It Starts Small

Yesterday I opened a topic of why do we not finish what we start? I zoned in on the first reason being, our focus. Where is your focus? Let us look at our verse again:

¹¹ Now also finish the task, so that just as there was an eager desire, there may also be a completion, according to what you have. 1 Corinthians 8:11

God’s Word tells us to finish our commitments with the eagerness that we started. When we shift our focus from Christ, we start to lose our eagerness. Today I want to talk about disappointments and frustration. Have you ever started a project full of enthusiasm and by the middle of it, you lose that enthusiasm? I recall a moment of cleaning out our garage. I wanted to get our garage cleaned up so all the tools had a home and were organized. All the outdoor gear had a place to go. I had this idea in my head of making the garage a place of purpose vs. a catch all. Half way through the project I started to get discouraged and frustrated. What seemed like fun was turning into a not so fun project. I started to get disappointed and frustrated.

frustration.

If I could honestly and truthfully label what the Christian life can seem like, it would be frustration and inadequacy. I just heard you all gasp, hang with me for a moment. I spiritually battle through my relationship with my Heavenly Father. I feel like I do not measure up. I feel like I am not living well enough or doing enough. There is so much I see and hear that I want God to use me in, so much to write, so much to do, and I feel like anything I do, it is just not enough.

I feel spiritually frustrated. I feel like sometimes when I open my Bible, I am so inadequate. Will I ever truly understand any of it? I get frustrated at what I do not know and understand. What causes this spiritual frustration?

Trying to Live by the Rules of Others

¹⁶ Therefore, don’t let anyone judge you in regard to food and drink or in the matter of a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day. Colossians 2:16

There are always going to be people in our lives telling us how to live our lives, how to be spiritual Christians. Pray this way. Study that way. Someone is going to have an opinion and make that opinion preferential and tell you that if you were a true Christian you would be doing it this way or that way.

Paul wrote, do not let anyone convince you that you must observe Jewish laws to be a Christian. In His day, that is exactly what was happening. It is no different, today. We all have well-meaning people in our lives telling us we are not a Christian unless: we dress the right way, worship the right way, read the right version of the Bible, stay away from a carefully selected list of sin, pray a certain posture and of course you have to pass on this unrealistic list to others and make sure they conform to it.

Paul says an emphasis on “rule keeping” is bad because it puts the focus on things that are only a shadow to come. For example, it would be like going up to an actor that plays a doctor on television and asking them for medical advice. That person is just a shadow of a doctor, not the real thing. The point Paul was making was stop trying to live by the rules of others and devote yourself to scripture. DO not simply rely in Jane to tell you what the scripture means and how you should live your life. Teaching is not a bad thing, but you have to let the Holy Spirit lead you in truth, not just believe that Jane is correct.

Think about how silly it would be to fall in love with a picture. The picture is an accurate reflection of the person but it has no personality and you can not interact with it. If you want a real relationship your focus needs to be on the person, not the picture. We devote ourselves to a picture when we focus on the shadow. We become frustrated because the shadow can not give us what we are looking for. We need to crave the real thing, the Lord Himself.

Trying to Copy the Experience of Others

¹⁸ Let no one condemn you by delighting in ascetic practices and the worship of angels, claiming access to a visionary realm. Such people are inflated by empty notions of their unspiritual mind. ¹⁹ They don’t hold on to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and tendons, grows with growth from God. Colossians 2:18-19

WE can get very frustrated when we spend our time comparing our spiritual experience to the experiences of others. People, we are all unique. Our experiences, in our own unique journey, are our own. We are living breathing testimonies that God is alive and moving. He is going to give us all similar, but very different experiences and they all come down to our faith. God rewards and gives to us based on our faith.

This opens the door to believing Christ is deficient unless you have the same exact experience another person has had. It is also very arrogant to think others should be having the same experiences I have had.

Opening the door of comparison is a very dangerous road to walk. You allow others to make you think that you are not a good believer if you do not have certain gifts, are not emotional enough, or experience God speaking in a way they are spoken to. There are going to be fellow brothers and sisters who will fall into the trap that if we are not sharing faith in the same way, you are not as passionate about God as they are.

It also opens the door to compare. It opens the door for Satan to put a toe into it and get you to start believing you are not good enough. You do not have what it takes. The problem with experiences, is they are unreliable. You can moved by all sorts of things, but that doesn’t mean you connected with God through it. We can have visions and hear god just by simply taking certain types of drugs. You can “feel” moved by a worship experience without ever having really worshipped.

Everyone’s experience with God is different, and similar at the same time. To say that everyone has to have the same exact kind of experience is just as silly as expecting everyone to sneeze the same way. Paul tells us in Colossians that when our focus is on experience, we have become disconnected from the head. Meaning, we are no longer under the control of God and we are being controlled by the people around us.

Paul continues to tell us why these two things are bad:

²⁰ If you died with Christ to the elements of this world, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to regulations: ²¹ “Don’t handle, don’t taste, don’t touch”? ²² All these regulations refer to what is destined to perish by being used up; they are human commands and doctrines. ²³ Although these have a reputation for wisdom by promoting self-made religion, false humility, and severe treatment of the body, they are not of any value in curbing self-indulgence. Colossians 2:20-23

Paul reminds us that we are in Christ. We belong to Christ. We no longer belong to the world and we should never seek the approval of the world, that we need to seek His approval. These rules and experiences are destined to perish because they are based on human wisdom.  The standard will constantly be changing according to the whims of men. Paul writes a very important point: THEY ARE HUMAN COMMANDS AND DOCTRINES! The law given in the OT is just that, they were human rules. Anyone who subjects you to that law or rules are not in the right or walk with God.

All these rules and regulations will NOT achieve the desired end. Look at what the law produces: self-made religion, false humility, and severe treatment of the body, they are not of any value in curbing self-indulgence. When someone tell you you should do this or that because they are doing this or that, remember, it is human wisdom that will not give you the desired result. It will lead to one or all these conditions.

We can do our best to pursue the experiences of others to match our their surroundings, but the point of it is completely lost. The point of coming into to the presence of God and experiencing Him is to get closer to Him. It is not to match the walk and experience of other to find acceptance from them.

So how does it seem we got so far from frustration and finishing the commitments we have made? We are not as far as it seems. When we start a commitment and we take our eyes off of Jesus we start to look around us. We start to compare our ministry to other ministries. We start feel we are not adequate because things are not going how we expected. Our own misguided expectations on ourselves and God have lead us to a point of frustration. We lose the focus of the original joy and excitement of why we even made the commitment.

¹⁷ And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Colossians 3:17

We forgot the big picture. We need to see the big picture.  We are living for the Lord.  We are investing in eternity. Our direction comes from the Word of God, not the preferences of men.

If you have found youself sitting and sulking in fruistration, look on the inside. WHat has been spoken to you that has shaken your focus? Are you comparing yourself to others? Your journey is yours! Your spiritual maturity is not measured up to the journey of others.