Monday February 20, 2023
Philippians 3:16
Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained,
let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind.
It is hardly a matter of wonder that the country that gave the world instant tea and instant coffee should be the one to give it instant Christianity. . . . And it cannot be denied that it was American Fundamentalism that brought instant Christianity to the gospel churches. . . .
Instant Christianity tends to make the faith act terminal and so smothers the desire for spiritual advance. It fails to understand the true nature of the Christian life, which is not static but dynamic and expanding. It overlooks the fact that a new Christian is a living organism as certainly as a new baby is, and must have nourishment and exercise to assure normal growth. It does not consider that the act of faith in Christ sets up a personal relationship between two intelligent moral beings, God and the reconciled man, and no single encounter between God and a creature made in His image could ever be sufficient to establish an intimate friendship between them. . . .
Instant Christianity is twentieth-century orthodoxy. I wonder whether the man who wrote Philippians 3:7–16 would recognize it as the faith for which he finally died. I am afraid he would not.
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD 