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Friday, September 2, 2011

Duality


Matthew 6:24 says this: "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.

How many of you like Seinfeld?  In Seinfeld, George becomes engaged to a woman he doesn’t want to be engaged to.   Jerry’s place is this place of refuge where George can be George.  There is this one episode where that all changes.  Elaine, who is in this group becomes friends with George’s fiancĂ© Susan.  Elaine invites Susan to come hang out with the gang.  This freaks George out, makes him “very upset.”  George goes on this rant about friend George and relationship George and how the two cannot occupy the same space at the same time otherwise both worlds would collide and there would be no more.


Now let me ask you this:  How many times do we sing to God, read His Word, even pray to Him and yet not be totally devoted to Him?  How often do we neglect our devotion to God…we try to justify our choices sometimes, but in all honesty whether we wanna admit it or not we do the very thing that Christ is telling us not to do—live a dualistic lifestyle.   The fictional George illustrates a good point.  Duality does not work.  We cannot act one way with God and a different way with others.  We try to play that game.   We act the part here, but go home and are very different.  This only leads to destruction. 

You see, Christ was not talking about just money.  If he had his earthly ministry today he would say something totally different or he would talk about popularity, or materialism in addition to money.  Christ was using the word money to connect with the people about the fact that you can’t live for God and live for your own self.  It just does not work.  It leads to a faith that is not growing.

There was a time in my life when I chose to live a dualistic lifestyle. I acted one way around my Christian friends, and totally different around others.  I acted this way for years.  This is where it got me: a box full of regrets.  I cannot begin to tell you the regrets that I have.  I have been forgiven of my sin, but that doesn’t mean that the regrets are gone.  That’s a consequence of living a double lifestyle-of living in the sin of duality.  My biggest regret would be the times I did not show my faith when I was given the opportunity.

Yet God has shown me grace.  I still struggle, but I don’t live for it anymore.  To you, God has shown grace.  The amazing thing about God is that He refuses to give up.  He just won’t do it.  No matter how many times we fail.  No matter how hard we try to give up on Him.  He never gives up on us.

So what is it that is keeping you from fully being devoted to God?