Half-hearted Discipleship

A depressingly familiar problem

On Sunday morning, during a break from our studies in Ephesians, we looked at the first two chapters from the book of Judges, back in the Old Testament.  Judges looks at the events that unfolded as the Israelites got to grips with living in the Promised Land and the other peoples who dwelt in the area.

Sadly we saw that the Israelites are much like us - half hearted disciples, all too easily turning away from God to chase after the tempting attractions of the world around us.  We identified 3 ways in which they (and we) are half-hearted:

(1) They’re Crisis-driven. Most of the time they’re content doing their own thing, and God only gets a look-in when things go wrong.  Even then, normal service is resumed as soon as the crisis passes.  You can’t grow as a Christian if you’re crisis-driven.

 

(2) They’re people of compromise, content to follow God up to a point, but after that choosing to do things their own way, thinking it makes more sense.   All too often, compromise is done out of fear of the reactions of other people.

 

(3) They’re short-sighted.  Instead of teaching their children and new believers about what it means to be God’s people, they neglected their spiritual legacy.  As a result, the next generation fell away into disaster.

 

All in all, it was quite uncomfortable to see how closely we resemble the Israelites at times.

 

But if there is one thing more powerful in Judges 1 and 2 than the foolishness of the Israelites, it’s God’s mercy towards his people.  Again and again he moves to help them, giving them every chance to embrace him as they should, live with him as they should, receive the blessings and joys that he longs to give them.

 

Will we do that, or will we keep up our half-hearted lives of discipleship: crisis-driven, compromising and short-sighted?  And miss out on so very much?