- If the Enemy can keep you from what has always been known in Christendom as the means of grace, he has a better chance of causing you to stumble.
For some reason, in elementary school and later in my high school Latin studies, I was taught quite a bit of Greek mythology. The Bible was verboten; not so teaching about the gods and goddesses of Greece.
And mythology does, indeed, have some powerful lessons to teach, especially when viewed from a Judeo-Christian perspective. Today I was thinking about Antaeus, a formidable and fearsome wrestler who challenged Hercules as that warrior was making his way through North Africa. Hercules, as was typical, pummeled his adversary and threw him to the ground. But each time Antaeus rose from terra firma, he was stronger. Hercules eventually figured out what was going on: Antaeus drew his vigor from his mother – Gaia (or earth). So Hercules changed tactics. He lifted Antaeus off the ground, severing the connection with his mother, and thus vanquished his challenger.
One of my friends, who has experienced his fair share of addiction struggles, once explained, “You never just fall off the wagon one day…you always stop reading your Bible and praying a few weeks before that…then you fall.”
If the Enemy can keep you from what has always been known in Christendom as the means of grace, he has a better chance of causing you to stumble. These “means” keep you strong, spiritually vitalized, able to wrestle triumphantly with the enemy. Depending on your theological tradition, those “means” might include prayer, Bible study, fasting, church attendance, small group meetings, the Lord’s Supper and evangelism or compassionate ministry. Engage in these practices regularly and fervently, and spiritual health and sobriety are much more likely. Neglect them and, as they say, brace for impact!
Numerous polls have been conducted to gauge how much, or how little, Christians actually apply these holy habits. Unfortunately, results indicate that disappointingly few believers, having put their faith in Christ, prioritize intentional pursuit of God through a daily devotional life and subsequent obedience.
By contrast, devout Muslims are resolute in performing the requisite five appointed times of daily prayer. When the Temple was still standing, Jews went there – or at least faced Jerusalem from afar – three times each day to repeat a list of benedictions and personal petitions. The Didache, an early Christian manual, instructed Christians to pray the Lord’s Prayer three times a day. There is power in committing to regular, daily time set apart to seek the Lord. Modern believers eschew this pattern to our detriment.
One of the nation’s foremost Christian statesman once remarked that evangelicals often ask God for revival but in recent years have rarely experienced such moves of God. Why? “We have been too busy seeking His hand, not His face.” To seek His face is to experience Him through the “means of grace”: looking upward to the Lord, inward to the health of our own souls, outward to those without Christ and to the needy and the poor.
Those are the precursors to revival. Neglect them, and you might look up one day and find yourself in a place you never intended to be.
Matt Friedeman
