The Way Back - Get Your Christian Life Back On TrackSample

S7

     Ask yourself this question: “What is the greatest threat facing American Christianity?” 

    Radical Islam? Nope.

    The rise of Secularism? Nay.  

    It’s not prayer in schools, gay marriage laws, Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, liberal judges or Hollywood.  

    No, the greatest threat to American Christianity in 2018 is American Christians.  We are our own worst enemy. 

    Remember those brutal stats - 80% claim to be Christian, but 20% show up weekly to church. How do you think that sort of indifference and hypocrisy looks to outsiders? People often say that America is a “Christian Nation.” Well 20% of Americans jog – does that make us a “Jogging Nation?” 

    No one can be responsible for all Christians in this country, but we can most certainly hold ourselves accountable. Our primary job on this Earth is to allow ourselves to be modeled into the image of Christ. So who better to teach us than those who personally knew Jesus?

    We discovered seven mysteries that Early Church attendees were radically committed to—areas that most modern churches no longer make a priority. Today, there are a million books on “Christian living” but we were looking for the mostly abandoned practices that historically caused others to see Jesus – IN US - and start asking questions for themselves. 

These seven areas are:

• Surrender

• Scripture

• Submission

• Service

• Sacrifice

• Simplicity

• Suffering

    In life, there are choices we make that can have an additive effect, and there are choices we make that can have a multiplier effect. So things like putting your keys in the same place every time so you can find them or a night of uninterrupted sleep or getting ice cream—these positive choices have an additive effect on your life and make going through your day a little bit better. But there are also things that can have a multiplier effect. Being in love or working out regularly or getting an education—these have a multiplying impact over many facets of your life, with implications far beyond day-by-day living.

    Looking at it mathematically, a string of events (“S” being the events) that are additive in nature look like this: 

S + S + S + S + S + S + S 

    And a string of events (“S” being the events) that are multipliers look like this: 

 S x S x S x S x S x S x S

    The seven mysteries have a multiplier effect on your spiritual life. To understand the dramatic difference mathematically, let’s replace the letter “S” with the number “10:” 

 Additive Effect: 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 = 70 

    Seventy is a big number. But let’s try multiplying 10 by itself 7 times:

 Multiplier Effect: 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 = 10,000,000

    Ten million! We’re no statisticians, but 10,000,000 is bigger than 70. And that’s the significance of committing to living out these mysteries. Every time you make one these areas a practice in your life, it leads to an exponential increase in your faith. 

    It’s the difference between a faith that shows up to church a handful of times a year and a faith that smiles and forgives in the face of torture and death.

    The way back to seeing your relationship with God grow exponentially is through these seven mysteries. 

PRAYER:  Savior – You know me, and so You know that most the time, I don’t let my faith out of the shallow end of the pool. But the very thought of floating freely in the deep end is both exhilarating …and terrifying. I’m ready to go, but this time I want to learn to swim the right way. Teach me, O lord. Amen.