Convenience

$4 a gallon for gasoline is making a lot of people reexamine the way they do things. It's made me think a lot more about how much I drive and whether every trip is necessary. For example, yesterday I had a funeral to attend. The funeral home is just a couple of blocks down the road from the church building. I've been to lots of funerals there before, but I've never even thought about leaving my car at the church building and walking to the funeral home. Yesterday I planned to do just that--but it rained, so I drove.

So I started thinking. Why haven't I ever even thought about walking to a funeral from the church building? Why do so many of us get in the car and drive somewhere that we could easily walk to? Convenience. It wasn't that long ago when we thought $1.89 a gallon for gas was high (today in Fayette it's $3.89). But still it didn't cost all that much to fill up the gas tank, so we got used to driving wherever we wanted to go. It was convenient.

Life in America in 2008 is all about convenience for many of us. Who could imagine life without a microwave, cable tv, vcr's, dvd's, cell phones, the Internet, central heat and air, delivery pizzas, dishwashers, washers and dryers, and on and on and on? The lyrics from the song by Queen sums up the American way of life: "I want it all, I want it all, I want it all, and I want it now!"

Well I'm not advocating a return to "simpler times" or "the good old days." But I am concerned about what all of this emphasis on convenience has done to us spiritually. Physically, this mindset has made many of us Americans fat and lazy. The same thing will happen spiritually if we're not careful.

Good Bible knowledge takes lots of time and effort to acquire. But what does the convenience mindset do to that process? Too many Christians show up for worship services having never opened a Bible since the last time they were at church. Are they looking for a pre-packaged, ready-to-consume Bible lesson that will only take up a few minutes of their time? Bible class teachers can fall into this trap, too. Some want to be able to come into class with little or no preparation time, read the lesson from the book, complete the fill-in-the-blanks and the crossword puzzle and think they have taught a Bible class.

Paul told Timothy, "Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth" (2 Timothy 2:15, NKJV). Notice a couple of things about this familiar verse.

First, look at the last part of the verse. The worker who does not need to be ashamed is the one who is capable of "rightly dividing the word of truth." The ASV, ESV, and NASB, respectively, translate that last part as "handling aright," "rightly handling," and "accurately handling" the word of truth. There is a right way to handle God's Word. We are not free to twist the Scriptures to make them sound like they teach what we want them to teach. You may have heard people say, "You can prove anything by the Bible." Well that statement is simply not true. You might be able to be dishonest with statements from the Bible and string together some verses so that it appears the Bible supports your proposition; but you have not "proved" anything by the Bible when you do that. Peter talked about some people who "twist" the Scriptures to their own destruction (2 Peter 3:16). Rather than being either dishonest or ignorant about the Scriptures, we need to be able to handle God's Word correctly.

Second, look at the first part of the verse. This is where we learn how to achieve the ability to handle God's Word correctly. "Be diligent." The KJV has the familiar word "study" here. Usually when people use the word "study," they use it in the sense of "applying the mind to the acquisition of knowledge." Certainly that is involved in what Paul was saying, but the word he used has a little more to it. That Greek word (spoudazo) means, "to do something with intense effort and motivation" (Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains). We must pursue the ability to handle God's Word correctly with intense effort and motivation. That will be neither convenient, easy, nor quick. It takes time; it takes effort; it takes deep thought and meditation.

Let's devote ourselves to being diligent, hard-working Christians not only in Bible study, but also in every aspect of service to the Lord. Christianity is not about convenience; it is about service to the Lord.

I wonder if my old bicycle is still in working order?

I'm Going to Quit

There was a recent news report that former NBA star, Charles Barkley, owed $400,000 in gambling debts to Wynn Resorts Ltd, a Las Vegas Casino. Mr. Barkley quickly made public statements accepting all responsibility for his failure to pay the debts by the date they were due. In a television interview, Mr. Barkley said he has paid the debt and that he plans to use this for something good. He vowed to stop gambling. Apparently, this is a major decision for the NBA Hall of Famer. In an interview with ESPN in 2006, Barkley estimated that he had lost a total of $10 million by gambling. He defended his actions by reasoning that he had not put himself in a financial strain, even after losing such a significant amount of money. Now he says he realizes it's time for a break. He plans to stop gambling. However, he doesn't know if this will be for life. He said it will be for at least a year or two.

I heard a recording of the interview on a sports radio station, while driving in my car today. The two hosts of the program then started talking about how difficult it is to give up your worst vice, both of them citing their own struggles to give up vices. One of the two radio personalities said that he had given up two vices with great difficulty: drinking and gambling. I didn't really have time to admire the man for his decision to get rid of such dangerous (and sinful) habits, because he quickly qualified his statement by saying (in all seriousness) he had given up gambling for 9 months and drinking for 32 days.

I applaud anyone who decides to quit bad habits like drinking and gambling. But what is the rationale for deciding to give them up for limited amounts of time? What good does it really do to give up a sinful practice only to take it up again later? Obviously, these men did not view their habits of drinking and gambling as sinful activities, just practices that could lead to bad things if they let them get "out of control."

God calls upon us to rid ourselves completely of every sinful practice. When we become Christians we die to sin (Romans 6:1-2). We are to put to death certain sinful practices (Col. 3:5). The mindset that says, "I'm going to quit this sin for a while," is completely incompatible with righteousness. John said,

God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:5-7, NKJV).

Paul said that we must have "no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness" (Ephesians 5:11). How can we think we are in a right relationship with God while participating in things God condemns?

Let me leave you with the words of Peter. If a person decides to quit some sinful practice only temporarily, consider this:

For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: “A dog returns to his own vomit,” and, “a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire” (2 Peter 2:20-22, NKJV, emphasis added).