Sunday Sermonizing: Beyond Insta-Spiritual

We want instant and easy.

Later this year 5G (The next generation of cell service) will be introduced to the US. So most of us will now have the ability to download cat videos and political ads faster with no latency.

Fitness ads on television offer similar promises. Lose weight and get fit and look like all those lifestyle Instagram accounts easy and instantly for $19.99 a month.

The instant mentality carries over into our spirituality.

That’s not how it works

How do you prove you're a spiritual person? What are the metrics we use to measure spirituality? What’s the number?

That’s actually an impossible question.

In the same way, we have funny ideas about how fitness works, we also have funny ideas about how spirituality works.

You can’t do it. I’ve tried. Spirituality is not something we can put a metric to. It’s not possible to measure internal transformation.

We can measure practices.

But we have to be cautious with that, too. In I Timothy Paul warns against measuring Godliness with externals. What you eat. What you don’t eat. Marriage. Singleness. Random, cultural rules related to spirituality.

Like physical fitness, Spiritual fitness is a gradual internal change that happens as we take certain intentional actions over time.

There are several spiritual disciplines which could constitute those intentional actions. But the Scripture does clearly point to prayer and the Word as being the critical foundation for spiritual maturity.

The point then is not to Bible binge.

It’s much better to read 10 minutes every day than to binge 10 chapters on Sunday. Because everything in that ancient book points to Jesus, who is the way. The Bible is not the way. Prayer is not the way. Jesus is the way.

The Bible is about Jesus. Jesus is the Way.

Faith - this sort of deep, ongoing trust in Jesus as the Way - is fueled by being in the Word and prayer.

This is not instant. This is a long obedience in the same direction.

And it changes everything.

Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for >godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in >every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. >- 1 Timothy 4:7-8