Column: What if our Christianity was Biblical?
Published 1:48 pm Monday, October 23, 2023
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By April J. Buchanan | Religion Columnist
Do you ever find yourself, scolding yourself for knowing what you ought to do but you’re not doing and seeing what the problem is but falling into the same routine every day?
I wouldn’t argue that this is always sinful. In fact, routine can become monotonous at times but it doesn’t mean it’s bad. Maybe what needs to change is our attitude about it.
But I’m not talking about daily routines. Those are often something we should be more grateful for.
I’m talking about the things that are not always good for us and that come in the way of what is more important. Like social media consumption or filling our minds with constant news reports.
Do you ever find yourself back on social media or listening to the news after you just said you were going to turn it off and fill your mind with the Word? Though, somehow, there we are again. But why do we do this? And is it always good? And why do we struggle with turning it off and walking away for a while? Is there something better that could consume our time and fill our hearts and minds? What do we find ourselves thinking on throughout the day and night?
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying social media or watching the news are inherently bad. In fact, choosing to never know what’s going on and just be ignorant to everything could be dangerous as well.
What are we thinking about? What consumes our hearts and minds? Is it glorifying to God? Are we spending time daily in Gods Word and learning how to rightly divide and apply His Word? Does His Word fill our minds? Do we read His Word just until we get something we need from it, treating His Word as a source just to make us feel better and not taking the time to really understand what it meant then so we rightly apply it? Or does that take too much effort and we find ourselves thinking of other things we’d like to be doing?
Are we replacing the gathering of the saints with watching sermons online and forsaking the assembling of ourselves together? Are we lone Christian’s thinking we don’t need the body and thereby proving we either aren’t as familiar with our Bibles as we ought to be or we are willfully disobeying scripture?
Are we listening to theologically sound Christian music during the week that encourages us in the truth? Do we join in together with brothers and sisters in Christ, singing and making melody in our hearts to God or do we isolate ourselves and join online?
There used to be large porches on homes as places to gather with the community but now we struggle with hospitality as we have become far more isolated and rather than opening our home, is it true of us that we hope they change their minds and don’t come?
I fear that much of our Christianity today is in isolation, relies on emotional man-centered messages to make us feel better and on experiences to make us feel like we must be ok because we had an experience.
But what if our Christianity was Biblical? Soli Deo Gloria