[This Reflection was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, October 2019]
Being a disciple of Christ can seem like a technical term. A disciple is a follower, or a pupil. Christ says that people will know we are His disciples if we have love for each other. Faced with the same troubles and uncertainties as everyone else, we should react with grace. That’s not easy. We’ve learnt to respond to those who hurt us by hitting back as hard, or perhaps, harder; to life’s events with cynicism, to think the worst of people.
Romans 12 tells us not to conform to the pattern of this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. It is easy to conform. We have been doing this for so long, it now comes naturally. To expect that we would be able to change this habit of a lifetime ourselves is to set ourselves up for failure. We need God’s help. He is willing to give it. Christ said “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” (John 15 v 7-8)
We are currently going through a preaching series on the theme of ‘living sacrifices’ and Ken Cowell from Lee Street Church spoke last week and said that “worship is to put God first”. That has stayed with me and made me realise that I usually try to fit God into my daily schedule – often with difficulty – rather than giving my day to Him and asking Him to direct my steps. On occasions when I have asked for His help, I have found that things worked out much better and even if they didn’t turn out as I had planned, I was still blessed with His peace at the outcomes.
I attended a meeting this last weekend with a few members from Horley Baptist and people from other churches, where the focus was looking at how to live out our lives as disciples of Christ not just in the time we spend at Church, but also with the rest of our time spent away from Church. The point was made that of the 168 hours in the week, we spend on average, 48 hours sleeping, 10 hours in Church and 110 hours awake and away from Church, interacting with family, friends, people at work, etc. These have been described as our ‘frontlines’.
I personally find it difficult often to recognise God in the ‘day to day’ events away from Church. Not that He isn’t there, it’s just that my focus is on other things and it is unusual that I pause long enough to see His hand in encounters I have. In the busyness of life, Jesus took time to rest. I need to learn how to do this, to appreciate God’s presence, to pause and tell Him ‘thank you’.
So, as we go into the week ahead, my prayer is that we try to put God first in all we do; try to involve God in all aspects of our lives and try to recognise Him outside Church – that’s where we spend most of our lives, it would be odd to leave Him out of that. It might seem impossible to do this, but only if we look to do it in our own strength. By His grace however, we can.
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Contributed by David Makanjuola; © the Author
