Fair Weather Christians

I have no idea how anyone can be a fair weather Christian.  How can you give anything less than full devotion to God?  How can you give Jesus - and what He did for your eternal soul - a passing gratitude?

Too many Christians these days think having Jesus in their life is like an accessory, like the icing on the cake.  You slap a Jesus fish on your car and that makes you devoted.  You go to church and that makes you strong.  You love God - just as long as nothing bad happens to you.

And if something does, whew boy, you better watch out!  God only deserves your devotion during the good times.  How dare He pull that rug out from under you?

Fair weather Christians are the perfect example of those who build their houses on the sand.  The winds and rain comes, and their foundations wash away.  They have no foundation.  There is no trust, no faith.  If God is sovereign, then He could have stopped this from happening.  Why didn't He stop this?  Why do I have to go through it?

It isn't wrong to be mad at God if something bad happens.  But what we have to remember is that if God is indeed sovereign, He can also help us through our ordeals.  He will never leave us, He's promised us that.  He is always with us, living within the heart of every believer.  Our bodies are literally the temple of the Holy Spirit.  Whenever we pray, He hears us.  He knows when we sit, He knows when we rise.

We don't always understand why God does the things He does.  But I've always thought of life as a giant chess board.  While we're here, we're standing on the board.  All we can see is the square in front of us.  Maybe a few squares around us.  But God can see the entire board.  He can anticipate what's going to happen five moves ahead.  Perhaps if He'd moved us to the square we wanted to be in, we'd put ourselves in check-mate.  The point is, we must trust in God's sovereignty.  He uses all things for the good of those who love Him.

Even the bad things.

Christ told us the Greatest Commandment was to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.  That means to love Him more than anything -- to put Him before anything.  He comes first in your life.  Period.  Before your spouse, your children, your house, errands, family, friends...  Everything.

When we marry, we vow to love our spouse for richer, for poorer, through sickness and in health.  In short, we're promising to love this person come what may.  Good times or bad.  We don't make this commitment lightly.  A marriage vow is meant to be a lifelong vow ('til death do we part).  So too should our commitment be to the Lord.  And even moreso if we are to put Him first before all things.

How could we NOT trust God in everything?  Is He not more trustworthy than even our spouses?  More faithful?  More loving?

If you answered no to any one of those questions, you don't know Him the way you should.  And you might just be a fair weather Christian.

~~Becka