Overcoming Inertia

"Do this, knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed.  The night is almost gone, and the day is near. Therefore let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light."  Romans 13:11-12

It happens that I have a vocation that causes me to fly quite a bit.  One of the most fascinating things to me about flight is the takeoff.  For the sake of argument, let us say that the average plane weighs 180,000 lbs as it sits at the head of the runway.  It takes the engines screaming at near 100% of their capacity (32,000 pound/force) to get all that weight airborne from a dead stop.  It is amazing really.  Much less power is required to maintain flight once achieved because the aircraft is then in motion.

The reason this comes to mind is because many of us are at a dead stop in our Christianity and one wonders what force value it would take for us to achieve flight.  Once we have accepted the gospel and fallen in love with Christ, some of us lose focus, direction and drive.  Sure we make it to worship most of the time and go through the motions but do we study the word of God on our own throughout the week?  Do we actively practice loving others through demonstrable things like visitation, providing help when needed or sharing the gospel with others?  Jesus said to his disciples (as opposed to the general public), "Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest" John 4:35.  In essence, his message was and is that we should stop giving ourselves excuses to not do the work that is obviously laid out for us and needing to be done.

Beloved, Christianity is not a status or a label but a calling (Ephesians 4:1).  We should not consider ourselves safe and for that reason, close and lock the doors and board up the windows until Jesus comes.  On the contrary, we should consider ourselves saved and then workout that salvation by being representatives of Jesus to the whole world.  Yes it takes effort and power to move us from being still to being in motion but remember, "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the power to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name," John 1:12.  We have the power.  We only need apply it.  Once we do, we will find that it becomes a way of life and requires much less energy than getting started.

Committed,

Lee