{"id":1105,"date":"1995-08-29T07:27:19","date_gmt":"1995-08-29T07:27:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aletheiabaptistministries.org\/Blog\/august-qget-realq\/"},"modified":"2014-01-31T20:34:12","modified_gmt":"2014-01-31T20:34:12","slug":"august-qget-realq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/aletheiabaptistministries.org\/Blog\/august-qget-realq\/","title":{"rendered":"Get Real"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

How, then, it may be asked, can we either reach or avoid [God]? The avoiding, in many times and places, has proved so difficult that a very large part of the human race failed to achieve it. But in our own time and place it is extremely easy. Avoid silence, avoid solitude, avoid any train of thought that leads off the beaten track. Concentrate on money, sex, status, health and (above all) on your own grievances. Keep the radio on. Live in a crowd. use plenty of sedation. If you must read books, select them very carefully. But you\u2019d be safer to stick to the papers. You\u2019ll find the advertisements helpful; especially those with a sexy or a snobbish appeal.<\/span><\/p>\n

C.S. Lewis, Christian Reflections<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

A famous Christian author once said that he was relieved to find that \u2018\u2018Christianity, in spite of its revolutionary and apocalyptic elements, can be delightfully humdrum.\u2019\u2019 To the non-Christian, that is exactly what he fears (and yet hopes) he may find. It has been noted repeatedly that our generation cannot long endure quietness, stillness or any state where the physical senses are not externally stimulated. The house builder today who is privileged to work outdoors, opens his truck door and turns up his radio. The surgeon operates in a sterile room with music blaring. Even on a picnic in the Rocky Mountains you will likely hear a radio or smell cigarette smoke. These are merely symptoms of a deeper problem. Where Christianity proposes to help is exactly where worldlings do not think they want help.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take this a step further. We often hear today that people without Christ live in some world that is supposed to be more \u2018\u2018real\u2019\u2019 than the Christian\u2019s world. It is the \u2018\u2018real\u2019\u2019 world of drugs or the \u2018\u2018real\u2019\u2019 world of music or some other \u2018\u2018real\u2019\u2019 state of physical stimulation which has \u2018\u2018real\u2019\u2019 fun or \u2018\u2018real\u2019\u2019 excitement. The same is often said of the \u2018\u2018real\u2019\u2019 world of pain and suffering and heartache. I am not about to propose that such pain or such stimulation are not real in the physical sense. But when they say \u2018\u2018get real,\u2019\u2019 the reality they mean is actually an escape from reality or at best an artificiality placed on top of reality. If what I am saying is not true then the Christian message is in serious question.<\/p>\n

How often has a Christian walked away from a blessed church service or a wonderful quiet time or just from some Christian friends, out into the \u2018\u2018real\u2019\u2019 world, to suddenly become aware that what he has just left is what is real and what he has entered is artificial. 1Timothy 6 is a commentary on this very truth. Rather than happiness being found in striving after things, \u2018\u2018godliness with contentment\u2019\u2019 becomes \u2018\u2018great gain.\u2019\u2019 The \u2018\u2018man of God\u2019\u2019 is to flee the artificial stimulation and \u2018\u2018follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

G.K. Chesterton, in What\u2019s Wrong With The World, illustrated this truth in comparing the rich man\u2019s home and the poor man\u2019s. The poor man\u2019s simple home is the most exciting place in his life because it is the only place (for him) of freedom in a world of rules, laws and expectations. At home he is free to do what he wants. The rich man\u2019s home, on the other hand, is (for him) the one dull place in a whole world of excitement that is available to him. He doesn\u2019t worry about the rules or laws that plague the poor man because if he breaks them he merely pays whatever the cost. Paul warned Timothy not to run after this \u2018\u2018love of money\u2019\u2019 but to seek the contentment instead.<\/p>\n

The constant biblical appeal to the believer is to avoid the false (but physically real) stimulation to which the \u2018\u2018natural\u2019\u2019 man gravitates. I think that this Christian reality which worldlings call boring but we call exciting is described with the biblical word \u2018\u2018faith.\u2019\u2019 But it is faith as a noun more than faith as a verb, a difference that has largely escaped our generation. It is a state of being in which we live and are content more (if at all) than a secret power to obtain things we do not have. We walk by this faith. We teach this faith. We are weak or strong in this faith. It is a state of understanding that God exists and that the world which has the fewest artificial stimulations (or in this case distractions) is the world closer to reality precisely because it is a world alone with God.<\/p>\n

Now a real problem is this. Our faith is usually no match for the stimulations. The \u2018\u2018real\u2019\u2019 world of the worldlings takes over immediately when invited and seems to render the \u2018\u2018faith\u2019\u2019 world powerless and muted. Our fallen nature gravitates to the immediate things and quickly forgets the plainer things. The Bible contrasts this with the word \u2018\u2018lust\u2019\u2019 (literally \u2018\u2018short desire\u2019\u2019) and the word \u2018\u2018longsuffering\u2019\u2019 (literally \u2018\u2018long desire\u2019\u2019). We are all aware of this battle at this lowest level. But we are just as faithless as the fornicator when we, in the name of religion, evangelism or worship, gravitate to other distractions stimulated by our desire for this artificial world whether it be audio, visual or emotional. Rather than being drawn into the presence of God (as we are often told) we are being barred from His presence and the real world of faith.<\/p>\n

While the Christian is drawing nigh to God by continually stripping away the artificial, the worldling doesn\u2019t think he wants the stimuli turned off. We know he really does. The artificially stimulated world he lives in is no more real than an athlete on steroids or a newlywed on a honeymoon. It is hard for a worldling who has never been there to understand the joy he is missing. He thinks it will be boring and lifeless and until he becomes a Christian it will be.\u00a0 The worst thing we could do is to cloud the issue at this point.\u00a0 He must see the faith for what it is in order to accept it.\u00a0 It ought to be obvious to us that he is uncomfortable and unwilling. But once he crosses over into the faith life, he will see it for what it really is, \u2018\u2018delightfully humdrum.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How, then, it may be asked, can we either reach or avoid [God]? The avoiding, in many times and places, has proved so difficult that a very large part of the human race failed to achieve it. But in our own time and place it is extremely easy. 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