"Beware of worshipping Jesus as the Son of God, and professing your faith in Him as the Savior of the world, while you blaspheme Him by the complete evidence in your daily life that He is powerless to do anything in and through you."Oswald Chambers
Thoughts?
13 comments:
Can I say 'ouch' AND 'amen'?
Ouch is it.
Our hypocritcal attitude is ever prevalent in our world.
I would think this was common sense, no?
At the risk of going slightly offtopic, here are a few thoughts on the "common sense" angle:
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"Common sense is not so common." - Voltaire
"Common Sense is that which judges the things given to it by other senses." - Leonardo da Vinci
"Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes." - Oscar Wilde
"Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom." - Samuel Taylor Coleridge
"Gods are fragile things; they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense." - Chapman Cohen (British atheist and secularist)
"I don't know why it is that the religious never ascribe common sense to God." - W. Somerset Maugham
This one's my favourite:
"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Einstein
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For me, saying something is common sense doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't need saying. :) (Oh, if I could share my work email inbox with the world...)
What i am saying is, if you understand what you believe, which should be a pre-requisite to believing, you should very much know that saying and doing are two different things, and thus talking the talking isn't walking the walk.
IMHO, if you can't figure that out, you don't really get it.
(I'm also not saying we can't make mistakes, I'm merely pointing out a brain is a requirement for faith)
Maybe I misunderstood Novice....kind of feel that Scott got slammed. When I read Scott's comment I immediately thought of "Actions speak louder that words" - a phrase which would typically be referred to as a common sense statement because the average person is expected to realize this..... you know, it's something your mom would tell you.
I somewhat disagree with this post now the i have re-read it. My initial comments still stand and i stand by them, but i don't necessarily think that God cannot use his power to work in us and through us if we aren't on the right path.
Karen, i didn't see any malice in Novice's post, opinions are opinions. Common sense is what it is, its the ability to decipher what you should already know in a given situation. Its common sense for me to shoot on the opposing net in hockey. It's common sense to stop at a red light. It's common sense, if you believe, to follow and live out your faith.
I'm not going to go into the logistics of how i could interpret common sense, i guess im taking the common sense approach to common sense.
No slam intended at all!
I read Scott's response as basically meaning "this doesn't need to be said because it's obvious" and the quotes I provided were about both the nature of what we consider "obvious" and the need to say it or not say it. My feeling is that it may be obvious just after we read it but that doesn't mean it's consistent with how we were thinking just before we read it.
Regarding your most recent post, Scott, I think Chambers is not saying that wrong living prevents God from working in you. I think he's saying that if we're out there and people aren't seeing God reflected in the way we live and the way we treat people then it's "blasphemy". Do people see the love described in 1 Corinthians 13? Or the "fruit of the spirit" from Ephesians? Do they see a person not just trying to follow a set of rules but truly transformed from within?
If I take the opportunity to examine myself in that light when confronted with a quote like the one in the post - even though I've seen it many times before - it's a good reminder to me that I'm not there yet.
I would argue that we will never truly be "there".
Let's go deeper...because the first part seems "obvious/common-sense" - I think we all agree that we need to walk the walk not just talk the talk.
What about the end of this -is God working through us? Is he working in us? We may be walking the walk, but is God's work in us revealed to others?
Is there evidence of that?
I would say if we are walking the walk, which would imply that action is prevalent in our faith, that yes, it would be evident that God is in us and working through us.
I think if we are acting out our faith then we are going to automatically do things that are pleasing to Him, things that spread his glory and further his kingdom.
Just a thought about the common sense discussion. It is common sense statements like that which can turn people back to God. I know that in my own life there have been times where I have missed the mark and forgotten what it is to be a follower of Christ. The funny thing is that in almost every case it wasnt some earth shattering event or profound message or thought that turned me back but a simple reminder of what I was called to be.
I believe that all too often we narrow our minds and dismiss things out of hand as being beneath us or common sense when in fact we should take the time to reflect upon them and see if they still apply.
In response to a local who said: "I'd never go to your church, there are too many hypocrites there!" The pastor said: "You're welcome any time, there's always room for one more!" (True story. Hearing that story changed *lots* for me... in particular, allowing for people to be human.)
The Oswald Chambers quote reminds me to try to ensure that my deeds follow my belief. Seems to me like he might have found a more palatable way to say it, though. If someone were to say that to me, exactly like that, I'd have a difficult time not replying: "Glass houses, man." Regardless of how much I personally needed to be reminded of what my deeds were saying.
Just thoughts.
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