by  |
| Rut, Rot, or Revival By A.W. Tozer |
If you found yourself at the end of the last post saying “I’m not in a rut” and you’re not concerned about it, then consider the following three possibilities:
Are You Truly Converted?
How do I know? That’s a good question. You see, the spiritual health of the church concerns me greatly. I believe that we have come to a point where we are so eager to “get people saved” that we have really watered down what it is all about. To quote Tozer:
People clean up, throw away their pipes, start to pay their bills and live right and then say, “I want to join the church.” So we question them, “Do you believe that Christ is the Son of God?”
“Yes,” they reply.
“Do you believe He is coming again?”
“Yes, I do.”
Well, so does the devil and he trembles.
I don’t know how many (one is probably too many here) times that I’ve been witness to someone having “accepted Christ” at an early age, only to later have to come clean and say that nothing really happened, that they were pressured into it before, and now they are saved. Or worse, they claimed that they were saved, and now are living their life to the flesh.
What happened there? Well, the question that needs to be asked is, were they really saved in the first place? How can one tell? The fruit of the Spirit in your life is a good indication. Another is the Holy Spirit witnessing the Word of God on the heart. How are you affected by the things of God? Do you yearn for them or do you consider them trivial or boring?
Are You Hampered By Sin?
A habitual act of sin will keep you from seeing the problem. Just as the conscience can be a guide if trained correctly, so can it be seared such that it no longer registers something wrong. The more you sin, the easier that sin becomes, and the easier it is to justify it.
If you’re a Christian, and you’re in a rut, it’s possible that some sin in your life is preventing you from growing closer to God. It’s also possible that you have put something in the place of serving God or following His other commands.
Are You Perfect?
The Pharisees believe that they were perfect. Their problem was that they thought they saw when they were blind. When I was a teen there was a point where, during reflection at communion, I couldn’t think of anything to confess– I thought I was that good. It’s easy to be deceived in this way, especially when we judge who we are on the basis of what we see in others. (Hence why it’s so important to use a Biblical standard!)
If you can look at your life and not see the difference between what you could be and what you are, you need to get on your knees and pray for God to search your heart and break it!
Where is Your Spiritual Ambition?
If you look at the life of Paul, here is one that you see progressively doing two things:
- He kept lowering his importance.
- He kept stretching toward the goal.
Paul wanted to see Jesus above all else, yet the closer he got, the more of his true nature he saw. Remember when Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up in the temple? Up until that point, Isaiah probably thought a lot of himself, but when he was confronted with perfection He was undone.
We need to be spiritually ambitious. We have the complete Word of God, we have the Holy Spirit to guide us, and we can grow in Christ– but the question is, do we want to? I’ve heard it said, and the saying is true, that we can have as much of God as we want. But that begs the question, how much do we want?
Are you caught in a rut? If you can see it, you can do something about it. Otherwise, get on your knees so that you can see where you are, and where you have to go!
