Smart Religion
We can be so smart about some things, but so utterly foolish about religious things. I wonder why that is?
Take money matters, for example. Of course, we all make mistakes, but generally, most people know they have to be careful when they handle their money. Many systematically put money away every payday in a savings account. They prepare for their retirement very carefully. If all goes as planned, they can tell you just exactly how much they expect to have 10 years from now. They invest and they are very shrewd. We speak about Smart money, but there is very little Smart religion.
In the production and sales department, people are pretty smart as well. The giant corporations see their computers, set their goals and they have a plan where they are going. And for this reason, modern business is usually very successful. They’re smart!
But when it comes to religion, it’s everybody for himself. Evidently you don’t have to be smart. Everybody’s opinion is as good as the next fellows. Alas a very unscientific. [Stupid, careless] approached to the most important element of all our lives. After all, our religious convictions effect our lives for both time and eternity. When it comes to religion, people who are so smart in other parts of their lives, suddenly become vague, fumbling simpletons.
Now, of course, everybody is entitled to their religious opinions; I don’t argue about that but the Bible is for Smart religion and against foolish religion. The kind of religion that doesn’t know where it came from, where it’s going is not smart.
The apostle Paul didn’t have that kind of religion, he said, “I press toward the mark for the price of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Or, to put it just a little differently, “I run straight toward the goal, eternal life in Christ Jesus.”
Smart business is business with the goal. It knows where it’s going. Smart sales is sales with a goal, and everybody on the sales force works towards it. And that kind of religion, the Bible advocates is religion with the goal as well. When Paul said, “I press toward the mark,” or the goal, he had a picture of a runner in the back of his mind. A runner has only one aim in his mind and that is to reach the mark. So it should be with our Christianity. And that is what the Christian life is; striving, striking, striving, to live a life well pleasing to Jesus Christ. “For me to live is Christ,” Paul said.
Somehow, the message that true Christianity is the striving to reach a goal, has not gotten through to many people. For them, Christianity is going to church occasionally, putting a few dollars in the offering plate, and something you become more interested in when you get older and ready to die. But right now, were far too busy to strive for it as a runner might to win a race.
When it comes right down to it, many who call themselves Christians, drink as much as anybody else, go to the same foul shows, swear as much, seldom pray, and expect Christ to allow the newest heaven when they die. And this is not smart religion, its religious stupidity. Paul said, “I press toward the mark…? Do you know what that means? It means he lived out of the Word of God. He read it, he studied it, he strove to keep it. He kept filled with the Holy Spirit, fought against sin and evil in his own life, and did all he could to please Jesus Christ.
Take a good look At your family; Are you teaching them Christian principles? Is your speech without reproach? Came, you and do you take Christ into every area of your life? Your business, your pleasures, your family? Your heart, and with all “You shall love the Lord your God with All your heart, and with All your soul, and with All your strength, and with All your mind,” the Bible says. Do you! Paul did! A religion that we have borrowed from our parents isn’t going to help us in the Day of Judgment. We must no Christ for ourselves and serving him ourselves.
If you have not, make Christ the great goal of your life today. It will be worth it all. He gave his All for you, you should give your All to him. Begin by inviting him into your heart today. Ask him to become your personal Savior from sin. He’s just waiting for your invitation. I encourage you to make Jesus Christ, and his eternal life, the great goal for which you will strive the rest of your days. Remember Christian, these words of the Bible, “The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory which shall be revealed in us.” Living for Christ is smart religion.
He’s Just A Prayer Away,
Pastor Bob