Is the battery running low?

The phone is ringing. If this is an important call, just how long is it going to last? Will the phone last? My wife, Claudia, had a call from our daughter in Germany yesterday morning (they're six hours ahead of us), and before too long I could hear the phone beeping the way it does to let you know it's running out of 'juice'. I grabbed the handset from another base in the house, answered the phone, said "I love you" to my daughter, and offered Claudia the other phone. We switched and I hung up the almost expired phone on its base to recharge.

Sometimes we act like these cordless phones. In fact, I've even heard some Christians 'beep' at someone, warning them that their 'spiritual charge' is about to run out. We can only take so much, or so we say, and if things don't change we're going to suddenly lose our Christ-likeness. Watch out! After all, isn't the reason we go to Sunday church services to get our battery recharged?

No. The reason we go to Sunday church services is offer up our sacrifice of praise as a church family, and to build each other up in Christ. (Koinonia anyone?)

And further more, it is not true that we can only take so much due to our 'spiritual charge' being low, because we have an indwelling source of spiritual electricity in the person of the Holy Spirit. The only way we can lose our Christ-likeness is through willful acts of sabotage against our own personal system. We can choose to not be in prayer, not be in the Word, not be in worship, not be in fellowship, not be in Koinonia, not be witnessing, not be serving our church family, and to not do the many things that Christ instructed us to do. Thanksgiving is a choice. Forgiveness is a choice. Longsuffering is a choice.

We are dependent on God's Holy Spirit, so we must stay plugged in, and keep our system well maintained. But next time we lose our Christ-likeness, let's not blame it on our battery running low.

Yours in Him,

Pastor B.