As a young man, I remember the greatest hindrance in my mind to following Christ was the fact that I felt as though I would “lose” something, or that Christ would demand that I give something up if I followed him. I know many young people have this fear and I will admit, it can be crippling sometimes. I was so scared that Christ would take away my ability to have fun or I would have to be somber or serious all the time, like so many religious folks. But an interesting thing happened when I committed my life to Christ. Through the sheer grace of our good, kind, generous, amazing God, he called my best friend to also enter into a relationship with Jesus at the same time as me. Nothing boring about that! And immediately after we had prayed, I was filled with the Holy Spirit, and experienced a joy which surpasses understanding, nothing stagnate about that. The incredible weight which had burdened me for so long was lifted off my back and I was free to declare his praise.
But this whole experience is quite amusing when I think back, because yes, I lost something, but the funny part is that it was the exact thing that I was afraid to lose. What I was afraid to lose was the weight of having fun and filling my life with pleasure. Having fun had gripped my life, moving me constantly from one event to the next, causing my grades to drop, causing my mind to never fully engage, causing other people to not take me serious, and causing me to continually seek to fill its voracious appetite.
And anyone who has ever been enslaved to having fun or having a good time can definitely relate. It’s that overwhelming desire to fill one’s life with the next best thing. Here is an example. I personally love to play basketball, but it’s that over desire for basketball that gets inside of us and drives or compels us to perform. When we compete, losing becomes a question of identity because our identity is wrapped up in the feeling of exhilaration which is released usually when we win. So, losing is not an option. And when I am not playing, I imagine playing, when I am not imagining playing, I am watching videos about playing, and when I got bored with watching the best “NBA dunks”, I found “other” outlets to release that feeling of exhilaration. My treasure was revealed in my heart and it sure was not Jesus.
The Scriptures say that Jesus came to destroy the power of the devil and although the devil never forces anyone to do anything, he does stab or poke or antagonize that overly sinful desire in us to fill our lives with whatever will please us. The devil antagonizes our flesh or sinful desire and if we follow our lusts, we end up constructing a world without God, causing us to become ‘little gods’ who no longer have to trust in the provision of our Father. The Apostle Paul tells the Galatian Christians to “Walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.” (Galatians 5.16) When we walk in the Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus transforms our desires and breaks the power of sin off our lives, so that we can truly see clearly. The clarity of thought comes from a heart which has revealed that its treasure is Jesus Christ. And the Spirit of Jesus Christ is still at work in the earth and we must trust what God is doing. When we “Walk in the Spirit”, our lives become a blessing for other people and we seek their interests, rather than our own. When we are compelled by something other than the Spirit of Christ, we seek to fill this compulsion, which is always self-seeking or to glorify itself.
I use the illustration of basketball because last Sunday, I was home after church and I had some spare time, which does not happen much these days. I have not played basketball in a long time and had the thought to play. In the new city where I live, I have not seen that many games, so I was not sure where to go, but a specific park in the city came to my mind. I knew that there was a court there, but I had not seen people playing there. So I went to this park and upon arrival there were three other people shooting around. I thought, “Nice, we can at least play a 2 on 2 game.” But approximately five minutes after I arrived about 15 other people showed up and within another twenty minutes, I was playing a full court 5 on 5 game. And some of the players were excellent, making the game fast paced and very enjoyable.
The point is that the weight of sin always desires to enslaves us, forcing us to continue a practice even when our hearts desperately want to be free from compulsion. The power of the Holy Spirit can literally break off the power of sin in our lives, freeing us from its bondage. The beauty of Christ is that he gives us the desires of our hearts without the enslaving power of sin. I could not have planned a better basketball game and when the game had run its course, I left feeling not enslaved but fulfilled.
And when we are fulfilled in Christ, everyone else around us recognizes the difference.
Be blessed.
church politics 