Nominal and Loving It

WHEN: August 9th 2009
AUTHOR: bk
CATEGORY: Blog
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It is remarkably easy to live a nominal Christian life. I am excellent at it. I have no problem living 100 percent half-heartedly. I can hold my worn Bible in one hand, and in the other hand, the worn blueprints to my favorite sin. It's brilliant!

In order to awaken us from being nominal Christians, sometimes we hear talk of consequences to our sin, stuff like “The wages of sin is death.” But honestly, who really believes that our sin will cause us to keel over and die? It certainly doesn't discourage me away from my favorite sins. I like sinning, and as far as I can tell, I think I can maintain a decent faith and go on sinning without too much trouble. It's the best of both worlds: salvation and sin.

The letter of James has some strong words to say to this attitude, words which I like to tiptoe around (truth is easy to avoid if you don't step on its toes). “Don't you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God” (4:4)? Ok, so maybe those are pretty clear terms. It sounds like sin and God are complete opposites. But James doesn't know me. Maybe I'm better than that. I think I can get by in life with two heads, two competing sets of desires, two parallel lives.

One problem though: I can't exactly separate my one life from my other life. They are housed in the same body. It's like two riders riding on a tandem bicycle. The bicycle can't be split into two. It has to move in only one direction. Inevitably, one set of desires must win out over the other.

The trouble with half-hearted faith is that there really is no such thing. Like the tandem bicycle, we must keep moving in one direction or the other. As Christians, we are either climbing upward toward the light of Christ, or descending into the darkness of indifference and complacency. There is no point at which we can dismount and just hang out.

One frustration I have is that I can't always determine in what direction I am headed. Satan is great at keeping us disoriented, so that we do not really know where we are until we're miles from where we wanted to be. How did I get here? How did I allow myself to get this far down?

I am convinced that we do not pedal with great, massive pushes. We are not usually in 19th gear, where with one strong push we can gain enormous ground. I think we are usually in 1st gear, or maybe 2nd, where one push only propels us a few feet. Most of the choices we make every day are 1st gear choices, not 19th gear choices. They are the choices not to gossip about the crazy girl at work, or to spend money on ourselves yet again, or to take a second look at the pretty girl walking by, or to evaluate our appearance in the mirror yet again. I think it's the small choices that ultimately take us either toward or away from God.

Trying to be a nominal Christian is really our way of excusing an absence of faith. But we don't need to be cowards. God is ridiculously strong, and can help us bear the burden of our choices. Let's commit to making a few more 1st gear choices up the hill toward Christ.