Life is super busy for me (one of the reasons I haven’t posted much new stuff here).  I work a full time job, going to school full time, two side projects I am working on and try to maintain some sort of social life. Plus managing the regular routines of life such as, laundry, exercise, eating healthy, and most importantly spending time with the Father.   God has provided incredible friendships and relationships with some amazing people, investing the time with them, takes time.  Time well worth spent. So, I need to add one more thing to my schedule right? Well, actually, yes. God has really been challenging to take a STOP.  A STOP?  Yes.  Why should I stop everything when I have so much to do? Why did God rest on the seventh day? Why should I rest at all?  God, I believe, did this as a model of how we should live our lives.  God intended us to do this.

We get this crazy idea that the Sabbath is church time, and the day you watch football, but Mark 2:27 says differently, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”  Hebrew 4:10-11 makes an interesting statement about the Sabbath also, “For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His. Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience.”

It is critical for a follower of Christ to enter such rest.  I think the result of falling is to dangerous.  People overwork themselves, miss opportunities to spend time with family, focus on gaining wealth, and push out other important priorities in life.  We literally work ourselves to death.  This probably explains medicated people dealing with depression, anxiety, stress and other personal issues. God never intended this for us.  How is this living in a way that is making the most of what God has given us?

I am positive that I could go in depth into studies of why to take a Sabbath, but I will let that up to you, the reader to explore.  I write this, because I have been really challenged lately to seek a STOP time.  I’ve been able to experience this for a few hours over the past three weeks or so.  Some times I go hiking, others I’ve simply taken a nap.  It is my desire to enter this time silently, shutting off things that distract me such as cell phones, music, computers and escape.  I want to listen to God, I want to enjoy his presence, and take a mini-holiday in Him. I’ve walked back into life feeling refreshed, renewed and focused on the tasks ahead.  There is nothing magical about this, its just something God has lead me into, and I desire to be obedient to Him.  This is something God has been teaching me lately. Something I have been challenged with.

My fear is that I make this time an interlude to the insane schedule I have.  I don’t want that, I want it something that defines who I am, shapes me into the the man God wants me to be. To find clarity and life in Christ and where he wants me to serve and seek others.  I don’t have this down yet, and I am sure God will teach me in these times to listen, enjoy and play more intently in and with Him.

Sabbath is not an interlude, but the climax of living. -Heschel

Blessings,

-Chris

Church isn’t meant to be people who mask our brokenness with good acts. It’s meant to be the place where we can freely say, “I want to sleep with that guy,” “I have slept with that girl”, “I drank too much last night” or “I lied to my colleague about that project!” It’s meant to be a place where we don’t wear these things as a badge of honour but with a spirit of confession. Church isn’t meant to be about perfect people but about confessed people. We should be able to say these things, our secrets, our sins, our mistakes, and receive love and acceptance from Jesus (and church people) when we do.

Don said something that has been something that I’m truly convinced to be true.

Jesus called us to be fishers of men, where did we get the idea that we need to clean them before we catch them.

Where did we get this idea we had to be cleaned up, or clean others up to bring them before Christ.  Why do we do this?  It’s a lie from the pit of hell.  I love the two final thoughts made by Noel:

- We shouldn’t flaunt our sin, but confess it.
- We should love on those who are struggling through these issues, just like Jesus does.

To love at all is to be vulnerable.  Love anything, and your heat will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken.  If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal.  Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.  But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change.  It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.  The alternative to tragedy, or at least the risk of tragedy is damnation.  The only place outside heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is hell.

- Clive Lewis

To piggy back my last post from Rob Bell’s, Sex God, I remembered stumbling across this quote a few months back.  I think both posts speak truthfully, honestly, beautifully and open about love.  Just wanted to share this as well.

Love is handing your heart to someone and taking the risk that they will hand it back because they don’t want it.  That’s why it’s such a crushing ache on the inside. We gave away a part of ourselves and it wasn’t wanted.

Love is a giving away of power.  When we love, we give the other person the power in the relationship. They can do what they choose.  They can do what they like with our love. They can reject it, they can accept it, they can step toward us in gratitude and appreciation.

Love is a giving away. When we love, we  put ourselves out there, we expose ourselves, we allow ourselves to be vulnerable.

Love is giving up control. It’s surrendering the desire to control the other person.  The two – love and controlling power over the person – are mutually exclusive.  If we are serious about loving someone, we have to surrender all of the desires within us to manipulate the relationship.

I don’t have much to say about this, its probably best I don’t…but reading this has resonated so much with me.  It’s something I’ve learned, am learning and will continue to learn.  This has been something in the forefront of my thoughts.  It’s something that I pray to God that He makes a new in my life each and every day, that as I interact with others, I demonstrate this.  However there is a risk, one that can and would potentially hurt. I’ve felt that sting, It’s a good chance it could happen again.

I’ve thought about this a lot over the years and I wonder if we have lost “the plot” – are we more about entertaining and drawing a crowd, or are we desiring a deeper life with Christ, producing disciples, not just converts, are we influencing, perhaps changing the culture around us?  Just some thoughts I had today.

Note: I don’t believe we change this society or culture by expecting or thinking that placing key people in “high” positions, such as the government, will change things.  Sure that helps, but why should we take the lazy approach to expecting a few key people to make the difference.  Are we not all called to a higher road, a higher life? Changing and influencing those around us, showing God’s love and the values and convictions that we hold fast to.  Are we painting a picture of life that is different than those we live by? work with? or even go to church with?

For the life of me, why’d You bear my chains?
For the life of me why’d You walk to Calvary?
For the life of me I can’t explain
The reason You died and the reason You came was for the life of me

What do You see in me?
I’m a leper not a king
A mess that’s undeserving of Your name
I’ve disappointed You
Like a rose that never blooms
Failing to display my heart to You

Lord, let me be so bright
I escape every shadow using Your light
Are You waiting to see
That I will show
Your life in me?

-This Beautiful Republic : Perceptions  /For the Life of Me/

“Even our beliefs have become trend statments. We don’t even believe things because we believe them anymore. We only believe things because they are cool things to believe.”

He also talks earlier about how some guys don’t believe in God and can prove it and some guys that DO believe in God and prove it. That the argument stopped being about God along time ago, and is now about who is smarter. Humm. This resonates with me and I’m not totally sure why. Just wanted to share that. Not really for any purpose other than it pricked my interest.

I find comfort (perhaps perverse pleasure) in knowing that the rock(Peter) on which Jesus would build the Church sank like a stone.

Despite who I am, He still uses me.

When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes.  I believe and I doubt, I hope and I get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty.  I am trusting and suspicious.  I am honest and I still play games. Aristotle said I am a rational animal; I say I am an angel with an incredible capacity for beer.

To live by grace means to acknowledge my whole life’s story, the light side and the dar.  In admitting my shadow side, I learn who I am and what God’s grace means.  As Thomas Merton put it, “A saint is not someone who is good but who experiences the goodness of God.“

- Brennan Manning – Jan 29

Love that last line.

Since the day that Jesus first appeared on the scene, we have developed vast theological systems, organized worldwide churches, filled libraries with brilliant christological scholarship, engaged in earthshaking controversies, and embarked on crusades, reforms and renewals.  Yet there are still precious few of us with sufficient folly to make the mad exchange of everything for Christ; only a remnant with the confidence to risk everything on the gospel of grace; only a minority who stagger about with the delirious joy of the man who found the buried treasure.

I’ve started reading through “Reflections for Ragamuffins” by Brennan Manning in the mornings for my quiet times.  I will be sharing things that stick out to me and challenge me.  Hope you enjoy.

Our traditional conceptions of salvation are blatantly more individualistic, focusing on one’s individual reconciliation with God through a personal relationship with Jesus.  The emphasis seems to be only on giving Jesus our sins and not on every area and aspect of our human life.  It is more concerted with getting souls to heaven that with bringing heaven to earth.  This narrow gospel focuses only on the salvation of the human soul, but the gospel of the kingdom includes the salvation of human beings within the context of the larger story of God restoring all of creation.

This rings loud and clear with what I grew up with.  With my own life.  Salvation, accepting Jesus was just a way to get into heaven.  But it’s so much more than that. There is such a higher calling, a higher risk, a higher cost.  I believe its something to be considered weightily.  Are you willing to sacrifice choosing the kingdom of God or the kingdom of this world?

Tonight after I got home I was talking with a family member about resolutions that we had made for this new year. I shared with her that I didn’t really make them cause I either never keep them or remember them. Tonight I was reading Psalm 9 before heading to bed. Verse 1 and 2 stuck out to me as a great resolution to live for this year. Here is the verse:

Psalm 9:1-2
I will give thanks to the Lord with all my heart; I will tell of Your wonders. I will be glad and exult in You; I will sing praise to Your name, O Most High.

That’s all I can simply think of doing. That’s all I should be doing.

Augustus was known as the “Savior” of the Roman Empire, bringing “peace” and “salvation” to his subjects.  He was called the “Lord” and came to be worshiped as god on earth.  Roman citizens were commanded to pray to him and offer sacrifices.  Temples and shrines were built in his name.  The census ordered by Augustus was one of the ways he controlled the empire.  By demanding taxes (or tribute, more specifically), Caesar could provide for his far-flung armies as well as humiliate the peoples under Roman “peace” by reminding them they lived at the will of Rome. 

Against this political backdrop, the announcement in Luke’s gospel is the announcement of a king born in direct opposition to the rule and reign of Caesar.  It is almost as if all the titles applied to Caesar were applied to Jesus in order to force people to choose between them.  If Jesus had been called one thing and Caesar another, people would have been tempted to believe they could worship both.  But when Savior, Lord, King, gospel, peace and salvation are specific descriptions applied to both rulers, the Christmas story forces us to choose:  Who is our Lord?  Who is our Savior?

The differences between these two saviors could not be overstated.  Augustus’s rule was defined by the sword, the shield, and the banners of his legions.  The kingdom of Jesus of Nazareth was marked by a manger, a cross, and a tomb.  No greater contrast could be imagined.  The birth of Jesus Christ was simply revolution: the birth of a different king, ushering in a differing kingdom, and threatening the kingdoms of this world.

Two different empires were established on the day of Jesus’s birth.  One built on power, the other on love.  One built on control, the other on freedom.  One built on oppression and bondage, the other on liberation.  Augustus was the embodiment of the best the world in all its ambition and lust can offer, a ruler who sat at the apex of a world-wide system of worship and domination.  Jesus, on the other hand, was destined to humble himself on a tree, sacrificing himself out of love.  

Jesus represents the dangerous alternative to the power of this world:  a different power, a different glory, a different peace, a different salvation.  The Christmas story ceases to be an idyllic myth:  it becomes clear these two empires are destined to collide.  The birth of Jesus is divine insurrection and outright revolution.

The Christmas story forces us to choose between these two kingdoms.  Do we bow before the Caesars of our time, or dare we embrace the kingdom of Jesus?

From The Jesus of Suburbia by Mike Erre (W Publishing Group)

{This is a repost from Mike Erre’s blog - Wishing you a Merry Christmas, praying that you chose Christ this season if you don’t know him, and not the temporary “rulers” of this world.}

Periods of spiritual decline occur in history because the gravity of indwelling sin keeps pulling believers first into formal religion and then into open apostasy.

- Dynamics of Spiritual Life

Richard F. Lovelace.

Sorry I haven’t written much lately.  Haven’t had much to write about, and been really busy with work and other activities.  Been reading through the book I quoted from above.  Really good stuff so far.

(HT: The Ongoing Adventures of ASBO Jesus)

If Starbucks looked like most churches.

This guy’s got talent

When a person allows their regrets to hold them captive – it seems to me that it is the ultimate display of pride. To not forgive ourselves – when God died to forgive us for our mistakes/sins – aren’t we really saying that we think our sin is too great for Christ to forgive? Not to believe fully in His sacrifice – IS the ultimate display of pride and lack of humility. Our regret is somehow too great to forgive?

Seems like I’ve experienced something like this before.

(HT: Naked Pastor)

Revival starts when you take a piece of chalk into your room, enter your closet and draw a circle on the floor.  Kneel in the middle of that circle and ask God to start a revival within that circle.  When He answers, that’s when revival begins.

Revival doesn’t begin with others, a church, or even a president.  It begins with you.

(from: The Ongoing Adventures of ASBO Jesus)

waiting room

by shane barnard

i will run when i cannot walk
i will sing when there is no song
i will pray when there is no prayer
i will listen when i cannot hear

sitting in the waiting room of silence
waiting for that still soft voice i know
offering my words up to the rooftop to Your heart
trusting that this closet’s where You are

Lord i know if i change my mind
You will change my heart in time
Sovereign Lord this time’s from You
so i sit in the waiting room of silence
cause its all about You

i will fight when i cannot feel
i will trust when You dont seem real
i will tell when i cannot speak
i will step when i cannot see

I will wait for You patiently
Praying from my deepest point of need

I was listening to this song called ‘Wait’ by a band called By the Tree this evening.  This song is pretty old, but wow this is where I am at right now.  Its been a long two months and the search continues for a job.  I am kinda to the point where I’m like…ok, now what?  What do I do?  Its a tough time right now for a lot of people, I am sure I am not the only one.  I know God has something for me and am just trying to continue to trust Him.  I guess if it were easier, well, I probably wouldn’t be so trusting of God eh?

Brads notes are as follows:

Unity is a spiritual happening. You have to be very intentional about creating unity. It doesn’t just occur.

Few churches or organizations experience real unity.

There are 5 Main Enemies of Unity:

1. Poor Communication
2. Gossip
3. Unresolved Disagreements
4. Lack of Shared Purpose
5. Sanctioned Incompetence

Poor Communication
Poor communication can take many forms, but when the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing, strife sets in. you have to work to create communication.

Gossip
Gossip is degrading and will destroy a church or organization.

A successful leader develops and maintains a culture in which negatives arehanded up and positives are handed down.

By definition, gossip is when a negative is discussed with anyone who can’t help solve the problem.

Unresolved Disagreements
Unresolved disagreements happen when a leader doesn’t know they exist or when that leader avoids confrontation. When you don’t deal with your “stuff” your stuff gets bigger.

Confrontation
Sometimes Christians avoid confrontation in the name of being “nice”. That’s not nice, that’s wimpy.

A little confrontation cleanses the wound and allows the parties to go forward in a spirit of unity.

When you are aware there are hurt feelings and/or disagreements, act quickly and decisively. Nobody ever killed anything by saying, “Ready, aim, aim, aim, aim….”

Lack of Shared Purpose
Lack of shared purpose is caused when a leader doesn’t restate the goal, the vision and the mission early and often.

Sanctioned Incompetence
It has been said that sanctioned incompetence demoralizes. When you allow someone to goof-off, not execute, or live up to their potential, you damage your witness.

Team members will eventually eventually become demotivated when someone else on the team can’t or won’t do their job and a leader will not take action.

For the sake of unity in the entire group the leader must go to battle early and often with any of these enemies of unity

When unity is valued in the culture, the team will also act to keep these enemies at the gate.

The other night I was reading through a book that I read a few years ago.  It deals with specific relationships and it got my mind thinking about something I’ve thought about several times over the past.  I finally wrote down some of my thoughts. So here it is.

I’ve contemplated this a few times in the past, but never really put into words the thoughts and feelings I’ve had toward this.  This ever growing coldness in my heart.  It seems it has manifested itself in ways and in area’s I only see on rare glimpses.  And yet I know it consumes me. I’ve seen how it changes me and how I don’t reach out or care for others.  So much from my past: Family, Some friends, work….church.  I’ve put this guard of fear of being hurt, of apathy and lack of concern for others, up.  I’ve been hurt, bruised, and beaten.  My heart was so open, so willing to reach out to others, to serve and love.  Coldness creeped in.  Coldness took over and has consumed this beating heart. My flame has dwindled and I believe has died out.  I’m calous and numb.  I only seem to feel pain.  Somehow I know I can not change this.  Only He can warm this coldest of heart.

Church Steeples

There was a time, just a few centuries ago, when nautical maps of Europe had legends that included the location of churches on land and church steeples doubled as navigational tools for ship captains. Churches were typically built on choice real estate in the center of town or atop the highest hill. And in some places, there were ordinances against building anything taller than the church steeple so it would occupy the place closest to heaven. Nothing was more visible on the pre-modern skyline than church steeples. And in a sense, church steeples symbolized the place of the church in culture. There was a day, in the not too distant past, when church was the center of culture. Church was the place to go. Church wasthe thing to do. Nothing was more visible than the church steeple. Nothing was more audible than the church bells. And it might be a slight exaggeration, but all the pre-modern church had to do was raise a steeple and ring a bell.

Is it safe to say that things have changed?

The church no longer enjoys a cultural monopoly. We are the minority in post-Christian America. And the significance of that is this: we can’t afford to do church the way it’s always been done.Our tactics must change.

Don’t get me wrong: the message is sacred. But methods are not. And the moment we anoint our methods as sacred, we stop creating the future and start repeating the past. We stop doing ministry out of imagination and start doing ministry out of memory. And if we think that raising the steeple or ringing the bells will get the job done; the church in America will end up right where the Israelites found themselves in Judges 2:10:

After that generation died, another generation grew up who did not acknowledge the Lord or remember the mighty things he had done for Israel.

Permission to speak frankly?

Too many pastors are getting As in Biblical exegesis and Ds incultural exegesis. We know Scripture, but we’re out of touch with the times. The end result is a gap between theology and reality called irrelevance. We’re out of touch with the very people we’re trying to reach–the unchurched and dechurched. We’ve got to exegete our culture so we can close the gap. That’s what incarnation is all about.

The post-Christian church needs a revelation: irrelevance is irreverence!

Church and Culture

As I see it, the church has four options when it comes to engaging culture: 1) ignore it, 2) imitate it, 3) condemn it, or 4) create it. And each option leads in polar opposite directions.

We can ignore culture, but the byproduct of ignorance is irrelevance. The more we ignore culture the more irrelevant we’ll become. And if the church ignores the culture, the culture will ignore the church.

We can imitate culture, but imitation is a form of suicide. Originality is sacrificed on the altar of cultural conformity. If we don’t shape the culture, the culture will shape us.

We can condemn culture, but condemnation is a cop out. Let me just call it what it is: condemnation is spiritual laziness. We’ve got to stop pointing the finger and start offering better alternatives. If the church condemns the culture, the culture will condemn the church.

Those three options will lead the church down a dead-end road to irrelevance, but there is another option–the only option if we’re serious about fulfilling the Great Commission and incarnating the gospel. We can compete for culture by creating culture.

In the immortal words of the Italian artist and poet, Michelangelo:criticize by creating.

At the end of the day, the culture will treat the church the way the church treats the culture. And we’re not called to condemn. We’re called to redeem.

Cultural Capital

Let me confront an issue spiritual leaders face: it is difficult todemand attention if we don’t pay attention. If we talk without listening, what we have to say is viewed as a diatribe. And we’ll keepanswering questions no one is asking!

A few years ago someone paid me a surprising compliment that caught me off guard. They thanked me for quoting non-Biblical sources in my messages. No one had ever commented on that component of my communication, but that compliment has become part of my philosophy of preaching. I love to read and I’m interested in just about everything, so it’s not uncommon for me to quote anyone from Aristotle and Heraclites to Gladwell and Goleman. And what I realized is this. Quoting Scripture gives me credibility with Christians. Quoting non-Biblical sources gives me credibility with non-Christians. And while our non-biblical sources should never be unbiblical, we have to recognize that cross pollinating with non-theological disciplines gives us cultural capital.

Every year we do two series titled God @ the Billboard and God @ the Box Office that explore spiritual themes in popular songs and movies. The reason is simple: the sixty percent of Americans who don’t attend church get their theology from movies and music. For better or for worse, musicians and movie makers are the chief theologians in our culture.

In the prophetic words of the eighteenth century Scottish thinker, Andrew Fletcher: “Give me the making of the songs of a nation and I care not who writes its laws.”

Our culture is shaped, even more than we realize, by the movies we watch and the music we listen to. And we have a choice. We can ignore them. We can condemn them. Or we can dialogue about them. God @ the Box Office and God @ the Billboards are attempts toexegete the movies and music that are shaping the cultural consciousness of nearly two hundred million unchurched Americans. We exegete the scripts and lyrics and juxtapose them with Scripture. And while a series on movies or music may sound like watered-downor dumbed-down versions of the gospel, they are actually two of our hardest hitting sermon series because movies and music are brutally honest about the human condition.

We need to get serious about exegeting culture and finding spiritual identification points. We need to redeem cultural metaphors to communicate the gospel. Isn’t that what Jesus did as a parabolist? He framed truth in ways that fit within the cognitive categories of his listeners. It was intellectual incarnation.

If we choose to ignore the culture around us, we aren’t following in the footsteps of Jesus. We’re only digging our own grave andburying ourselves alive.

My view probably seems jaded simply because of the things I have seen.  While they are one sided and I don’t know the whole angle on everything.  My guess is if things were supposed to go the way they were, I’d not be having these doubts, and these questions.  I wouldn’t be wondering about the body and what is going on. 

These are a lot of questions that will go unanswered…I hope my life demonstrates something different than this.

(P.S. I am not saying this is the case for every church, but this is what I’ve lived through.  This is what I have seen. I’m not pointing the finger at your church or any other church.)

To be honest, I’ve had quite a bit of things on my mind as of late.  Some of those things I wish I could express here, in written form.  But I fear it would not be constructive or conducive to those reading.  Also, as my friend Danny always says (well something like this anyway), “What would be benefited from doing this?  Would it be a positive result, or a negative one?”  He’s got me to think about a few things I’ve wanted to say.  I’m thankful for that accountability.

I guess some of what I’ve been struggling with is some internal turmoil of thoughts that I just need to give to God and let go.  I know that sounds cliche, but I don’t know what else to do with them.  Either I dwell on them and allow them to destroy me, or I let them go, and allow God to take care of them.  Honestly I dwell on a lot of stuff, I think if I can just say the right thing at the right time, God will smack’em on the forehead of reality and they will see where I am coming from and understand.  In turn I feel like I must pretend (say the right things or act a certain way) to appease those around me to “fit in”, to be accepted or be liked, or to agree with their particular view on things. So often we get wrapped up in this in the church and our little groups within.  Sometimes I feel like I say things, and later I feel like I need to apologize for them.  

I question what I say and even if I really believe it.  I feel strangely wronged because I think others should feel the same way, or at least be convicted like I am and reciprocate some sorta of feedback.  Perhaps there is a sense in my life and a longing for people to be where I am at (not that I am better or worse), to understand where I am at, and what I came from.  I’m not sure most (99%) people even care.  

Back in May I had some time with friends who were moving out of the area. A year before this transition for them, I had not really spoken with them, and chose not to interact with them.  Over a course of a few days before they left I got to sit down and talk with them, and sort some things out.  The night before they left a few buddies of mine went out to eat with them and had a great time.  I came home that night and was thinking about that experience.  There was such freedom, all pretenses of the environment (which happened to be church) were stripped from care and concern.  We could enjoy each other, we could be real. There was authenticity and openness in our conversation.  Here is my thoughts from that evening:

Its interesting to me the past couple of days the opportunity to be in situations that don’t lend to a bond or a set of rules, to regulations, and things that keep us from being who we really are.  Finding freedom, not sinning, to be open, real, and just be alive.  To not feel like condemned or judged if one mess’s up or goes out of the bounds of being the normal little good christian boys and girl were supposed to be,  in following and doing what’s expected.  That we are not faking it.  That we are true in the sense that its not about rules, or feelings, or condemnation from others.  That were afraid well be judged for what we do.  But were finding a sense of freedom and grace….openness, so often the church, organization, or group holds over yours and my head. 

I don’t know..it seems more evident to me that we try to perform…I haven’t had to do that for a year. We “perform” but often than not…we really aren’t were just being fake. We pretend.

I don’t want to be fake.  I want to be who I am in God, as His adopted son.  Made a saint through the justification of Christ’s death on the cross.  Why do we pull ourselves into a direction where we find obligation or rules that men create to dictate our lives. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying buck the system of the church or group.  But the reality is, I think, we hold others to a set standard that first of all, we make up, and secondly, we can’t keep ourselves.  If we could be honest about our weakness and struggles and to demonstrate love and grace, would not our lives reflect Christ to not only those in our church, but outside?

Can and does a genuine faith demonstrate a love for God, His word and allowing it to transform our life, not out of duty or obligation, but out of a desire to deepen a love relationship we have with Him really exists? Or do these few brief minutes in the morning or afternoon with the bible and short prayer time really have validity in making us “better”? Does God really want us to drone on working through these shallow acts and doing nothing with what He is speaking to us about?  Or am I the only one who struggles and gets frustrated with self about this?