This past Wednesday during PCC’s youth group gathering, I posed the question to the group of students: “How do you know that you are alive?” One student lifted her finger to the pulse on her neck. Another student told me they knew because they experience pain. Then a young boy said that he knows he is alive because he is hungry. All these things that the students shared are valid signs of life. I then asked them, “How do you know that you are spiritually alive?” I left this one as a little bit of a cliffhanger while we dove into the lesson on Philippians 1.
We all should consider this question about being alive. I encourage you to take an inward look at yourself this Easter weekend and ask yourself, “Am I spiritually alive?” Are we going to church simply to go to church? Or are we going to church for the equipping of the saints? Are we desiring to come to the house of worship and give God the glory? Or are we simply doing it to feel good about ourselves?
The Apostle Paul shared with the church in Philippi how to navigate this thought: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit” (Philippians 2:3-4). Previously, in Philippians 1, he told the same group of people that some actually preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ from selfish ambition and/or vain conceit but to leave such people alone. But now he is telling them to do nothing that is rooted in selfish ambition or vain conceit! What is going on here? The point is that if we desire to be like Christ, then vanity and conceit ought to be done away with.
Are we attending church or doing the “religious stuff” to look good on the outside or for people to affirm us for coming to church? The answer is for you to discern, but let me encourage you with this: Jesus loves you through all that. He loves you through your doubts, He loves you through your lack of desire of coming to church, and He loves you through your woes of change when change comes along. He loves you through all of it.
This Easter weekend, if you find yourself in that ballpark of doing “religious things” to just do them, I encourage you to give those things to God and see just how He takes them and gives you a little glimpse of His glory. He did it in Scripture. He can do it again!
Graham
Next Gen Pastor