Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Tuesday October 9, 2007

An old story has it that a preacher began a conversation with a man while taking a trip on an airplane. During the course of the conversation the preacher asked the man what he believed. The man stated, "I believe what my church believes." The pastor asked, "And just what is that?" The fellow traveler responded, "The same thing I believe." The next level of imbecility is the one who can state the major points of faith, but could not, even if their life was on the line, give biblical documentation as to the why of said belief.

The idea of what used to be called the Disciplines of the Christian Life is foreign to most of today's professing Christians.

D. Martin Lloyd Jones wrote:

"How often do we hear about the discipline of the Christian life these days? There was a time in the Christian church when this was at the very center, and it is, I profoundly believe, because of our neglect of this discipline that the church is in her present position. Indeed, I see no hope whatsoever of any true revival and reawakening until we return to it."

A major "discipline" was a reasonable understanding and practice of seriously following the lifestyle of a disciple as taught by Christ.

Another discipline "teaching" is the necessity of retraining our mind to think biblically, appropriating the "mind" of Christ as the method for making decisions. All thought must be processed through the golden filter of God's word. While this practice accomplishes many good things in our life, it primarily delivers us from what is called "Pettiness." Most of the things we get upset about when compared to the noble calling we have to take up our cross and follow Christ, are petty.

Some years ago The Great Blonde really got on my case for "crying over ice cream." At a "fellowship" meeting a few church members fell into squabbling over the kind of ice cream being served. (This is the truth). The griping went on; the person who had bought the "healthful" ice cream was hurt because the other group did not like the taste and stated this publically. It went on, thus the wife of my youth fussing at me for crying over ice cream. Admittedly I have been known to state in no uncertain terms that I do not want "diet" ice cream as I will simply eat less of real ice cream. (This preference is for home use only). I was literally weeping, not over ice cream, but over my failure to adequately communicate the truth of a Christian Discipline of Luke 10:8, "eat such things as are set before you," to my saintly congregation.

The meaning of "Disciple" is "one who submits to the teaching" and we Christians are contributing to the mess the world is in by our failure to "Surrender All" to Christ.

Larry Lilly Copyright (C) 2007 Use with credit.

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