Becoming Play-Dough Christians

Suggested Reading: Hebrews 3:7-15

One of the things I always dreaded at my children's birthday parties was the idea that someone was going to give them play-dough. Inevitably, you end up with little crumbles of dried play-dough scattered through the carpet or squished into the floor. Half the time, they end up leaving it out, and it dries out. There are plenty of toys you can leave out, and it doesn't harm the toy unless you accidentally step on it and break it. Play-dough is not that way. Play-dough has to be played with or sealed up. If you leave it out by itself, it ends up drying out, and then it becomes useless. If it is left out, play-dough has to be pushed, shaped, prodded, rolled, or pushed through those little play-dough squisher accessories they sell. If not, when left exposed to the air, play-dough becomes nothing more than a dry, lifeless chunk of colored, crumbling rock.

Hebrews 3:13 reads: "But encourage each other daily, while it is still called today, so that none of you is hardened by sin's deception" (HCSB). Some people make the mistake of thinking that the life of a Christ follower can be lived in isolation. If a church makes us angry, we can just go to church at the lake or in our living rooms, listening to a preacher on TV. We make the mistake of thinking of our local churches as nothing more than classrooms where we are given Christian educations and, if needed, we can just homeschool ourselves. Unfortunately, coming together as a church is about more than an education program. The author of Hebrews, when talking about how some people had stopped coming together, wrote this: "Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another-- and all the more as you see the Day approaching" (Hebrews 10:25, NIV).

You see, we need to be poked and prodded and shaped and pushed through little squisher accessories by our interaction with other believers, or we can be hardened by the sin in and around us. If we don't have people to encourage us and whom we can encourage in return, we are just like that lump of play-dough that slowly hardens until it's not good for much of anything. We get bad ideas that are never tested by the wisdom and experience of others. We allow bad habits to form that we never notice until they have become lifestyles. We miss out on the insights and help that other believers can give us and the encouragement that enables us to navigate difficult situations.

The life of a Christ-follower was never intended to be lived in seclusion and isolation. In fact, Jesus' teachings and the writings of the New Testament seemed to take for granted that we would exist in a community of believers. When Jesus taught the Lord's prayer, he prayed, "Our Father in heaven…Give us our daily bread…forgive us our trespasses." Not my. One of the greatest traps we can fall into as Christians is the trap of thinking we can live a Christ-centered life on our own. We need to interact with other believers to encourage each other, to learn from each other, and to pray for and sharpen each other.

Don't let yourself get isolated. Sometimes that may require creativity. But find a body of believers with whom you can get involved, loving, serving, helping, and encouraging each other. And if you already have that kind of fellowship, don't let it go. Trust me, you don't want to harden up like a lump of play-dough.

Lousy Church Internet Connections

Suggested Reading: Hebrews 10:19-25

When we first moved out to Snook, TX,  it took us a while to get our internet connection transferred to the new house. So while we waited for that to happen we were tethering internet from my cellphone which had terrible reception at the new house. As I was trying to work and upload things I kept getting the error message: "connection timed out." It was really frustrating. And once I lost my connection through my phone it seemed to take forever to get the internet back again. Then when I finally did get it back, almost without fail the connection was so weak that I got numerous messages: "connection timed out..."

Sometimes we get the same feedback message in life when it comes to connecting with God's people.  We move to a new house or get a new job or just let some things interfere and the next thing you know our connection to the Church has timed out.  The author of Hebrews warns us against this, saying, "And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near." (Hebrews 10:25, NLT).

Just like when my internet connection times out and nothing works, when our connection with God's people times out, our spiritual lives will not work right. We were not made to live the Christian life in solitude. We were made to live it in a community. Even Jesus made certain that he was in the synagogue every week and with the disciples (you could call them his small group) every day.  

If your connection to the Church has timed out, do everything you can to reestablish a connection before you time out for good. Until you do, your spiritual life simply won't work right.