This was posted by my very good friend Dusty, to whom I’ve previously linked and replied here at twelve:one. He writes about two talks he gave to the youth at his church (my former church). The main focus is his talk from this past Wednesday. The main point of the response I posed follows. The full texts for both can be read here.
(Post)
I was finishing up about dating when I tied the whole two weeks together again by drawing focus to the main point again, which is that we should be DEVOTING A LIFE TO CHRIST, and not just sundays and wednesdays.I explained it further by using an example using math; I love numbers and facts. LOL
But anyways, here is what I found.
The average person right now lives to be 75 years old, and 79 for women. So then, I let my mathematics do the rest….. and if a person just worships GOD on sundays alone which is a lot of christians, that makes it 3,900 days / 557 weeks / or 11 years. WOW, that information is disheartening. I mean, here we are…. we should be devoting a LIFE to Christ and all we’re giving HIM is one-seventh or 11 years out of 75.
But, here is what GOD showed me even further [in the middle of the talk]: Most people who are christians only go to church for no more than two hours in a day, and that’s all the worshiping they do… with that said, here is what GOD showed me: If you take those same statistics and replace the 24 hour day for 2 hours, you get 325 days / 46 weeks / or less than 1 year!!!! THAT IS VERY MUCH DISTURBING! Here we are, suppose to be devoting a life to Christ because HE wants us to, and because HE saved us, so we should thank HIM with our life, and we don’t even give HIM one full year out of 75 years. I’ll say that again, if all you do is go to church on Sundays and never worship or pray or read the Bible for the rest of the week, then all that amounts up to, is One year of your life out of 75 years! That does not sound anything like an entire life to me! Well, then you might say, “I go on wednesdays too.” Ok, then just double the numbers: 650 days / 92 weeks / or around 1.5 years! Wow, that’s a lot better…. I can definitely see how 1.5 years seems like an entire lifetime.
It’s no wonder that most christians stay “baby christians” in their walk, it’s because in the big picture of it all, we’re just giving him 1/75th of our life! Maybe, if we christians would start to reflect a LIFE of Christ and not just on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights, then maybe, just maybe we could change the world, or even just ourselves. And, what hurts even more, is that a lot of christians don’t even go on Sundays and Wednesdays at all, and then they wonder why GOD hasn’t talked to them in awhile, or why does all this bad stuff keep happening? It’s because we’re not getting close to the Savior like we should be doing!
Then, the question might arise of, “ok, how do I best live a life devoted to Christ?.” Well, of course go to church on a regular basis so you can at least get that one year out of 75, then I would say, watch how you react to the rest of life…. What are you watching? What are you listening to? How are you treating people? Understand that you might be the only Bible that someone ever sees in their life. In fact, I tell people all the time, the best way to show someone Christ is live A LIFE for Christ and constantly try to better yourself. Besides, most people that don’t know Christ won’t care about what the Bible says, because if they don’t know Christ, why are they going to believe in the Bible? So, be an example and stand up for THE WAY, stand up for THE TRUTH, stand up for THE LIFE! [...] I pray that all of us, those who call ourselves christians, will stand up for Christ and reflect Him all of our life, and not just one or two days a week.
(Response)
–Really….you’re dead on. I would even take it a step further and say that we don’t need to be Bible-believing as you say. Christ-following is better. That is Life. Not believing a book. Yes, believe the scriptures. But, if I simply believe the plank of wood standing in front of me with the shiny round thing in the middle of it is a door, what good does that do me? It is only when I turn the knob and open the door that it allows change (e.g. moving from one room to another.Christ said “I am the door.” Therefore, don’t simply believe Him, or believe in Him, or the Bible, or whatever. Every day is a choice of action, not just a retention of belief. Daily, we should choose to follow Him to the Cross, to love our neighbor (friend and enemy) along the way, and to enter through Him and we will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
May I and may you choose the narrow path this day and tomorrow. Amen.
