See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.  -Colossians 2:8

     If you want to be useful to God in 2008, then you should consider placing these three resolutions at the top of your to-do list:

1. I will make every effort to worship together with other followers of Jesus Christ, both in a local church, and in a community of believers in the place where I work; and


2. I will make every effort to read Scripture daily; and


3. I will find and submit myself to a spiritual authority.

      These will be more difficult than they appear on the surface because we've come to glorify independence, self-sufficiency and entrepreneurialism.  We've also made submission a negative term, when the words of God chart it as the only path to wisdom and useful service.

     Indeed, failing in any of these three resolutions exponentially increases the likelihood of our not bearing fruit that's useful to Creation or acceptable in the Kingdom of God.  This is particularly true for lay Christians, those of us who work in places not directly affiliated with churches, missions or para-church organizations. 

     Let's break them down briefly:

     The need for community.  Each of us face three battles that are helped by being among a community of believers.  First, there is our default nature: Left to our own devices we will rebel against God and engage in sinful actions.  Scripture repeatedly reminds us that no one is good enough to resist this default nature.  We will all fail at trying harder to be good enough for God.  Second, our culture rejects the divinity of Jesus and the authority of God as its final arbiter, meaning we spend most of our waking hours in places where goals are set and served based on earthly objectives rather than Biblical standards.  Third, we believe we can figure things out for ourselves.  Like the comical stereotype of husbands who refuse to ask for driving directions, most of us trust our instincts and intellectual faculties to discover and do the right thing, a truth C.S. Lewis often pointed to when trying to warn us of our human folly.  Christian history is littered with the heresies of men and women who passionately sought to pursue God on their own.  They always ended up in despair. 

     The Christian faith demands community; it is the one area of our lives where independence and self-sufficiency are destructive elements.  That's why Scripture places such great importance on gathering as a community.  Isolated believers are like lambs cut off from the flock; the wolves will always find them.

     The need for Scripture.  Our world is physically and intellectually demanding; so much so that many of us find it necessary to make difficult choices about where we spend our time.  One of the areas where religious and secular survey sources agree is this point: The higher a position of responsibility someone holds in their jobs, the less likely they are to spend time in Scripture.  This is because the knowledge-base demands of the job, and the information-gathering necessary to keep that knowledge base up-to-date, are so time-consuming that few hours are left for growing in other arenas, like Scripture.  For men, the damaging effect of this truth is multiplied by another survey tidbit from booksellers: Most men rarely read an entire book after they graduate from high school or college, and many never do after high school or college.  The danger:  Leaders in each field of work and culture are making Biblically-deficient decisions about priorities, ethics, and allocation of resources. The bigger danger: We begin to make the same mistake.  Here's God's direction from Scripture, intended for each of us:

I beg you that when I come I may not have to be as bold as I expect to be toward some people who think that we live by the standards of this world. For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.-(II Corinthians 10:2-5)

     The need for submission. The body of Christ has a deep and abiding need for Esau/Nehemiah partnerships between experts in the world and experts in the Word.  Early on, culture placed greater importance on experts in the Word, making the Nehemiahs of the world feel like second-class citizens in God's Kingdom.  Lately, our culture has trumpeted experts in the ways of the world as being more important than men and women steeped in the Word, and this is just as damaging.  God placed both in His Creation, and only when the two groups submit to one another as servants to each other will the power of God flow uninterrupted through our efforts.  Submission is, and always has been, the way of the Cross.  Any efforts to abandon it make us prideful, rebellious, and hurtful to the cause of Christ.

     Let this be our joint resolution, taken from the words of John the Baptist (in John 3:30) when others complained that Jesus was overshadowing him:  "He must become greater; I must become less." 

--Randy Kilgore

Desired Haven Ministries, Inc.

rkkcak@aol.com