Shortcuts To God – April 20, 2009

Shortcuts to God

Matthew 7:13-14

Jim Stephens

04-20-09

 

Scripture:

 

13 “Don’t look for shortcuts to God. The market is flooded with surefire, easygoing formulas for a successful life that can be practiced in your spare time. Don’t fall for that stuff, even though crowds of people do. 14 The way to life—to God!—is vigorous and requires total attention.”  (Matthew 7:13-14 The Message)

 

Observation – Application:

 

I wish I could find shortcuts to everything.  I’ve got shortcuts on my computer desktop so I can reach often-used documents and programs with only one mouse click.  I’ve tried four different routes to drive from my home to my office, hoping to find the short-cut that gets me through one minute quicker.

 

It’s so tempting to believe the ads that promise I can eat all I want and lose weight.  It’s tempting to believe that there is a vitamin supplement that will restore to me the energy of a twenty five year old.  Is it true that in only twenty minutes of exercise three times per week I can have a Bow-Flex body?

 

Books, slogans, programs, formulas.  It’s our way of doing things.  We look for a plan in which someone has taken the complex and challenging process – whether for weight loss or spirituality – and reduced it to a program we can practice without significant disruption to our busy schedule.

 

There are no shortcuts to God.  To walk with God takes time, attention, and energy.  Unless I spend time – quantity time, not just “quality time” – with God in Bible reading, journaling, listening, obeying, I drift.  Unless I apply the things I read this morning in Matthew 7 to my interactions with people I encounter today, I’m just kidding myself.

 

The attitudes and practices that produce real spiritual growth, that will, over time, make me a man of God can’t be added on or fit in to my life.  They must become my life.

 

Prayer:

 

Father, I want to give my life of faith my total attention and I want to do it without living in a monastery.  I will take the long way home.  No shortcuts.  I will read, write, think, pray, apply, and obey.  No shortcuts to God.  Amen.