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| Section: Walking In The Faith |
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| Category: Biblical Teaching / Lesson |
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| Growing Up Godly |
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I think there is an errant and dangerous thread of incorrect doctrine going through many of the churches these days. I've grown troubled by the regularity with which I've heard the idea purported that if you feel disconnected from God it must be because of unconfessed or unrealized sin in your life. That's a lie straight from the enemy, and I fear it has sent many young Christians away from the Truth.
Let me clarify that a 'disconnect' from God certainly can be caused by sin in our life, but I can guarantee that 99% of the time you're going to know exactly what it is you've done wrong. It is, in fact, the Spirit of God that convicts us of our sin (John 16:7-11), and as long as we're seeking God we will always be aware of the things His Spirit wants us to work on.
So why, if we're doing the very best we can to follow God, do we go through those dry periods? Let me attempt to illustrate what I believe the purpose is:
Imagine a newborn and the stages of development, from complete dependence to crawling and eventually to walking and running. During that stage at which the child is beginning to walk, the parents will often lift them to their feet, holding them until they're steady, then stepping away to see if the child can walk to them. I think this is an adequate image of where some of us are with God; we have reached a place of some independence, and as such He is teaching us to really walk. The distance we feel is not God cruelly taunting us; rather it is His patient instruction attempting to grow us beyond our state of infancy.
I fear that the incorrect teaching that a true Christian should ever and always be tingling and glowing has caused many young Christians to abandon the walk before they really had a chance.
Don't get me wrong: The ultimate goal, of course, is to reach that state of complete connection with God. A place of perfect peace where every step is confidently guided by His wisdom and instruction. Few of us will ever reach that point, however, if we can never learn to walk. What if, every time a parent walked away from their child as they learned to walk the child simply sat back down and cried? Surely that happens frequently in the beginning, but eventually the child learns that he has the ability to find that closeness he so desires if he will just walk straight forward.
No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. "Make level paths for your feet," so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.
(Heb 12:11-13)
It should also be noted that the word 'discipline' has two meanings: The first is as a punishment for something done wrong; the second is as an effort applied consistently in order to bring about a better result. Just because God applies discipline does not mean we are in active rebellion against Him.
We know, of course, that we have all sinned, and that none of us is righteous of our own accord. There is much more depth here than I have time to get into at the present (in fact I've gone on too long already), but it needs to be understood that those times of testing should not be times of discouragement.
"So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. "Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"
(Luke 11:9-13)
God is a good father, and His love for us is unending; however even the best parents must sometimes seem unpleasant to their children. Still, they act so that the child can be made mature. After all, God created us to fellowship with Him, so it's obvious that He would want mature followers in order to commune with. Conversations with babies might be fun for a while, but you can't get terribly intellectual. |
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| Date of Submission: 2008-03-09 04:03:25 |
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