Day 6

In a relationship with Christ there are securities we can never know anywhere else.

‘I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day.’ (2 Timothy 1:12)

In the Gospels we read that Jesus feeds 5,000 hungry people with just five loaves and two small fish. At one point, Jesus tests Philip by asking him to feed the people. Philip looks in his pocket for any loose change, checks with the treasurer Judas and concludes ‘We can’t do it, we don’t have enough money.’

Suppose Jesus called an atheist up from the crowd and gave him the same challenge. What do you think the atheist would do? He would probably look in his pocket for any loose change, check with the treasurer Judas, and conclude ‘We can’t do it, we don’t have enough money.’ What does that tell us about Philip? That he was a professing Christian but a practicing atheist!

The missing ingredient of Philip’s assessment of the situation was God. Philip believed in God but He’d become a silent partner in their relationship. If our Christian lives and Christian activities can beexplained in purely human terms, then how different are we to our neighbours? Philip would have discovered he was open to divine possibilities when he was open to divine solutions. But he didn’tlook for divine solutions so didn’t discover divine possibilities. He settled for being a practising atheist.

Have you reduced God to what is workable and manageable? Where is He indispensable to your life?