Flabby with Small Passions

Flabby with Small Passions
07/21/2007
[And so Screwtape reveals the Enemy’s ploy—first make humans flabby, with small passions and desires, then offer a sop to those diminished passions so that their experience is one of contentment. They know nothing of great joy or great sorrow. They are merely nice.

Christianity has come to the point where we believe that there is no higher aspiration for the human soul than to be nice. We are producing a generation of men and women whose greatest virtue is that they don’t offend anyone. Then we wonder why there is not more passion for Christ. How can we hunger and thirst after righteousness if we have ceased hungering and thirsting altogether? As

C. S. Lewis said, “We castrate the gelding and bid him be fruitful.”

The greatest enemy of holiness is not passion; it is apathy. Look at Jesus. He was no milksop. His life was charged with passion. After he drove the crooks from the temple, “his disciples remembered that it is written: ‘Zeal for your house will consume me’” (John 2:17). This isn’t quite the pictures we have in Sunday school, Jesus with a lamb and a child or two, looking for all the world like Mr. Rogers with a beard. The world’s nicest guy. He was something far more powerful. He was holy.]

This is an excerpt from one of John Eldredge's books called "Journey of Desire". This is what I've been battling with the last few months. My conviction to not be flabby with small passions is battled by my culture that I live in and other christian friends who feel I am getting a little weird with my convictions. What was it really like to live among Jesus or Paul? Who would they offend if they lived in this generation? What would christians say about their convictions? Would I be the one calling them weird or fanatical? Jesus was speaking very directly in Matt. 7:21-23 when He's talking about who will enter the kingdom of heaven. v.21 "Not everyone who says to me 'Lord, Lord', will enter the kingdom of heaven, but ONLY he who does the WILL OF MY FATHER who is in heaven." This leads me to the inevitable question I ask myself everyday, all day, "Is what I 'm doing right now, the will of God?" So many years I've lived not ever taking that verse to heart. Oh how I've missed many blessings the Lord has had in store for me. I'm so humbled by my sin over the years, over the neglect I've had of God's word, over my selfishness of not wanting God's word to penetrate my heart because I'm fearful of having to change the way I live. Oh Father, thank you for your mercy! If what I know in my heart, and what I say with my mouth does not translate into what I do outwardly, then is what I have even real. James says, "Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do." James 4:18. Waiting on the Lord is an awesome thing, but when we get comfortable at that place and at saying, "I'm waiting on the Lord right now", then maybe we've missed where Jesus wants us. He desires movement in the body of Christ. Stagnant water eventually is full of deadly bacteria. How much more is our stagnant and flabby walk with Christ full of deadly bacteria, to us and those around us! Oh Lord, have garce on me that I may "Learn of You, for You were meek and lowly of heart." You were always about "Your Father's business." You always "Spoke the truth no matter what!" You did not "Make yourself of any reputation among men." "You made Yourself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, You humbled Yourself and became obedient to death." Father help me grasp the depth of that humility so that I may be about Your will in the same way as Jesus was! Keep me from being flabby with small passions.