2000-10-06 - FAT Christians

Proverbs 13:4, "The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, but the soul of the diligent is made fat."

Over the last few years a few volumes have come out that critique the evangelical church. David Well's volume, No Place for Truth is a great book and a worthy read for anyone who is concerned about the state of the church. Another volume which preceded Well's book is one titled Fat Bodies, Thin Minds, which looks at how many in the evangelical community are intellectually a mile wide, but an inch deep. Both are good books, and they hit on themes many of us should think about in a post-modern, TV-brainwashed, ambulatory, vacuum tube generation of Christians.

However, that is not how I would like to look at FAT Christians today. Often less is accomplished by focusing on the negative than on the positive. So let us define FAT. I think we need more FAT Christians, and by that I mean we need more Christians who are Faithful, Available, and Teachable.

Faithfulness: There is really no more prized Christian duty. There is almost nothing more flattering than when someone who knows you well says to you that you are faithful in their eyes. It should not go to our heads, but we ought to seek to get faithfulness into our hearts. A faithful Christian does not distinguish between the great duties of the Christian life and the small matters of the Christian life. All are great matters. Luke 16:10, "He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much..."

Available: We need more available Christians. Remember Isaiah, in Isaiah 6:8, "Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?' Then I said, 'Here I am, send me.'"Who will say, "Here I am send me?" It is a tough thing to say, but we need more Christians who are willing to say it. In the United States we are saturated with Christians who are serving the Lord, but overseas it is somewhat a different story. It is harder to go to a third-world country, the lifestyle just isn't the same, the sacrifice can be great. What? Send me? Do you know that Christians in other countries, for example Korea, are training missionaries to come to the United States to do foreign mission? We need more Christians who are available here.

Teachable: Are you teachable? It really doesn't matter where you are in your Christian walk with Christ; it is necessary to be teachable. There really is no easy path to sanctification. There is no quick solution to growing in the knowledge of our faith. These things take time and discipline. King Ptolemy once asked Euclid if there was an easier way to learn geometry. Euclid answered, "There is no royal road to geometry." It is like that in the Christian faith. We must be teachable wherever we are in our walk with Christ. 1 Timothy 4:7 reminds us to discipline ourselves, "for the purpose of godliness."

So I put it out there to you. Are you FAT? Don't you want to be FAT? Wouldn't it be great if we had more FAT Christians? May the Lord make us FAT in the things that please Him, and advance His glory in our lives and on His earth.

Soli Deo Gloria,
 T-

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