Is Christian life Boring to you?

“Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long. Ps 119:97

You might have heard ‘familiarity breeds contempt’, may be it is true in many Christian lives. Regular Church going, youth fellowship, Bible reading, Church friends become so much routine that over the period of time this turns into ‘Boring experience’. Some would never admit it, nevertheless it is still there in the depth of your Christian experience. In Psalm 119:97 Psalmist (may be David) is not meditating because he ‘needed it out of duty’ but because He loved the time.

If Bible time and obedience is boring to you, this brings serious ‘question mark on your salvation’. Is that a ‘shocker’? I know how exactly you feel right now.

The reason is simple : 1 John 5:1-3

1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. 2 This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. 3 In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome’.

Last line of the verse 3 has important understanding that binds together ‘those who are born of God’. Real ‘born again’ people are first of all ‘Believers’ and ‘Love Christ’, and ‘Love is manifested in their obeying commands’, and ‘this life of obedience is not burdensome’. This defines a genuine believer. Your are not believer if the commands are constantly burdensome to you, or if you are simply following it because your ‘mom and dad’ told you, or you want to maintain your Christian identity in the public. The verbs are written in continuous present tense. I.e. Carrying out, Loves his child as well, Loving God, this means ‘it is daily experience. The principle we get from here is : ‘Christian life can become tough and stressful’ at times but ‘that should not be the regular pattern of life if you are genuine Christian’. So sad to say this, but most of Christians in our day live Christian life, because they want to retain ‘membership in the Church’ or ‘a place in graveyard’.

How does Christian Hedonism affect daily life?

Most important aspect I have ever learned from John Piper is ‘God is most Glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him’. Christian Hedonism is simply ‘pursuit of Joy in Christian life’ like Psalmist says in Psalm 119. Just Check few verses,

Psalm 1:2 Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked……But his delight is in the Law of the LORD, and on His law he meditates day and night. Psalm 119:47 I delight in Your commandments because I love them. Psalm 119:48 I lift up my hands to Your commandments, which I love, and I meditate on Your statutes.

We constantly see here, combination of LOVE and DELIGHT in the OBEDIENCE. That very thing we learned from 1 John 5:1-3. True Love finds ‘Delight’ in Christ not ‘burden’. This experience in regular fashion confirms true believer. I am not speaking of ‘momentary trouble, fatigue, stress’, even Elijah felt stress and Jesus cried, but that is different than saying ‘Boredom in Christian life is the constant experience without any Change’.

Coming back to Hedonism, Worldly hedonist is the a person who believes that the pursuit of pleasure is the most important thing in life; a pleasure-seeker. John Piper coined this word ‘Christian Hedonist’ is someone who seeks pleasure in GOD as supreme delight of life.

In other words, God is not Gloried when we are living ‘Joyless, regular, out of duty, legalistic, routine Christian life’. But, when you ‘Delight in Obeying God, that is when you actually reach to the pinnacle of your Christian maturity’.

Life without Delight in God’s law is ‘lifeless mechanical’ faith. Even your ‘Worship’ and ‘Gratitude’ towards God can become out of ‘Duty’ and not out of ‘Delight’. John Piper says, “It can be a bad thing if we conceive of acting out of gratitude as returning favors, like when somebody invites you over for dinner and out of gratitude you feel the need to invite them over to dinner. If that's the way we're thinking about our relationship and obedience to God, it's bad.”

We don't give God anything, according to Acts 17:25, but God gives us life and breath and everything. You shouldn't think of obedience as a mortgage payment, trying to pay God back month by month until you get the debt paid off. This kind of living ‘robs Christian from JOY in OBEDIENCE’.

“If Christian life is consistently ‘boring to you’ there is a serious problem in your spiritual life.”

We don’t live by rules and regulations as if someone has ‘imposed set of restrictions in our daily life’. We live Christian life because in them we ‘rejoice’. Paul says, Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! (Phil 4:4) Take this question home today, Is my Christian life ‘full of rejoicing’? If not, am I really Christian?