"We’re constantly being drawn away from the centrality of Christ. It’s like a centrifugal force that is pulling us all the time. You see it in the history of the Christian church. I know in my own life the guards I have to have up, and I know the places where I’ve learned this through pain, and suffering. Even ministry. [Things that are] good can become your idol, in the sense that it’s what drives you. And so, 'I’ve got to do the next thing, I’ve got to do the next thing,' which you do, but your heart becomes dry and barren. And those needs of the heart will seek fulfilment in other things. And… you gravitate to something that’s not good, something that’s not healthy, something that’s not wholesome. And that can be manifested in a whole variety of ways. ...There’s a whole variety of ways in which, wrapped up in good things, you’ve allowed a vacuum to develop in your heart. It’s like in a marriage. You can be married, you can live together, you can engage in all the aspects of marital life. But if you’re not looking into each other’s eye, if you’re not feeding each other’s soul, if you’re not being fed by each other’s love, you’ll become dissatisfied in your marriage. And we are very quick, I think, in the Christian life, often, to look for 'zap' experiences, where 'I want to fix this — boom, there it is. It’s done.' There’s very little that’s like that. …Again, going back to a marriage, there’s a wedding day… bang/zap… it’s done. But that’s not the marriage. …I often say to people, when I conduct weddings…, there are two kinds of togetherness in marriage. There’s a side-by-side togetherness, where you’re moving together, you have the same sense of direction, you share goals, you share a vision for your lives together. And there’s a face-to-face togetherness. The side-by-side togetherness, other people can join you in there. Children, family, colleagues. Face-to-face togetherness — nobody else is part of that. And that is also true in our Christian life." |
This is from an interview with Charles Price which appears at the end of the Living Truth video "In the Footsteps of Paul” (Turkey & Greece Tour), Part 1: "The Realities of Idolatry - Then and Now." To me the marriage analogy he uses here is one of the most significant challenges I have ever received, and one of the most beautiful. If I want to live in the fulness God meant me to experience with Him, I must actively, daily, pursue a full and deeply reciprocal relationship with Christ, through prayer and time in His word. Not as boxes to tick off so that I can feel good about myself and then run off to my "real" life, but because He is my life, and if I neglect this love, I will be empty.
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All thy sins were laid upon Him, Jesus bore them on the tree;
God, who knew them, laid them on Him, and, believing, thou art free. Joseph Denham Smith (c. 1817-1889) Praise reflection archives
May 2020
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...take root downward and bear fruit upward.
2 Kings 19:30 |