Our Spiritual Metamorphosis: Step 5 – Build Consistency
Matthew 16:24-27
I was getting ready to do some research for my weekly sermon so I entered my office and flipped the light switch to the “on” position. It seemed that as soon as I had touched the toggle there was an instantaneous burst of bright light from the light bulb for a millionth of a second and then utter darkness. I had just experienced that light bulb’s last bit of life.
We always expect that at the moment we throw a light switch that it is accompanied by a burst of light. But we also anticipate that the bulb will continue to glow and emit its brilliance throughout the room in which we are entering. We desire for our lives to be illuminated consistently with the flip of a toggle on the wall or the tug of a string hanging from the ceiling. We dislike those times of inconsistency when a light bulb decides to go out with a blaze of glory and then leave us stranded in the midst of darkness thus leaving us just a tad bit frustrated.
Then there’s a desperate scramble that takes place in order to find a replacement bulb so that our darkened world can once again be brightly lit and our lives can move on as planned. But isn’t it amazing how a tiny little piece of wire inside the confined space of a light bulb controls our ability or disability to continue our work and/or our times of recreation. Once that filament breaks and the flow of the electrical current passing through it ends anyone nearby experiences a taste of inconsistency. I guess we could say that in order for our lives to be one of comfort within our homes and workplace we need a ray of consistent light that seems to make our time pass a little more quickly and our day to be a little more pleasurable.
I find Jesus’ word as recorded in Matthew’s gospel account to be encouraging us to be very likeminded in our day-to-day process of spiritual transformation. As we evolve into the person that God desires for us to be, He expects consistency from us. Listen closely to Jesus’ hint of our need for spiritual consistency: “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me” [Matthew 16:24].
PRAYER
Did you hear it? Did you catch that little phrase within Jesus’ statement to his disciples? Were you able to notice His call for us to practice the art of consistency as He spoke those few words, “…take up his cross daily…”?
Those are truly words suggesting consistency. Jesus’ desire is not only for us to help to Him in bearing the load but also to be more consistent in doing so: to continue to do his work peacefully, simply and together. That is stability. It is always being reliable when a need arises within the body of Christ. It’s a call to uniformity within the community of faith. But the attitude of having a consistent spirit begins within each one of us that call our self a follower of Jesus.
So how do you and I become spiritually consistent? What do we have to do in order to have a stable relationship with God and one another? Are there answers for those times we feel all alone or out of place within the life of the community of faith? What is the right attitude we should have in order to be an unswerving disciple of the Christ?
One of the first aspects to being consistent in one’s faith walk is found in the words of the psalmist: “So I will sing praise to Your name forever, that I may daily perform my vows” [Psalm 61:8]. What King David is trying to say here is that as he daily lifts up his voice in praise to God that he also is renewing his vow of acclaiming God as his strength, shield and fortress. David is saying that each day as he lifts up the name of God in prayer and praise that he is regenerating his relationship with his Heavenly Father and restoring to God his faithfulness and being bathed in God’s refreshing showers of blessing.
Several months back as I was traveling along one of the interstate routes I noticed a sign that was kind of a play off of an older advertisement scheme of the dairy industry. It was nothing more than a solid black background with a two word question in bold white lettering: “Got Prayer?”
This threw me back to the time of recalling the former advertisements of differing celebrities faces being shown on billboards and each wearing a bold white mustache of milk. Then somewhere on the background would be the words, “Got Milk?” I can remember thinking to my self each time that I would see one of these ads that I always get my daily allotment of milk. Now I may not always drink two glasses of milk but I do love the taste of chocolate ice cream and chocolate cake with creamy chocolate icing. And I do know it to be a fact that each of those are made with the ingredient of milk. So when it says “Got milk?” it has to be legal for me to say a profound “Yes!” to that question. Now that’s my attitude about getting my daily requirement of milk. And I know that if I get my daily intake of milk that I can build strong healthy bones and teeth.
But getting back to this more current ad, I’m not sure how to quite answer that one. How about you? Do we have a similar attitude about prayer as I do about milk?
When it comes to having prayer when we sit down to eat a meal we have no problem doing that at all, do we? Having a few words of prayer at night before falling asleep is also easy for us to do, isn’t it? And we can’t forget about Sunday morning service can we? I mean after all the preacher prays for all of us at the same time. Our attitude of being consistent with our prayer life is questionable because we think these three times of prayer are all that is necessary in our walk with God.
But let me tell you, that if that is your and my attitude, it stinks! Prayer isn’t only necessary at every meal, at bedtime and in the morning and at a church service. Prayer is an integral part of having a consistent faith experience with Jesus, the Christ and God the Father. All I can say is if that is our feeling about prayer, then we can expect our faith walk to be stagnant and we might as well sit ourselves on a corner shelf and let everyone else see us for what we really are: a fake.
If we are going to be like the psalmist then we have to be willing to constantly be prepared to lift up the Lord’s name in praise and adoration on a daily basis; to pray consistently at various times of need throughout our day-to-day activities.
We can pray anywhere at anytime. To pray one doesn’t always have to close his or her eyes, bow the head and fold the hands. Men can pray on their way to work while driving the truck, van, SUV or car. Women can pray as they houseclean, prepare a meal or wash dishes. Students of any age can breathe a prayer in the middle of an exam, quiz or test. We can pray in the woods, under the hood of a car or out on the riding lawnmower. We can pray on the way to picking up kids from school, soccer practice or dance class. We can pray at school silently in class, at the big game or any other scholastic event for that matter.
Consistency in prayer will definitely bring you and me closer to Jesus and will also assist us in our walk toward victorious living. Besides, should we want to have more consistency in our lives, particularly when it comes to our spiritual lives? After all, spiritual consistency is an important part of our spiritual metamorphosis as we attempt to build our lives upon the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles.
Just as important as prayer is the fact that a consistent spiritual life is one where a person is so in love with God that they want others to experience that same love relationship, too. We have to be willing to stand by one another in the faith community in order to build an unfailing support framework to aid one another in times of need.
Paul, in his letter to the Hebraic Christians makes this point: “…exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin” [Hebrews 3:13].
I will be the first to admit that when it comes to the inner-workings of my automobile that I know diddley-squat. Believe me, I know very little about the mechanical makeup of any car. I am what is know as being “mechanically-challenged.” But I do know of several guys that are very familiar about such things as internal combustion engines, the drive train and electrical system of anything on two or more wheels.
One such person is Dan Morlen, my mechanic! He seems to always know what is wrong with either of my SUVs when either is not quite running the way a vehicle should. All I have to do is call and then drop by his garage and I know that I am going to be assisted in locating the problem. I also know that once the troubling factor has been located that he or someone he knows will be able to fix it with a simple solution and get my means of transportation back on the road.
Why do I know this as a fact? Dan has always been consistent in helping me when I need him the most mechanically: my Envoy or my Outlander is broken and needs fixed.
That is how God wants us to be within the community of faith: To be more consistent in assisting those who need our help, prayers and encouragement. Many today struggle with hardship and disappointment. That means it is the responsibility of a person’s brother and sister in the faith to pick up the slack; to aid in putting the pieces back together; to be consistent in our efforts of brotherhood and sisterhood. We are called by the Christ to love those who are hurting and to stand by those who are suffering persecution for the sake of Jesus.
So how do you and I find the strength to be consistent in our prayer life and also in our call to assist those in need both spiritually and physically?
How many can remember the story of the children of Israel gathering Manna every morning accept on the Sabbath to find the sustenance needed to make their spiritual journey from Egypt to the Land of Promise?
We are told that they first of all began to murmur among themselves about all the onions, leaks and melons they had left behind in Egypt and were now hungering for physical food to satisfy their appetites. Then they complained to their leader, Moses. He then went before God on their behalf. God in turn gave them daily Manna.
Now for the Israelites to be consistent, they had to go out each morning a gather the food. They also had to finish using it and eating it by a certain time of the day or it would begin to rot, smell and be eaten by worms. God had told them through Moses: “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in My law or not.” [Exodus 16:4].
Did you catch exactly what God was saying to the Israelites? He had told them that they were to go out and collect the same amount of manna every day. They were to be consistent in the amount of food they gathered for their daily use and no more.
God is still delivering Holy Manna each and every day for our use: He expects us to be consistent in the reading and study of his Holy Word. For in it we find the spiritual food that we need to be strong followers of the Christ: To become a people that will share and not horde what we have; who will become a praying people who want to draw closer to God the Father through Jesus, the Christ.
Listen once again to the words of the psalmist: “Blessed be the Lord, Who daily loads us with benefits, the God of our salvation!” [Psalm 68:19].
Jesus attempts to instruct us in the same way of thinking and practice in the prayer pattern he taught His disciples: “Give us this day our daily bread” [Luke 11:3].
So how do you and I gather this daily bread? As I stated a bit ago, one location is the Bible, God’s Holy Word. But there are other times and localities as well.
There is one fast food product today that is almost a favorite of any true blooded American: chicken nuggets. These small morsels of protein not only satisfy the taste buds of many of us, but each one generates just a little bit more energy within us to give us a boast to make it a little further on our way.
As we go about doing our daily routines we need to be consistently looking for those nuggets of faith upon which to feed our spiritual life. Definitely there are times of great blessing and wonderful provision given to us just for the asking and receiving. So we must be on the constant lookout for these bits of spiritual food upon which to feed. All that is needed are a few nibbles of God’s goodness and faithfulness to make our day a little easier to live.
One way of making sure that we live consistent spiritual life and to C-L-I-M-B in our Spiritual Metamorphosis are to follow the five steps of our spiritual transformation in the Christ. We begin by breaking loose from our religiosity and find ourselves in converting to spirit lead lives of faith. Next we begin to learn our way and grow in grace and faithfulness. Then we establish having intimate times and relationship with God the Father through Jesus, the Christ. Following this we begin to understand the necessity of having close fiends within the community of faith to turn to in our times of need. And finally, as we learned today, we have to be consistently building upon our foundation of faith to become mature people of God.
Where are you in this transformational process? Have you started your C-L-I-M-B? If not, start today, come and pray that God will transform you into a new person of consistent faithfulness and attitude.
Amen and amen.
