There But Not There

NOTE: This is from the devotional guide of our church, Filinvest Community Christian Fellowship. Today is Day Four of our Prayer and Fasting week.

Image credit

Have someone told you, “You are physically present but mentally absent”? Our mobile phones and tablets made us miss on a lot of conversations over meals. Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter were supposed to connect us. Yet, we get so disconnected from each other. We are there but not there.

This leads us to the third sign of toxic spirituality: “Work without worship.”

Image credit

When we look for what we can get from the church and not what we can give, when we want to be served there and not to serve, when we go to our gatherings to be entertained and not to be edified and equipped, and when we ask to be blessed only and not to be a blessing also, we work without worship. 
Most people think of the church as a drama, with the minister as the chief actor, God as the prompter, and the laity as the critic. What is actually the case is that the congregation is the chief actor, the minister is the prompter, and God is the critic. [1]
The Lord Jesus warned about this “there but not there” attitude. “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me”. (Matthew 15:8, ESV) One glaring example of work without worship is when we sing songs in our worship services. We mouth the lyrics but do not meditate its meaning in our heart. We are there in the pews singing but our mind is somewhere else (like where we will have lunch after the service). We listen to the sermon but we think it’s for someone else and for us. We’re there but not there.

Image credit

Or, we get animated with what we learned from the Word but we fail to apply it in our lives. That’s connected also to the fourth mark of toxic spirituality: “Devotion without discipleship.” 
True devotion is expressed in discipleship to Christ. Otherwise, it is merely the feeling without the doing. Lip-service without the life to show for it. [2]
We feel the fervor but we fail to follow through. Our excited promises to God are not expressed in action. When we are hearers of the Word only and not doers also, we lie to ourselves (James 1:22). However, God can see through our hypocrisy. 

Step #4 To Detox: Read James 1:22-25. Make a list of the things you committed before to do for God but remain unapplied. Look at the list and choose the top three to do for the rest of the week.

[1] Edmund Chan, Cultivating Your Inner Life: Reflections on Spiritual Formation in Discipleship Today 2nd Edition (SG: Covenant Evangelical Free Church, 2011), 50. Emphasis added.

[2] Ibid, 51. Italics his.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

God Knows Judas Not Pay

In the National Geographic Magazine (May 2006 issue), in its cover story, The Judas Gospel , Professor Eliane Pagels of Princeton University claimed that the so-called gospel of Judas “ changes the history of early Christianity. ” Even UP Professor Randy David took notice of the Judas Gospel: “Strictly from a sociological standpoint, I think the discovery of the Gospel of Judas makes Christianity a far more interesting religion than what centuries of metaphysical theology has made of it.” (A Gospel for the Postmodern, Phil. Daily Inquirer, April 16, 2006) That’s why I spoke in our Young Pro Fellowship a few days ago on God Knows Judas Not Pay (A Biblical Response on the Judas Gospel). I believe opportunities like this hype on the Judas Gospel or the Da Vinci Code opens a door for us to share the true Gospel. For those who did not attend last Thursday, let me share briefly why we reject the Judas gospel. I came up with the acronym J-U-D-A-S. J udas was portrayed as a traitor in the Bibl
Read more

“Ubus-ubos Biyaya, Bukas Nakatunganga”

Image
That’s what my mother always told us when we were still kids. (Translation: “You spend everything today, you will have nothing tomorrow.” ) Image source: So, What's New ? Dionie did just that. Last April 2008, he won PHP14,125,032 in the Lotto 6/42 draw. Excitedly, he “lived the life of a millionaire, something he had been longing to experience. He lived in a P4-million house in a posh subdivision, drove around in a sports utility vehicle [which he bought the very same day he claimed his prize] , and gave goodwill money, ranging P1,000 to P 850,000, to relatives and friends. He also gambled daily, womanized, and went on regular drinking sprees.” (Source: Manila Bulletin ) He estimated that he squandered a minimum of P100,000 almost every day. He also lent money even to people he did not really know. “I just gave them and told them not to pay me back.” (Ibid) His bank had to issue him a special card so he can withdraw huge amounts of money quickly from the automated teller m
Read more

“Don’t drink the Kool-Aid!”

Image
Forty years ago, this expression became known as a description of blind obedience.   Source: Los Angeles Times On November 18, 1978, members of Peoples Temple, a cult group in Guyana, drank Kool-Aid drink laced with cyanide to commit a mass suicide “at the behest of their charismatic but paranoid leader, Jim Jones”. [1] According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica , “The death toll exceeded 900, including some 300 age 17 and under, making the incident one of the largest mass deaths in American history. ”  [2]  What made those people submit to such atrocity? According to Stella Morabito, a senior contributor to The Federalist online magazine, Peoples Temple is “Exhibit A… [of]  the dangers of the cult mindset or how vulnerable all people are to cult tactics.”  [3] She pointed out that, Coercive persuasion has immense power to shape and twist the human mind.  …[Jones’] utopian preaching of a humane world in which all lived happily in harmony resonated with the
Read more