watching

My boys like to watch TV like most kids and they have always had their favorite shows over the years.  Lately, a strange thing has happened though in terms of their viewing preferences, they want to watch youtube videos of people playing video games. 

Before you laugh, this is actually a super popular thing among young people.  Video game experts film themselves playing games, and narrating it as they play, and people watch this...a lot.  

The strange thing is that my kids watch games we don't even have, on systems we don't own...so it serves no purpose other than entertainment.  When I was a kid, I loved video games, but I played them; I didn't just watch others play.

I worry that in church sometimes we take a similar position.  We listen as people sing praises to God, but we don't really sing along.  We listen as people read from the Bible in public, but we don't read it on our own in private.  We watch people preach the word, but we rarely even discuss our faith with others. 
 
Instead of watching others, we need to be personally involved in our faith.  We need to be praising God.  We need to be praying.  We need to be reading the word.  We need to be sharing our faith.

For too long we have sat on the sidelines and watched others while God is calling us to live out our faith personally.

Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:7 that we "walk by faith, not by sight" and while this is maybe not exactly what he meant (he was talking more about trusting the Lord even with things we can't see), I am confident that he would be fully on board with this.  We don't just "see" others live out faith, we need to "walk" it ourselves.

So, get in the game.  Get busy serving, praying, worshiping and teaching.  You can do it.  Don't just delegate faith to others, live it yourself.

In Christ,
Pastor Scott McDermid