Month: December 2020

Proverbs 1:32  “For simpletons turn away from me—to death. Fools are destroyed by their own complacency.”

Last week I talked a bit about apathy, but today I would like to talk a little bit about its not too distant cousin, complacency.  Apathy is being disengaged with the surrounding world and circumstances whereas complacency is being satisfied with less than the surrounding  world and circumstances have to offer.  

Complacency is settling for less than what we should because we have a false sense of contentment.  It makes us sit back on our hands instead of forging ahead in our spiritual lives.  Unfortunately, complacency is the disease that everyone denies having.  As we all know, however, the first step in getting well is admitting we have a problem.

Complacent Christians have the idea that they have arrived.  In America this is an especially easy state of mind to fall into.  We have it pretty easy compared to the rest of the world.  Why should we get callouses on our knees praying when we have almost all we want and more.  Unfortunately, when we lack any feeling of need or desperation, we get sloppy in our worship.   

Barna Research reports that since the nineties, Americans have become more spiritually complacent. 40% of born again Christians do not attend church or read the Bible in a typical week, 30% are not “absolutely committed to the Christian faith” and 70% are not involved in a small group that meets for spiritual purposes. The percentage of adults who can be classified as “born again” rose from 35% from the early 90s to 41% in the early 2000s. However, participation in 4 key behaviors declined and have continued to decline in this century; Bible reading (down from 45% to 37%); church attendance (from 49% to 42%); volunteering at church (from 27% to 20%); and adult Sunday school attendance (from 23% to 19%).   The recent Covid scare has not helped matters.  It is predicted that many of the people who have gotten in the habit of not attending due to Covid will not attend after Covid.   

There is a story of a tool company that manufactured drill bits. Faced with financial losses, company executives gathered to discuss the problem: a declining demand for drill bits. The CEO challenged his men: “How can we revive the bit market?” After an embarrassing silence, one member of the team dispelled the fog: “Sir, the market isn’t for bits–its for holes!” This simple truth illustrates what the church needs to recognize.  Complacent people feel fulfilled because they don’t feel needy. People are not in the market for spiritual activity because they don’t see a need for spiritual activity.     When someone needs to drill a hole he will think about buying a drill bit and when someone needs to fill a hole in his life he will look for a place to fill it.   In this time the church needs to be that place for unbelievers and believers alike.

There is the story of three demons who were exchanging ideas to bring about the downfall of man.  The first said, “Let’s tell them there is no God.”  The second said, “Let’s tell them there is no Hell.”  The third said, “Let’s tell them that there is no hurry.”  It seems to me that they settled on the third suggestion.

Revelation warns us about this complacency in the future.  “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth. Because you say, ‘I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,’ and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked,”  (Revelation 3:15-17)  Is that the future or has the future arrived?   God warns us of being lukewarm because it is more dangerous than being hot or cold.  It has just enough heat to make us believe that we are okay.  That kind of deception is a favorite ploy of Satan and many in the church seem to be falling for it.

There is a great story about the famous, fiery English pastor, A.J. Gordon, who became the pastor at a large, well-established, but cold Boston church.  After just a few weeks many of the senior members of the congregation moved to oust him because of his bold condemnation of the lifelessness of the church.  After about a month, right before the axe was about to fall he gave a sermon called “The funeral of the Church.”  It was a no-holds-barred, tell-it-the-way-it-is, God’s-Word-is-His-Word sermon.   The theme was that the church was a casket and like a casket there was no room for converts because coffins are built for only the dead.  He warned them of impending disaster if they did not repent.  It was an hour of truth.  Toward the end of the sermon the doors in the back of the church swung open and six solemn-faced pall bearers carried a casket up to the front.  Pastor Gordon lifted the lid and challenged the congregation to file past the coffin to view the deceased on the way out.  In the coffin, you guessed it, a giant mirror.

It seems to me that too many of us today need to look in the mirror to see if our complacency is leading unto death.  Paul tells us,  “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you–unless indeed you fail the test?”  (2 Corinthians 13:5)   It is hard to change others, but we can start with ourselves.  Have we become “fat and sassy” in our christian lives?  Are we going through the motions because that is all it takes anymore?  Do we put more time into the needless and neglect the needful?   We need to be cautious so that we don’t fall into the trap that Paul warns us of in Corinthians,   “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall.”  (1 Corinthians 10:1)

So it is time for the church put on its big-boy pants.  It is hard to put pants on someone else, so we should worry about our own legs first, but we shouldn’t be shy about pointing out lack of fervor in the Body of Christ.  It is time to take our spiritual lives seriously even if things are going so well that it seems we don’t need God.  That is, of course, facetious.  No matter how it seems, we need God.  We should not be fooled.  The demons have lied.  There is a hurry and those around us could use our hurriedness on their behalf.

“Therefore, no condemnation now exists for those in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1

Last week I wrote about guilt and pointed out that guilt can be like pain.  It can alert us to a problem that needs to be taken care of.  Many see guilt as bad because it can cause psychological problems like insecurity and tension and physical problems like headaches and weight loss or gain.  But the sense of guilt needs to be examined because some guilt is false and harmful and some guilt is real and helpful.  In the last devotion  I talked about guilt that was helpful.  I mentioned the guilt that is pointing out a wrong in our life that needs to be dealt with.  If Satan had his druthers, he would have us ignore real guilt and dwell on false guilt.  If that is what Satan wants, that is what we should not do.  The key is, how do we tell the difference between good guilt and bad.

Recognizing our real guilt is what leads us to Christ. If we do not understand real guilt, we would never come to a saving faith in Jesus.  One of the first steps in receiving the gift of salvation is understanding that we are sinful people separated from a Holy God.  If we ignore those feelings of guilt, we will never take the step of receiving the sacrifice of Christ and would never experience a new life in Him.  The guilt is not the problem.  Sin is the problem.  Guilt points us to the solution.  In that way, guilt is sometimes very good because is saves us from a terrible consequence that will take place if we do not change course.  False guilt, however, does not lead to freedom, but to imprisonment.  That is why we need to be able to tell the difference.

For everything that is real, there is a counterfeit.  Expensive clothes, jewelry, and even electronics all have their cheap knockoffs.  There is hardly a name brand that doesn’t have is its generic step-sibling.  Sometimes the fakery goes beyond products.  One man made over a half-million dollars in three years selling fake diplomas and medical certificates to people who went on to the medical field.  Things can be counterfeit, people can be counterfeit, so it stands to reason that feelings can be counterfeit.  Many of us can carry around a false sense of guilt that holds us back.  We assume that if we feel guilty, we must be guilty.  That guilt becomes destructive when it keeps us dwelling on the wrong things and prevents us from experiencing the right things.

There is a sad short story called “The Necklace.”  It is about a young woman, Mathilde, who is dissatisfied with her life and looks longingly at the lives of the “upper crust” women around her.  Her husband returns from work one day with an invitation to a gala ball and she cries because she has nothing to wear.  The husband, then, uses up personal savings to buy her a dress, but she is still distraught.  She has no nice jewelry.  The husband knows he can’t afford anything, so he suggests that Mathilde go to friend who is rich and borrow something.  She picks out a wonderful necklace, attends the ball, and leaves her husband on the sidelines while she dances her heart away.

Finally, Mathilde and her husband head for home and when they arrive, she realizes she has lost the necklace.  Distraught she goes to a local jeweler, picks out a necklace exactly the same, and returns that one to the owner who was non-the wiser.  Unfortunately, the necklace costs more than her husband can make in a lifetime.  So they take out loans from unscrupulous characters, and to pay them off, they sell their modest home and move to tiny apartment, both take on two jobs, and work their fingers to the bone.  Working night and day, the couple age rapidly and one day Mathilde’s path crosses with the original owner of the necklace.  The rich woman does not even recognize Mathilde because she has changed so much.  The woman makes a comment about it and Mathilde says her terrible condition is the woman’s fault.  Mathilde goes on to tell her the story of losing the necklace, the the subsequent loans, jobs, and poverty that resulted from replacing the necklace.

The woman clasps Mathilde’s hands and tells her
the necklace was imitation and not worth anything.  It was one of the saddest endings to any of the short stories I taught through the years. Believing the false is real can only lead to disaster.

We need to examine our guilt and get to the bottom of it.  When I coached and received criticism, I always listened.  After I listened I did one of two things.  If it was legitimate, I took it as advice and made the necessary changes.  If it was not legitimate, I forgot about it.  That is what we should do with guilt.  Guilt is criticizing something in our life.  If it exposes truth, we should make changes.  If it is built on a
falsehood, we should ignore it and go on. Sometimes we feel guilty over something that doesn’t violate God’s standards, but fails to to meet our own or other people’s expectations. God’s standards are important.  They will always be higher than man’s standards.  If we concern ourselves only about what God thinks, we will not have to worry much about what man thinks.  Guilt because we cannot reach others standards is often false guilt and eats us up from the inside.  We need to believe God more than our feelings.  He is a lot more reliable.

Another false feeling of guilt that plagues many is dwelling on past sins that God has already forgiven. True guilt exposes present sins, false guilt constantly reminds of past sins.  If we have taken care of those sins, we don’t need to constantly scratch at the old wound to keep it fresh.  A woman once broke an expensive vase of a friend.  She took the vase with her to repair, but it was unrepairable.  Her friend visited her and noticed the vase cracked and ugly sitting on a desk and asked her why it was there.  She replied that it was to remind her of her transgression.  The woman walked over, grabbed the vase, dropped it in the garbage and said she had forgiven her long ago and it was time she forgave herself.  We sometimes like to leave our past mistakes on display so we can be reminded of them.  If we have cleaned up our mess and truly confessed, it is time to remember what God says, not what Satan says.  Satan will condemn us but Romans 8:1 says: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Whenever we feel condemned, we need to recognize it as the malevolence of the enemy who is trying to rob us of the peace that is ours through Christ.

The Holy Spirit convicts us and Satan condemns us.  Condemnation is not the same as conviction.  Satan helps us to ignore actual wrongdoing. The key for us is to discern between the guilt that our flesh, Satan, and the world heaps on us and the necessary guilt that can lead to healing.  We need to praise God that He has forgiven our sins.  If we don’t understand God’s great mercy, we will still be shackled by chains that have been unlocked.  We need to take a stand and refuse to accept guilt for that which has been forgiven.  Reading the Word, surrounding ourselves with believers, listening to worshipful music, staying in the Word, and listening to instructional sermons can all help us to discern where our feelings originate.

There are many things we feel guilty about, but another burden
Satan puts on us is our inability to fix all things.  We cannot make everything right.  We cannot undo things that have been done.  We can’t make someone be who God wishes them to be.  There are restrictions on what we can do in this life and we cannot allow the guilt about not being fixers of all woes make us feel guilty.  A favorite saying of mine is, “I cannot do all things, but I can do some things.  Those things that I can do, I should do.  Those things that I should do, by God’s grace, I will do.”  We cannot carry around guilt about pasts we cannot change, people we cannot mold, or promises we cannot keep.  Some things just will be, regardless of how hard we try to change the outcome.  We need to concentrate on the Lord and identify with the words of Mary in Luke “and my spirit has begun to rejoice in God my Savior,”  If we look to His adequacy, we will look less at our own inadequacies.

We should not let the false chains of guilt to hold us back, but if our guilt is real, we should confess the sin, turn from it, and not let Satan accuse us of it again. We have a “glorious freedom (as) the children of God” (Rom. 8:21), and we should live in that glory.    Psalm 32:5 reminds us, “Then I acknowledged my sin to you . . .and you forgave the guilt of my sin.”   True repentance takes away the guilt of our sin and this brings true freedom from our sin.  We need to hold onto and believe what God says in Romans 8:31-35 “. . . who can separate us from the love of Christ?”  Satan can’t, the world can’t, our flesh can’t, and false guilt can’t.  When we step from the prison of sin, it is time to change clothes.  Ephesians 4 tells us “You were taught with reference to your former way of life to lay aside the old man who is being corrupted in accordance with deceitful desires, to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and to put on the new man who has been created in God’s image—in righteousness and holiness that comes from truth.”  Why should we wear the uniform of our prison life any longer.  We should put on the new clothes of salvation.  Why should we look or act like prisoners any longer.  True guilt leads us to the keys of the prison; false guilt leads takes us back.  Let’s learn to recognize the difference between the exit and entrance.