build the Christian body and provide spiritual edification for ourselves and others.

Even more, being a pew potato isn't the way Jesus prepared his followers to influence a busy and confused world.

Spiritually undernourished.

sonnyholmes
May 30, 2020
3 min read

Sooner or later most of us experience times when we are spiritually undernourished. These are often moments when real life depletes the spiritual reserves we need to stand firm in our faith. You know, when the pressures and stresses, tragedies and comedies, winds and storms, and other exigencies overwhelm us. Read through the Psalms once in a while for a refresher course in King David's highs and lows, those circumstances that emptied him and left him depressed, discouraged, or disappointed. At the same time, it's interesting to note that his down times were usually temporary.

Suddenly, being spiritually undernourished isn't such a momentary condition in secular America. Many of the demographic indicators researchers explore indicate a spiritually undernourished church with declining influence in every silo of American life. Go ahead and do the domino effect on that one to conclude this same malnourished condition in so many believers. Across the board fewer and fewer of us are heart healthy Christians. Being spiritually undernourished seems to be systemic.

Scripture portrays the Christian life as demanding, even hard. Christian discipline to correctly live that life involves endurance, firmness, resolve, focus, determination, character, consistency, moral strength, and many other components. The dietary regimen to produce them in mortal humans is a common Biblical theme. Three elements have been most influential in my own struggles to guard my heart.

1. The nourishment of God's Word.

Jesus said, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from

the mouth of God" (Matthew 4:4, ESV). Throughout Scripture God's Word is

portrayed as the spiritual food to prepare God's people to live boldly in uncertain

times. Jeremiah wrote, "Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words

became to me a joy and the delight of my heart" (Jeremiah 15:16, ESV). Peter added

a strong footnote when he wrote, "Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual

milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation" (1 Peter 2:2, ESV). I really prefer the

old versions which instruct us to "crave" the pure spiritual milk of God's Word.

When I'm empty and without spiritual reserves time in the Bible nourishes and

strengthens me. I should crave it constantly.

2. The nourishment of seeking and doing God's will.

Once again, Jesus said, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to

accomplish his work" (John 4:34, ESV). There is a fulfilling element in seeking to

fulfill God's will in our lives. This seems so mysterious to believers these days.

But, God's Word provides focus in knowing God's will. Paul wrote, "Do not be

conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by

testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and

perfect" (Romans 12;2-3, ESV). The truth is that we spend our precious resources in

life chasing the wrong things, things that will not nourish us. This instruction is to be

transformed so that we can know his will and pursue it. How nourishing is that?

3. The nourishment of being with other Christians.

There is a refreshing element to our relationship with other believers. Sadly many

people today seek to go it alone in their Christian faith. Two verses from Paul's letter

to Philemon register strongly in this regard. He wrote, "For I have derived much joy

and comfort from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints have been

refreshed through you" (Philemon 7, ESV). Later he added, "Yes, brother, I want

some benefit from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in Christ" (Philemon 20, ESV).

Paul understood the spiritual nourishment of being with other Christians.

Our world needs a vibrant, active, and influential church. This happens when heart healthy Christians enter that world every day nourished with a steady diet of God's Word, seeking to know and fulfill the will of God, and strengthened by the spiritual fellowship of other believers.

Spiritual arrhythmia.

sonnyholmes
May 30, 2020
3 min read

My Christian heartbeat hasn't always been that steady. Before answering God's call to pastoral ministry I was an on-again, off-again believer suffering from what the medical community might diagnose as spiritual arrhythmia. Even after seminary and forty years of church leadership there have been times when my spiritual pulse was hot and racing and other times when it was barely detectable. It's not a rare condition, this irregular spiritual heartbeat. The growing nominal Christian population and declines in most measures of Christian practice may indicate that the heart healthy Christian is more the exception than the rule on the American religious landscape. What gives here?

Solomon obviously knew the dangers of a heart out of spiritual rhythm. He wrote---

Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

Proverbs 4:23, ESV

That he wasn't writing about the the myocardium, the heart muscle so central to the functioning of our miraculous bodies, is obvious. He had previously cautioned his son to be attentive to his words by keeping them in his heart (v. 21). Who would dare argue our need for greater physical heart care? Even so, Solomon was writing about the spiritual heart, the inner seat of everything emotional, spiritual, and even mental in us humans. That heartbeat defines the cadence of life. And, often, it's weak.

Scripture identifies the many sources of the spiritually fluctuating heartbeat. Reflect on the following verses for a sense of how this kind of arrhythmia can slacken the strength of our spiritual pulse and influence---

Let not your heart turn aside to her (the adulteress) ways; do not stray into her

paths.

Proverbs 7:25, ESV

Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.

Hebrews 3:8, ESV

You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your

hearts in a day of slaughter.

James 5:5, ESV

They have hearts trained in greed.

2 Peter 2:14, ESV

And, there are many others. However, even though the language in each of the above portrays a slight variation in the daily realities that can affect our heartbeat (the heart that is turned aside, the hardened heart, the fattened heart, or the heart trained in greed), the common thread is that in each the heart is divided, unsure, and therefore unsteady.

Just as clearly, God's Word gives direction in the training necessary to restore the heart healthy Christian.

Training 1: The refreshment of being with other believers.

For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because the

hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you.

Philemon 7, ESV

Yes, brother, I want some benefit from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in Christ.

Philemon 20, ESV

Training 2: The comfort of being established in good work and Bible study.

Comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.

2 Thessalonians 2:17, ESV

Training 3: The freedom of being strengthened by grace.

For it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace.

Hebrews 13:9, ESV

Training 4: The focus of seeking approval of God and not other humans.

Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected

him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the

Lord looks on the heart.

1 Samuel 16:7, ESV

Training 5: The discipline of focusing life on eternal things.

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being

renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal

weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to

the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that

are unseen are eternal.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18, ESV

The spiritual heartbeat of the nation right now is a reflection of the inconsistent, unsteady spiritual rhythms of a great majority of believers. Restoring the nation to spiritual vibrancy involves, in great part, the influence of heart healthy Christians. I'm praying that the training to begin that restoration begins in me.