Complacency

How have you grown this week? Have you applied anything you learned 2 weeks ago during the past week? Or have you been complacent? Are you apathetic? Is godliness a "it would be nice to have" thing to you, or is it vital, your lifeline? Do you live just to get through the day? Or do you live to live? Do you strive each day to grow closer to God? to know God more? to know your true self more? to stand in awe of God more?
Does God matter to you? Or is being saved enough? is knowing that you won't go to hell enough? ...Could one even call that redemption? We aren't saved to live however we want. God didn't send Jesus to live a life a rejection, of an outcast, He wasn't labeled an illegitimate child, spat upon, hated, despised, mocked so we can live how we want. He wasn't slapped, beaten, whipped, clubbed, pierced, crucified, put to open shame so we can live free to our own carelessness.

This isn't redemption. We are not free to live a careless, apathetic, complacent life. Salvation is freedom from sin, not freedom from God.

It's a punch in God's face...

Can we really live our day to day lives like the following:
Wake up
Facebook
School
Friends
Homework
TV
Video Games
Books

(Or for those of you who are living a more grown up life:
Wake up
Facebook/email
Chores
Friends
TV
Book
Work)
**Nothing in any particular order, though it could be in chronological**

Day in. Day out. A constant neglect of God. A constant complacency. A constant apathy.

Do you think God is pleased? Do you think he doesn't care? Do you think it's all right?

Galatians 4:18 But it is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing, and not only when I am present with you.

Titus 2:14 Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.
Jude 1:3 Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.
Revelation 3:19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.

The last first talks about the Laodicean church, how they were lukewarm in their spirit. It was detestable to God. In this verse he tells them he loves them(hence his rebuke and chastening) and then commands them to be zealous. But, as an end tag, he instructs them to repent. From what? Apathy, complacency, living their lives under the cloak of "salvation" but not living salvation.

Reading the Bible to soothe your conscience is not living salvation. Praying for your meals, claiming that as your prayer time, is not living salvation. Going to church, singing the songs, ministering in the church is not living salvation.

Living salvation is diving into God's word. Reading until He speaks, and then continue that thought until you are drawn to change. (Note: The Bible is a mirror revealing your faults. Don't read the Bible with the faults of others in mind, hoping to shove a verse down their throat). Living salvation is taking that tugging, that drawing, and following it; it's applying what you learn. Living the rest of the day in light of that truth. Living the next day in that light. And the next day. And the next...

Living salvation is praying to know God. To express your devotion, your love, your praise, your admiration, your inferiority before His supremacy.

Living salvation is walking in the Spirit, bearing the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

It takes work. It takes thought. It takes action.

You can't go through your day and "just happen" to live salvation. No, you must make a conscious effort each moment. An purposeful action of walking in the Spirit, of delving into God's word.

It's easy to live with salvation's cloak. Just sit back, think about yourself, be conceited and envy others, provoke others. It's real easy. Just go through the motions. Don't think about the Bible when you read it. Think about what's for lunch tomorrow, or what your friends need, or who you miss, or...well, anything. Just not what's being said to you. That's how you become complacent. And then you become apathetic, lukewarm...detestable.

So, it's up to you. It's up to me.

God's calling us(again) to tear off the cloak of salvation and actually live it. He is calling us to be zealous--and to repent. He's calling us to live in the Spirit. He's calling us to abide in Christ. He's calling us to bear(not produce) the fruit of the Spirit.

But Satan also is calling us.

He's calling us to forget everything that was said in this entry. To forget about God when we wake up. To forget about God at noon. To forget about God after work or school. To forget about God as we're going to bed. He wants us to do as we wish. He wants us to bear foolishly the name of "redeemed," but not to bear the cross.


Your option. Your decision. God, or Satan.