"Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip." - Hebrews 2:1
Part of what it takes to making significant changes in our lives is putting into practice what we know. James said it this way: "But be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves" (James 1:22). That is a very interesting statement, the fact that a believer can deceive himself! The Greek word for "deceive" simply means to wrongfully reason or to reason amiss. In other words, things can become muddled in our mind concerning where we stand in our daily application of the Word. We oftentimes fall into the trap of assuming that just believing is acting when that is not necessarily true at all.
Think about the Laodiceans. Jesus addressed their own delusion when he said, "Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked" (Rev. 3:17). That's a pretty serious indictment! How could they not see their own condition? What kept them from being able to rightfully discern what Jesus so easily identified?
These are the kind of concerns that should shake every one of us to our very core! We have to become more mindful of how we walk out our experience with God. Paul told the church of Corinth: "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?" (2 Cor. 13:5). One definition for the word "reprobate" is not proving one's self to be as he ought to be. We ought to be what we have been made to be in Christ. To assure ourselves that we are not running in vain or laboring in vain we must make it a practice of proving ourselves. That means we become determined to hold ourselves to the fire. We don't take things for granted. We don't relax our faith. We don't assume that the sacred things we have been entrusted with are just going to automatically appear as if our Christian life is self-sustaining and we don't have any responsibility toward keeping ourselves fit in the Lord. Paul told the Church of Philippi, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling..." (Phil 2:12). That sounds to me like we owe it to ourselves to maintain our due diligence!
If we want to experience the greater blessings in life then we must demand more of ourselves. That means we have to learn how to raise the bar. We have to know down deep inside that the greater things in life are sought out by faith. I think this is why Paul makes it so clear in defining his own pursuit when he said: "Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3:13, 14).
If there is any one thing that I know has contributed to my maintaining the kind of press that Paul is describing here it is the fact that one day I know that I will have to give an account of what was deposited in me. The parable of the Talents somehow always seems to ring in my ear: "What have I done with what I was given?"
Part of learning how to stir up the gift of God depends upon our own spiritual hunger. How desperate are we to walk in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel? What separates a nominal life from extraordinary living? Smith Wigglesworth was once quoted as saying: "I'm only satisfied with the dissatisfaction that has to be satisfied over and over again." A healthy appetite for the things of God means we hold ourselves to a higher standard than the average person. We learn how to demand more of ourselves, because we never want to become slack in our pursuit of excellence!
If you find yourself getting complacent it may just be your spiritual hunger isn't up to what it should be. Take some time today to prove yourself! And when you do, go ahead and decide no matter what the cost you are going to raise the bar.
