When a child grumbles that they're bored, their parents wince and answer, "What do you have to be bored about? If only I had your problems." But if we're honest about it, adults feel boredom, too. The difference is, while children verbalize their feelings of boredom adults try to mask them.
Adults camouflage boredom by moving from one exciting venture to the next. In 30 years of ministry, I have seen and experienced many spiritually bored Christians. They move from church to church, from seminar to conference, grasping for the next new and exciting teaching or ministry opportunity.
"There is a temptation to confuse our Christian service with loving Jesus. But the Lord cares more for the minister than He does for the ministry." New experiences and perspectives can be helpful at times, but they can never permanently solve the problem of spiritual boredom — the only cure is to know how to truly love the Lord Jesus Christ.
"Wait a minute," you say, "you're not talking to me, I love Jesus. I study the Bible almost every day, and I have excellent Biblical knowledge. You can't tell me that I don't know how to love Jesus."
These are all wonderful things, but they can easily become and end in themselves. More than anything, our goal must be to love Jesus Christ with all of our heart.
There is an important text of Scripture that we should meditate on liberally, "I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord" (Philippians 3:8, NIV). This passage should challenge you to come to the point in your life where you can say to the Lord, "Everything — I mean everything — my job, my money, my possessions, and, yes, even my life — are a loss when I compare them to knowing and loving You."
There is a temptation to confuse our Christian service with loving Jesus. But the Lord cares more for the minister than He does for the ministry. This is why each one of us needs to occasionally ask ourselves; do I love Christ or this ministry more?
Loving Christ has to begin with being dissatisfied with your current grasp of Christ's love for you. Loving Christ has to begin with a deep yearning to know, to experience, and to love Him more than anything else on the face of the earth.
Paul's deepest prayer for the Ephesians was, "I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ" (Ephesians 3:17-18, NIV). We need to repent of our shallow and lukewarm love for Christ — and when we do — we will begin the journey of intimately loving the Lord Jesus.
God longs to nourish our minds with His truth. He longs to raise our imagination to new heights through His beauty. He longs for our hearts to grasp His love and our wills to be surrendered to His purpose. He longs for us to allow His holiness to challenge the way that we conduct business.
Until we come to the point of saying, "Lord, I am dissatisfied with where I am," spiritual boredom will continue to shadow us.
Useful link: www.leadingtheway.org
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