On the Saturday following a Kairos weekend a group of the volunteers returns to Angola for a one day training session. During the session we teach the men the details of holding a prayer and share meeting. Since the establishment and success of the weekly prayer and share meetings is the purpose of Kairos, these Saturday meetings are important. Not all 40 plus members of the team go back for these Saturday sessions. Yesterday about 12 went. I normally try to go but did not this Saturday. My decision to return is usually based on a combination of sense of duty and emotion. A bond is established with the men on the weekend and you know they look forward to seeing team members again; on the other hand the preceding week you have been away from family and there is an emotional tug to stay home. Similarly, a sense of duty tells you to go to the training; but an equally strong sense tells you to stay and take care of responsibilities at home. If we are operating “In Christ” we avoid these dilemmas. With confidence we hear Him tell us the path to take.
“Now we believe. Jesus says – Do you? The time is coming when you will leave Me alone. Many a Christian worker has left Jesus Christ alone and gone into work from a sense of duty, or from a sense of need arising out of his own particular discernment. The reason for this is the absence of the resurrection life of Jesus. The soul has got out of intimate contact with God by leaning to its own religious understanding.”
Let me give another example. I feel a sense of duty to attend every event sponsored by the church. To do so would make me a great church member but would not necessarily mean I am always doing what Christ would have me to do. Often our sense of being “conflicted” arises from us trying to operate from emotion and sense of duty. We should be “steadily referring everything back to Him; instead of this we make our common – sense decisions and ask God to bless them.”
“We are not told to walk in the light of conscience or of a sense of duty, but to walk in the light as God is in the light.” Conscience and emotion are only rough guides. They can be terribly unreliable. We can dull them both by our past responses to situations. For example, if we watch enough television our standard for what is acceptable soon slips. If we respond emotionally to every plea for our attention, we become exhausted workers and too tired to do what God truly wants us to do.
Learning to operate “In Christ” isn’t easy. It’s a minute by minute struggle. But it is the only path that leads to complete fulfillment of our purpose and a life pleasing to Our Lord.
Place aside emotion and duty and listen for His voice and
Be completely blessed.
Nick
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