professional

I think it's easy to become a professional Christian. It's easy to go to church every Sunday and Wednesday. It's easy to have a recommitment every summer at camp. It's easy to lead worship on a routine basis and to enjoy the performance instead of the worship. It's easy to learn the right church lingo and to say the phrases that sound nice. We learn what works and what is efficient. And because those things are efficient and require no examination of interior motives to execute, we continue to do them.

Friends, may we never come to a place where entering into the presence of God becomes just another thing to do. May we never think so highly of ourselves that our attendance or performance or speech is what earns us His grace and life. May we not go to church because it is the 'efficient' way to fit God into our Sabbath.

Let yourself be examined by the Spirit this week. Let Him go all the way to the depths of your being- to your traditions, habits, talents, insecurities, downfalls...let Him sift through it all. And ask Him to heal you there, on the dirt floor of your heart.

God doesn't need professionals. That's not what he wants you to be. That's not how he wants you to live. To be professional at reaching God is to rely on your own capabilities- to rely on the flesh.

"You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you...If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you (ESV Romans 8:9, 11)."