The Lord is powerfully speaking to our church, I believe, through our current series: "What Christ is Saying to the Church" (Revelation 2-3). Yesterday we heard the Lord giving the church at Sardis and us, this message: "Don't Let the Perceptions of Men Dictate Your Position with God" (Revelation 3:1-6).
At the heart of the message was the call for believers to not focus on being perceived as godly when, in reality, our hearts are from it. In other words, we need to be careful to not be satisfied that men think we are something that we are not. We need to be careful that we do not give the impression of life when spiritual decay is actually taking place in our souls. This was the challenge Jesus had for Sardis:
“... ‘I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead
(Revelation 3:1).
In other words, Jesus is saying, "I know that you have everyone else believing that you are in love with me, but all I see are hearts dwindling on the vine of external conformity." They were dying, spiritually, and Jesus calls them to wake up! He calls the church to arise from the slumber that has us thinking that He will tolerate sleepy Christianity. Sleepy Christianity is dead Christianity which, in itself, is not Christianity at all! The call is to stop seeking to convince others of how godly we are and begin to commune with the Lord. This soul communion is His standard of true godliness.
It is absolutely imperative that we stop living for the applause, praise and validation of others as the sole purpose of our lives. This is beyond deceiving; it is destructive. When I focus on people's perceptions of me as being godly I will also begin to assess myself on the same basis. I begin to make my "activity" the determining factor of my own godliness. I begin to measure my relationship with God on the basis of what I am doing and how I am behaving. If I am reading the Bible, going to church, praying a little, I feel good about myself and assure myself that such duties are the defining "proof" of my devotion. Such measures, however, only create bi-polar Christians.
Bi-Polar Christianity
I am happy when I am doing the right things but when I display actions that are not "Christian" I begin to question my relationship with the Lord and lose my joy. The same relationship that I was certain of yesterday because I followed the advice of that Spike Lee joint to "Do the Right Thing", is now suspect because I did some wrong things today. Now, because I messed up, I am all messed up! This is exactly the scheme and trick of the enemy. He wants us to base everything on our external conformity because he knows something we kid ourselves about. He knows that we will never always do the right thing even though we bank our who eternity on the fact that we will.
The problem with Sardis and with us is not that we are failing to watch ourselves. The problem is that we are watching the wrong things about ourselves. Here is a principle to always remember:
“What we watch always dictates how we measure therefore when we watch wrong we
measure wrong.”
We are watching our lives as the measure of authentic Christian duty. The Lord, however, watches our heart as the measure of Christ-centered devotion. Here is another principle to keep at the forefront of our minds:
“A heart devoted to Christ will produce a life of delight-filled duty to the Lord. But a life
devoted to Christian duty will never produce a heart of devotion to Christ.
If we turn our watchfulness to waking up spiritually - internally - we will soon find our lives conforming to Jesus out of pure delight for who He is. Our joy will no longer be rooted in us, but in who He is and what He accomplished for us by His perfect life and obedient death.
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