Today Does Matter

By Harry Oliver

This article is prompted by the confusion and cry of desperation from genuine believers who have contacted me, those who are trying to get centered and find balance in Christ in this world of conflict. Christians are resident alien/ambassadors in a humanistic society infected by the blatant worship of Man. It is a society that elevates the potential and betterment of man. What we must come to grips with and get honest about is how the satanic poison from this infectious disease of self-betterment has become a spiritual pandemic in the professing church.

Many well meaning teachings in the professing church have in some shape or form been infected by this disease of self-betterment—causing much confusion in people’s lives. The one I want to focus on is the teaching on the “Balanced Christian Life” that has so many believers laboring/working to exhaustion in order to achieve this “how to” formula. I have read many articles on the balanced Christian life. The teachings go something like this: “Are you so heavenly minded that you are no earthly good? Are you so earthly minded that you are no heavenly good? If so, your spiritual life is out of balance.”

In a distortion of the biblical teachings on completeness or wholeness, these teachings say that it is only when individuals are in good physical, mental, emotional, social and spiritual condition, that they can be said to be whole, complete, balanced and healthy. Because we have so many different parts of our lives; family, friends, career, finances, health/self-care, fun, personal and spiritual growth to name just a few, maintaining balance between them can be very difficult.

And then, we have the infamous four wheels of the balanced Christian life teaching, which says:

One way to think about your overall health is by using the analogy of an automobile. Cars have four wheels and it’s important that they be perfectly balanced for a smooth ride, the physical (rest, nutrition, activity, work, exercise, and recreation), the psychological (emotional), the relational(family, spouse, children, friends, co-workers), and the spiritual all must be brought into perfect balance.

Evaluating these samplings of the many teachings on the subject of the balanced Christian life it is obvious why many people are frustrated. I cannot see anywhere in the Scriptures where God has charged us with the responsibility of balancing or even better said, “micro-managing” our lives during this earthly sojourn. These teachings without knowing it are espousing ideas that are rooted in the Man/earth centered, human potential jargon of this society—where the spiritual life is viewed only as a part of the whole, instead of the whole. And it has caused people to live disjointed spiritual lives, focusing on primarily themselves to become successful managing and building their lives as Christians in this fallen world.

As I evaluate the lives of our Lord Jesus and His apostles, and faithful believers throughout history, I do not see this tension. In one of his famous quotes CS Lewis said: “If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for this present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think about the other world that they have become so ineffective in this world.”

I am not downplaying the responsibilities of a Christian husband to his wife, or a wife’s responsibilities to her husband, or the responsibilities of Christian fathers and mothers to their children. But as I evaluate the teachings from Jesus and His apostles on these responsibilities, I believe that we must see them as the fruit and end of our Christian faith, instead of as an end in themselves.

We see this big picture perspective modeled in Jesus’ response to His disciples concerning food. In John chapter four, after Jesus ministered to the woman at the well His disciples came to Him urging Him to eat something. Jesus responded:

“I have food to eat of which you do not know. My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work. Do you not say, there are still four month’s then comes the harvest? Behold I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields for they are already white to harvest” (John 4:31, 34, 35).

The Lord lived a life of perfect balance. His call to His disciples was to see food in its proper perspective and not be distracted from the real task at hand.

The Lord Jesus instructed us in Matthew 6:25:

“Therefore I say to you, Take no thought for your life what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not your life more than food and your body more than clothing?’

In a summation of verses 26-32, on why we should take no thought for our lives, in verse 33 Jesus said, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. And in verse 34 we are told, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things, sufficient for the day is its own troubles.”

The command to us is to see our lives in this world from its proper perspective and not be distracted from the real task at hand. The Greek words for “take no thought’ have been translated as: not being anxious, careful, or worrying about our every day life. But they are also warnings against one’s mind being diverted, distracted and pulled in conflicting directions from the point of our life in this world, creating confusion and conflict. The words also warn against the dividing and disuniting one’s life in sections, making a difference between the different areas of life that we see today, that is causing so much confusion.

continue article at RaptureReady.com:

http://www.raptureready.com/soap/oliver4.html