There are many enemies that are slated to attack our spirituality. Some emphasize the enemy of TV, or Hollywood movies, or music, and the list goes on. But what if there's a more ruthless enemy that is a affecting your spiritual life right now? An enemy that is sucking the life out of your relationship with Jesus? What if you're being affected by it and don't even know it?
If I were to ask you this, "What do you believe is the greatest spiritual enemy of our day?" What would you say?. . . How many of you said . . . "HURRY." How many of you thought that the great spiritual enemy is "hurry"? Michael Zigarelli of Messiah University conducted a five-year study on 20,000 Christians in the U. S. and here's what he concluded.
"It may be the case that (1) Christians are assimilating to a culture of busyness, hurry and overload, which leads to (2) God becoming more marginalized in Christians' lives, which leads to (3) a deteriorating relationship with God, which leads to (4) Christians becoming even more vulnerable to adopting secular assumptions about how to live, which leads to (5) more conformity to a culture of busyness, hurry, and overload. And then the cycle begins again." - Praying like Monks, Living Like Fools, pg 38.
The Christian philosopher Dallas Willard was once asked, "What do I need to do to be spiritually healthy?" . . . "You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life." According to Willard, hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day. This idea would coincide with what Elijah told Ahab. Listen. "And as thy servant was busy here and there, he was gone. And the king of Israel said unto him. So shall they judgment be; thyself hast decided it." - 1 Kings 20:49, KJV
Today . . . slow down . . . listen to the voice of God in the sermon. Spend quality time with God and may you, this Sabbath, ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.
So, until the next time, this is Pastor Tello reminding you that thoughts do change lives!
Pastor Howard Tello