Habit or Heart
By: Rosey Rosenke, FBB Contributor
To say that the last two years in the life of a church goer have been different and challenging would be a massive understatement.
It was with great delight that my small group reconvened recently after a two-year hiatus. Our first meeting together consisted of each member taking their turn at sharing about their spiritual lives without church as we knew it. Many of us were challenged in unexpected ways. These challenges pointed to a place of re-evaluating our hearts before God.
One member of the group shared, “I realized that church to me was about the comfort I took in community, the schedule, the routine, the way I used it to pat myself on the back for serving. When all of that had been taken away, I was left with the awareness that not much of it (church) in my life had to do with deepening my relationship with God.”
In other words, church had become mainly a habit void of heart; it took the removal of the habit for the individual to really see the heart behind it.
It is true that creating good habits in life is beneficial, if not crucial, for proper living, but if we simply invested in the habit of church for our limited Christian experience and not cultivated the heart as the base of it, we are in great folly.
How quickly we can take our comfort in the routines of the Christian life rather than in the Comforter himself!
I’m sure that many can relate to the popular church song, The Heart of Worship with lyrics like, “I’m coming back to the heart of worship…I’m sorry Lord for the thing I’ve made it…” It is an indicator to me that this is not an isolated problem.
One member of our small group expressed missing church but shared that her time in scripture and relationship with God grew sweeter as she used the time of Covid protocols to cultivate a deeper walk with Jesus. She unearthed joy and peace in the midst of trial.
The worship song continues, “When the music fades all is stripped away and I simply come...”
Quarantine gave us an opportunity to re-evaluate our habits AND our hearts. That opportunity is always available but there’s something about stripping away and fading the distractions associated with it all to make us take stock.
Today, I was reminded of the distractions that can accompany us in our corporate worship when I opened my bible app to simply find a specific verse. The app gave me all kinds of options, from encouraging memes to audio prayers. As I punched in a line from the verse I was seeking in the search bar, many vlogs on the topic came up among other options, but I could not find the verse. In the end I had to exit my bible app and google the verse I was looking for which then popped right up.
The memes and vlogs exist for a reason, but they are not THE REASON. Only when they were stripped away could I get to the core of it all.
King David expresses it best in Psalm 27:8 when he says to God, “My heart says of you, ‘Seek his face!’” and David answers simply “Your face I will seek Lord.”
In Matthew 7:7, while speaking to believers Jesus says, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find.”
What are we seeking when we attend church? Is it a comfort in habit? Pride in serving? Or is it a valued component of a life that follows the prompt of seeking hard after God?
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The difference between the two Christian testimonies shared earlier by my small group members does not lie in God. He is the same always and has no favorites in His household.
The difference lies with us.
AW Tozer in his book The Pursuit of God, ventures to say that the difference between the average church goer and the great saints of our faith (David, John, Paul, Luther, etc.) is the lifelong habit of spiritual response. That is that they kept God at the center of their lives. Tozer goes on to say, “Any man who by repentance and a sincere return to God will break himself out of the mold in which he has been held and will go to the Bible itself for his spiritual standards will be delighted with what he finds there.”
Going to church is a wonderful and God-ordained gift to believers. But if it has become more than that or is not held up by the pillar of a personal relationship with God in our lives, we are missing our foundation.
“...You search much deeper within/Through the way things appear/You’re looking into my heart.”
Thank you, God, for reminding me that my foundation is in You. Thank you for removing distractions and giving me the opportunity to recalibrate. Thank you that all who seek you, find you. Thank you that you created the Church for a great purpose but thank you also for reminding me that it is not THE purpose.
