Why do we think our excuses for lack of Bible reading, lack of quiet solitude and private mediation, are valid excuses?

Work, Church, hobbies and interests………false showy religion? If they are keeping us from God……which they routinely do…….then we need to re-orientate ourselves…..don’t we?

I’v been challenged recently by the ease with which my time can be wasted………I am now ‘technically’ working 4 days per week instead of 5 but almost as soon as that change in my schedule began, I found myself with more tasks……more demands…..more opportunities to fill and waste my time!

But, what about my time in “private meditation and communion with Christ?”

Some thoughts from J.C. Ryle……

“Let us cultivate the habit of keeping up more private meditation and communion with Christ. Let us resolutely make time for getting alone occasionally, for talking with our own souls like David, for pouring out our hearts to our great High Priest, Advocate, and Confessor at the right hand of God. I see some professing Christians always running about after spiritual food, always in public, and always out of breath and in a hurry, and never allowing themselves leisure to sit down quietly to digest, and take stock of their spiritual condition. I am never surprised if such Christians have a dwarfish, stunted religion and do not grow and if, like Pharaoh’s lean kin, they look no better for their public religious feasting, but rather worse. Spiritual prosperity depends immensely on our private religion, and private religion cannot flourish unless we determine that by God’s help we will make time, whatever trouble it may cost us, for thought, for prayer, for the Bible, and for private communion with Christ. Alas! That saying of our Master is sadly overlooked: “Enter into your closet and shut the door” (Matt. 6:6).

“Of course, not every leader in the Christian church is to be treated with equal deference: some are self-promoted upstarts that the church is to get rid of (e.g. 2 Cor 10-13). Nor are all who protest cursed with the judgement that fell on Korah and his friends: some, like Luther and Calvin, like Whitefield and Wesley, and like Paul and Amos before them, are genuine reformers. But, in an anti-authoritarian age like ours, one should always check to see if the would-be reformers are shaped by passionate devotion to the words of God, or simply manipulate those words for their own selfish ends.” 

[Extract from May 8 entry in 'For the Love of God' by D.A. Carson]

May we be “shaped by passionate devotion to the words of God” today and always……

“In the drive to make churches more guy-friendly, we risk confusing cultural (especially American) customs with biblical discipleship. One noted pastor has said that God gave Christianity a “masculine feel.” Another contrasted “latte-sipping Cabriolet drivers” with “real men.” Jesus and his buddies were “dudes: heterosexual, win-a-fight, punch-you-in-the-nose dudes.” Real Christian men like Jesus and Paul “are aggressive, assertive, and nonverbal.” Seriously?”

I’m not and, have never been a “dude” in the above ways……..I don’t like cars, I don’t even drive a car……..sure, I like football but I’m not macho, aggressive or even all that assertive…..I’m not a “dude“…….I like cooking, housework, good coffee, quiet peaceful moments of solitude…….and, I hate getting my hands dirty!

So, the quote? “dudes: heterosexual, win-a-fight, punch-you-in-the-nose dudes.” Real Christian men like Jesus and Paul “are aggressive, assertive, and nonverbal.”

“Are these really the images we have of men in the Scriptures? Furthermore, are these the characteristics that the New Testament highlights as “the fruit of the Spirit”—which, apparently, is not gender-specific? “Gentleness, meekness, self-control,” “growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ,” “submitting to your leaders,” and the like? Officers are to be “apt to teach,” “preaching the truth in love,” not quenching a bruised reed or putting out a smoldering candle, and the like. There is nothing about beating people up or belonging to a biker club.”

And, I’ve talked about the church being feminine and our music being sentimental and soppy…….which it often is……..I’ve been critical of the trends we follow and the marketing we swallow……..whilst at the same time advocating different forms of marketing and, selling some of the worst trash you could imagine in my part-time bookshop job…….oh, the irony!!

How would it be if we grasped this with both hands……..

“We need less niche marketing and more meat-and-potatoes service to the whole body of Christ. There, men and women, the young and the old and the middle aged, black, white, Latino, Asian, rich and poor hear God’s Word together, pray and sing God’s Word together, and are made one body by receiving Christ’s body and blood together: “one Lord, one faith, one baptism.” In that place, at least, there are no women’s Bible studies and men’s Bible studies, distracted youth groups and child-free golden oldies clubs, but brothers and sisters on pilgrimage to a better homeland than those that have been fashioned for us by this passing evil age.”

Could we really do this?

The extracts above originally appeared in the “No Girls Allowed” May/June 2012 Vol. 21 No. 3 edition of Modern Reformation and is reprinted with permission. For more information about Modern Reformation, visit www.modernreformation.org or call (800) 890-7556. All rights reserved.